Still Asleep at the Wheel: How Communist China Turned Rare Earths Into a Weapon

In early October, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced it would withhold its rare earth minerals from the world via newly placed export controls. The changes will make the process more laborious, and the CCP will have more of a say over who gets what. America, for its part, seemed perplexed by China’s actions. President Donald Trump reacted with fury and shock at China’s move, writing, “It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action.” Eventually, the two sides came to a deal in which China would put the changes on pause—but only for a year.

From a realist perspective, China’s move is completely reasonable. China has about 70 percent of all rare earth minerals on the planet and upwards of 80 percent of rare earth mineral processing. As their economy does not revolve around rare earths, they do not desperately need to sell those minerals and can instead go forward with a drip-drip-drip, starving their adversaries while rewarding their allies. It is also in-line with historical communist economic warfare, which always seeks to have an edge in its long-term battle to achieve worldwide communist domination.

From an American perspective, this is a nightmare. Rare earths are crucial for almost all major electronics. And in the early 1990s, America was the dominant rare earth supplier. But a misguided belief that opening markets to the CCP would produce a democratic China—and that the post-Cold War unipolar moment would never end—resulted in the U.S. government allowing China to purchase rare earth mineral processing companies in the middle of that decade. But Beijing understood that it was not the end of history and that unipolarity would end. When multipolarity arrived, the CCP would have the world on a string.

Read more at The Epoch Times.