The famous Communist saying – Capitalists will sell us the rope we use to hang them. It certainly seems to have been an accurate prediction as Western companies like Volkswagen have handed technologies and entire factories to China in the search for short-term profits.
Perhaps the Chinese Communists are now recognizing that the game could be played in both directions, and – learning from the consequences of the stupidity of the West – are taking steps not to transfer useful technologies to the West. Of course, this will be anathema to the usual Western “Free Traders” … but will be highly beneficial to the citizens of China. If only we in the West had politicians who would similarly think about the best interests of their own citizens!
“China has announced new measures restricting the export of its rare-earth extraction technologies after learning that Pakistan uses Chinese equipment to produce niche metals for the United States. …
China’s rare-earth extraction relies mainly on solvent extraction and ion exchange, processes that use small chemical differences to separate elements. In solvent extraction, organic liquids pull specific rare earths from solution, while ion exchange uses resin columns to isolate ions. Because these elements share similar properties, separation is challenging and often requires additional steps, such as centrifugation or electrolysis, to achieve high purity.
Chinese media have praised chemist Xu Guangxian (1920–2015) for separating praseodymium and neodymium with countercurrent liquid-liquid extraction. …”
Digging deeper, US National Labs first developed this technology in the 1950s but never commercialized it. That took later Chinese efforts.
I have read the critical step is in REE or rare earth elements refining.
China controls 90 percent of this step (I have seen estimates between 87 and 95 percent).
China has ‘thousands’ of REE refining experts, we have a ‘handful’.
Another Sputnik moment?
Edit: Claude’s response…
The shocking vulnerability:
China controls 70% of global rare earth production and 90% of refining capacity, along with owning the world’s largest reserves. They produce 92% of the world’s neodymium-iron-boron magnets, which are used in everything from submarines to electric vehicles.
Officials calling it a “Sputnik moment”:
A senior U.S. official told CNN that China’s actions were “a real eye-opening moment for the entire world” and “a seismic-level geopolitical moment where everyone realized the scale of the vulnerability.”
When the F-35 fighter jet production was halted due to a Chinese-sourced magnet shortage, a congressional aide told reporters: “That was a Sputnik moment for a lot of us.”
The Pentagon has banned Chinese rare earth magnets from defense systems starting January 2027, invested $400 million in MP Materials, and is racing to build a domestic “mine-to-magnet” supply chain.
It obviously isn’t a Sputnik moment because the general population is either too uninformed, misinformed, too stupid… to demand a solution or be willing to sacrifice anything to implement a solution.
“… China has driven foreign competitors in the rare earth industry out of business over the past two decades by using its global dominance in refining and processing to slash prices, Bessent said. ….”
Only a part of the story. The heart of the story is that the “governments” of those foreign competitors crippled their own domestic businesses by excessive regulation and (in the case of the US) by unleashing the self-enriching attack dogs of the legal “profession”. Now we pay the price.