From NYT：
In Dispute, China Blocks Rare Earth Exports to Japan
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG — Sharply raising the stakes in a dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain, the Chinese government has placed a trade embargo on all exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles.
Chinese customs officials are halting all shipments to Japan of so-called rare earth elements, industry experts said on Thursday morning.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao personally called for Japan’s release of the captain, who was detained after his vessel collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels about 40 minutes apart as he tried to fish in waters controlled by Japan but long claimed by China. Mr. Wen threatened unspecified further actions if Japan did not comply.
A Chinese commerce ministry official declined on Thursday to discuss the country’s trade policy on rare earths, saying only that Mr. Wen’s comments remained the Chinese government’s position.
China mines 93 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals, and more than 99 percent of the world’s supply of some the most prized rare earths, which sell for several hundred dollars a pound.
Dudley Kingsnorth, the executive director of the Industrial Minerals Company of Australia, a rare earth consulting company, said that several executives in the rare earths industry had already expressed worries to him about the export ban. The executives have been told that the initial ban lasts through the end of the month, and that the Chinese government will reassess then whether to extend the ban if the fishing captain still has not been released, Mr. Kingsnorth said.
“By stopping the shipments, they’re disrupting commercial contracts, which is regrettable and will only emphasize the need for geographic diversity of supply,” he said. He added that in addition to telling companies to halt exports, the Chinese government had also instructed customs officials to stop any exports of rare earth minerals to Japan.
Japan has been the main buyer of Chinese rare earths for many years, using them for a wide range of industrial purposes, like making glass for solar panels. They are also used in small steering control motors in conventional gasoline-powered cars as well as in motors that help propel hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius.
The Chinese embargo is likely to have immediate repercussions in Washington, where the House Armed Services Committee has scheduled a hearing on Oct. 5 to review legislation that would subsidize the revival of the American rare earths industry. The main American rare earths mine, in Mountain Pass, Calif., closed in 2002, but efforts are under way to reopen it.
The Defense Department has a separate review under way on whether the United States should develop its own sources of supply for rare earths, which are also used in equipment including rangefinders on the Army’s tanks, radar systems aboard Navy vessels and the control vanes on the Air Force’s smart bombs.
The Chinese embargo is likely to prompt particular alarm in Japan, which has few natural resources and has long worried about its dependence on imports. The United States was the main supplier of oil to Japan in the 1930s, and the imposition of an American oil embargo on Japan in 1941, in an effort to curb Japanese military expansionism, has been cited by some historians as one of the reasons that Japan subsequently attacked Pearl Harbor.
Jeff Green, a Washington lobbyist for rare earth processors in the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia, said that China and Japan are the only two sources for the initial, semiprocessed blocks of rare earth magnetic material. If Japan runs out of rare earths from China — and Japanese companies have been stockpiling in the past two years — then the United States will have to buy the semiprocessed blocks directly from China, he said.
“We are going to be 100 percent reliant on the Chinese to make the components for the defense supply chain,” Mr. Green said.
Japanese companies are now setting up rare earth processing factories in northern Vietnam, partly to use small reserves of rare earths found there but also to process rare earths smuggled across the border from southern China. But the Chinese government has been rapidly tightening controls on the industry in the last three months in to try to limit smuggling.
There are 17 rare-earth elements — some of which, despite the name, are not particularly rare — but two heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium, are in especially short supply, mainly because they have emerged as the miracle ingredients of green energy products.
Tiny quantities of dysprosium can make magnets in electric motors lighter by 90 percent, while terbium can help cut the use of electricity in lights by 80 percent.
Thursday is a national holiday in Japan, and officials at the Japanese foreign ministry and at Honda and Toyota did not immediately respond to calls.
In Dispute, China Blocks Rare Earth Exports to Japan
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG — Sharply raising the stakes in a dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain, the Chinese government has placed a trade embargo on all exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles.
Chinese customs officials are halting all shipments to Japan of so-called rare earth elements, industry experts said on Thursday morning.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao personally called for Japan’s release of the captain, who was detained after his vessel collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels about 40 minutes apart as he tried to fish in waters controlled by Japan but long claimed by China. Mr. Wen threatened unspecified further actions if Japan did not comply.
A Chinese commerce ministry official declined on Thursday to discuss the country’s trade policy on rare earths, saying only that Mr. Wen’s comments remained the Chinese government’s position.
China mines 93 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals, and more than 99 percent of the world’s supply of some the most prized rare earths, which sell for several hundred dollars a pound.
Dudley Kingsnorth, the executive director of the Industrial Minerals Company of Australia, a rare earth consulting company, said that several executives in the rare earths industry had already expressed worries to him about the export ban. The executives have been told that the initial ban lasts through the end of the month, and that the Chinese government will reassess then whether to extend the ban if the fishing captain still has not been released, Mr. Kingsnorth said.
“By stopping the shipments, they’re disrupting commercial contracts, which is regrettable and will only emphasize the need for geographic diversity of supply,” he said. He added that in addition to telling companies to halt exports, the Chinese government had also instructed customs officials to stop any exports of rare earth minerals to Japan.
Japan has been the main buyer of Chinese rare earths for many years, using them for a wide range of industrial purposes, like making glass for solar panels. They are also used in small steering control motors in conventional gasoline-powered cars as well as in motors that help propel hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius.
The Chinese embargo is likely to have immediate repercussions in Washington, where the House Armed Services Committee has scheduled a hearing on Oct. 5 to review legislation that would subsidize the revival of the American rare earths industry. The main American rare earths mine, in Mountain Pass, Calif., closed in 2002, but efforts are under way to reopen it.
The Defense Department has a separate review under way on whether the United States should develop its own sources of supply for rare earths, which are also used in equipment including rangefinders on the Army’s tanks, radar systems aboard Navy vessels and the control vanes on the Air Force’s smart bombs.
The Chinese embargo is likely to prompt particular alarm in Japan, which has few natural resources and has long worried about its dependence on imports. The United States was the main supplier of oil to Japan in the 1930s, and the imposition of an American oil embargo on Japan in 1941, in an effort to curb Japanese military expansionism, has been cited by some historians as one of the reasons that Japan subsequently attacked Pearl Harbor.
Jeff Green, a Washington lobbyist for rare earth processors in the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia, said that China and Japan are the only two sources for the initial, semiprocessed blocks of rare earth magnetic material. If Japan runs out of rare earths from China — and Japanese companies have been stockpiling in the past two years — then the United States will have to buy the semiprocessed blocks directly from China, he said.
“We are going to be 100 percent reliant on the Chinese to make the components for the defense supply chain,” Mr. Green said.
Japanese companies are now setting up rare earth processing factories in northern Vietnam, partly to use small reserves of rare earths found there but also to process rare earths smuggled across the border from southern China. But the Chinese government has been rapidly tightening controls on the industry in the last three months in to try to limit smuggling.
There are 17 rare-earth elements — some of which, despite the name, are not particularly rare — but two heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium, are in especially short supply, mainly because they have emerged as the miracle ingredients of green energy products.
Tiny quantities of dysprosium can make magnets in electric motors lighter by 90 percent, while terbium can help cut the use of electricity in lights by 80 percent.
Thursday is a national holiday in Japan, and officials at the Japanese foreign ministry and at Honda and Toyota did not immediately respond to calls.
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