"China said the new licensing system for exports of gallium and germanium, along with their chemical compounds, was aimed at protecting national security — the same justification given by the US and it allies for their export controls." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/xi-metal-curbs-risk-backfiring-043801580.html
China says its recent action is just the beginning, not the end... Popcorn! https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-adviser-warns-chipmaking-export-051910180.html " China's chipmaking export curbs 'just a start', Beijing adviser warns before Yellen visit Reuters Wed, July 5, 2023 at 7:19 AM GMT+2 BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China's export controls on metals used in semiconductors are "just a start", an influential Chinese trade policy adviser said on Wednesday, as Beijing ramps up a tech fight with Washington days before a visit from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Shares in some Chinese metals companies rallied for a second session as investors bet that higher prices for gallium and germanium, which Beijing's export restrictions target, could boost revenues. Germanium is used in high-speed computer chips, plastics and in military applications such as night-vision devices, as well as satellite imagery sensors. Gallium is used in radar and radio communication devices, satellites and LEDs. China's abrupt announcement of controls from Aug. 1 on exports of some gallium and germanium products, also used in electric vehicles (EVs) and fibre optic cables, has sent companies scrambling to secure supplies and bumped up prices. On Wednesday, former Vice Commerce Minister Wei Jianguo told the China Daily newspaper that countries should brace for more should they continue to pressure China, describing the controls as a "well-thought-out heavy punch" and "just a start". "If restrictions targeting China's high-technology sector continue then countermeasures will escalate," added Wei, vice commerce minister 2003-2008 and now vice chairman of China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a state-backed think tank. Announced on the eve of U.S. Independence Day and just before Yellen visits Beijing from Thursday, analysts said the controls were clearly timed to send a message to the Biden administration, which has been targeting China's chip sector and pushing allies such as Japan and the Netherlands to follow suit. China's move has also raised concerns that restrictions on rare earth exports could follow, with analysts pointing to a curb on shipments imposed 12 years ago in a dispute with Japan. China is the world's biggest producer of rare earths, a group of metals used in EVs and military equipment. Analysts have described Monday's move as China's second - and bigger - countermeasure in the long-running U.S.-China tech fight, coming after it banned some key domestic industries from purchasing from U.S. memory chipmaker Micron in May. The Global Times state media tabloid, in a separate editorial published late on Tuesday, said it was a "practical way" of telling the United States and its allies that their efforts to stop China procuring more advanced technology was a "miscalculation". [...} "
Well yes and it is huge and heavy. But for off-peak energy storage it is way better than lithium ion batteries. It is misleading when people talk about China supplying most rare-earth elements today - as if it is only China that has these resources. In fact rare-earth elements are pretty evenly distributed around the planet. The reason why China monopolized the supply for now was the price - China was artificially dumping to create the monopoly. Once it jeopardizes this supply, even in short term, other sources will be found/developed, and (just as with Russian gas) the near-monopoly will not, ever, return.
No, you are misleaded. There is a 2023 EU Critial Raw Materials pdf circulating around. Many these rare earth elements are not founded naturally, they are the byproducts of smelting and processing ores. Unless spending few hundred millions for a new smelter, it is not a one year project, or two. In this case their dumping is good for us, without environmental impacts at home. Now they jack up the price, everyone has to pay. And they also want an end user agreement, pretty sure they already know who are using these two elements in particular. Also gas is critical but not rare earth, same as oil.
IMHO, when China soon presents its own semiconductor lithography machines beating those of primus ASML, then the western arrogance in HiTech will have an abrupt end, and many western HiTech foundries like TSMC, INTC, Samsung etc. will lose overnight almost half in market cap b/c China will produce better, faster and cheaper.. The US/West badly miscalculated China... Shaet happens
A few hundred million for a reasonable-sized company in order not to be blackmailed by suppliers is a bargain. https://electrek.co/2023/05/08/tesla-breaks-ground-lithium-refinery/ (As for the ore for this refinery - Australia, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina have the biggest lithium ore deposits in the world). Your PDF was about current suppliers, not the spread of the rare-earth ore resources around the globe. Yes, China, by dumping, established itself as a near-monopoly in some of them. Once it creates supply difficulties, especially if it is deliberate, other sources and suppliers will be developed.
Free market capitalism to the rescue https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/n...-of-its-continental-shelf-to-deep-sea-mining/
Elon is securing for his own products, he is not suplying anyone else thurs far. And he is doing what a typical industrialist would do. You can dig a hole in a moutain anywhere, then ship, then process. Spread around the global is well-known, if the money can be made, the folks, yes, Chinese and Russian are already down south and signed up deals left and right. News June 30, 2023 Bolivia’s YLB signs lithium agreements with Russian and Chinese companies