You might be interested in this post from Annie Fixler at FDD. The Chinese authorities are apparently moving to consolidate the country’s rare earths production:
Peng Huagang, secretary general of China’ State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, confirmed last month that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will “promote the restructuring of rare earths to create a world-class company.†While it remains unclear what this “restructuring†entails, Peng’s declaration indicates the CCP will not stand by as the United States and its allies seek to diminish their reliance on China for rare earth elements.
Peng’s remarks come on the heels of China Minmetals Corporation’s September Shenzhen Stock Exchange filing, which announced a planned restructuring with China Aluminum Company (Chinalco) and the People’s Government of Ganzhou, a municipality in southeastern China. A merger would create China’s “second-largest rare earth producer by capacity,†according to Reuters, behind China Northern Rare Earth Group. The latter is the world’s largest supplier of rare earths.
If you’re curious about how the U. S. military became dependent on Chinese producers for strategic materials, this post provides a pretty good history. The TL;DR version is that it was environmental regulation:
In the eyes of the U.S. government and major manufacturers, it no longer made sense to acquire rare earths from a U.S. source subject to stringent environmental regulations. Instead, the hard business of extracting useful minerals was exported to other countries, where environmental damage was safely out of sight. China happily obliged, allowing environmental harm to proliferate so long as the costs of rare earth mining were kept down.
It’s easier and cheaper to keep production going than it is to rebuild it once you’ve shut down. Not to mention the pushback from environmentalists.
I think this topic has been well covered here. I have learned that we are to eschew speculation about what kind of people, or the administration’s motivations, for not re-shoring strategic operations……………but I will anyway. There are probably only three options: stupidity, reckless disregard for strategic interests or pandering for votes. I’m going to go for door number three – pandering for votes. Which kind of incorporates the first two by predicate association.
So, once again environmentalists hold sway over this country, torquing it to meet their concerns/demands, and ignoring all else that impacts other people’s livelihoods and lifestyles. Water in CA drains to the ocean, while the governor threatens to curtail water usage. Oil and fracking are condemned and pipelines eliminated, as prices for fuel go up for the common person. Electric cars are subsidized and venerated, while our grid remains unable to meet electrical needs, causing rolling blackouts. Climate fanatics are on a roll, increasing budgets and costs to assuage the agendas of climate juntas – the Squad and Al Gore.
None of it makes any rational sense. All of it fits into the thesis of attaining political power.