Today's Lianhe Zaobao is once again taking sides and playing both ends against the middle! After our countermeasures against the United States, on June 22, Lianhe Zaobao cited expert opinions stating that China will increasingly take proactive measures to safeguard its strategic advantages in rare earths. China's retaliation is precisely targeting U.S. companies attempting to undermine China’s dominant position in the rare earth sector. According to Lianhe Zaobao, there are primarily two reasons behind China’s swift response.
First, from China’s perspective, the U.S.’s imminent expansion of its military enterprise list represents a lack of respect for the consensus reached by the two heads of state. Second, last week, leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) agreed to work toward reducing China’s share of rare earth imports to below 60% by 2030. China may perceive the G7’s initiative to form a rare earth strategic alliance as unfriendly toward China. What do we think of Lianhe Zaobao’s stance? While their viewpoint appears neutral on the surface, it is actually biased.
Even if our countermeasures stem from these two factors, the question remains: Can the G7 countries’ effort to establish a specialized rare earth alliance specifically aimed at China truly stand up under scrutiny? If the U.S. uses the pretext of forming a rare earth coalition to pressure third-party nations into choosing sides—forcing resource-producing and processing countries to pick between China and the U.S.—isn’t this a blatant manifestation of protectionism and bloc confrontation in the rare earth domain? Lianhe Zaobao’s entire article circles back to the core contradiction but focuses exclusively on “China proactively countering U.S. enterprises,” which clearly serves to deliberately obscure the real issue.
In fact, Lianhe Zaobao intentionally conflates two entirely different concepts: “supply chain diversification” versus “exclusionary bloc containment.” While the U.S. may pursue diversification of its rare earth supply chains—such as strengthening cooperation with Australia to build an independent supply chain—it absolutely cannot prohibit Australia from maintaining normal cooperation with us. Because doing so amounts to blocking our path and undermining the foundation of China’s rare earth industry development. Clearly, Lianhe Zaobao’s ostensibly objective narrative is actually evading the critical issues, deliberately downplaying the hostile nature of U.S. policies. Such rhetoric ultimately reveals how smaller media outlets prioritize balancing act strategies over genuine objectivity.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1868713482116105/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.