China has Halted Rare-Earth Exports to Japan, Reports the Times

If you put your balls in a vice expect to be squeezed. Could you really expect anything else from China? If I had that kind of economic power I would move into the international scene with my fists.

You cannot expect fairness and civility from China.
Currency manipulation, Coerced technology transfer agreements, industrial espionage, state sanctioned hacking, total disregard to the will of Tibet and Uyghur, human rights violation, mobilizing virulent mobs, the list goes on and on.

This could be the perfect time to start digging through our old trash dumps, and start recycling all those old cell phones and computers. It'll create jobs and clean up the environment. It won't give us all the rare earths we need but it could help till we find more sources.

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The chinese is not the problem, our policy is the problem. As far as they're concern, they are not hoarding or controlling anything, they produce the stuff on their soil and so they do as they wish. If we needed this stuff, why did we stop producing our own supply. That is how the chinese look at this problem.

What America can do is to stop sending money to the chinese for this stuff. Put the money on creating jobs by restart mining production for these rare-earth materials. It's that simple.

This is only a short-time issue.
In doing this, China is forcing the world to knuckle down and develop other sources.

holly wow.. is this the crash??
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China's going to find itself in trouble with the international community. That's the worst kind of trouble to be in. When everyone in the world is not on your side. If and when they're discovered they're going to play damage control to alleviate the situation as to correct it. If they're lucky they won't be sanctioned.

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Actually, it makes perfect sense. Do it, deny doing it, and move the market on it.

China has hated Japan (and Japan, China) for generations. Anything that can be done to throw some excrement in the other's pudding will be done.

The US has, in times past, not dealt directly with China, but those days are gone.

If squeezing Japan, even for a short time, allows them to move the rare Earth market to direct US exportation (cutting out the middle-man), then Japan gets screwed and they get both more money for their exports and another link of dependency to the US.

China understands that it NEEDS to have the US in tight economic ties of money, debt, resources, and products - because the US is the breadbox of the world and China has a population that is beyond any level of sustainability.

The US is a giant pig with a large wallet.

China is only now starting to flex it's muscles. Not only can't we even make our own clothes anymore, but we sold the machines to China...

To: hidmail

"Currency manipulation, Coerced technology transfer agreements, industrial espionage, state sanctioned hacking, total disregard to the will of Tibet and Uyghur, human rights violation, mobilizing virulent mobs, the list goes on and on.."

Hay, China couldn't find a better master to learn all these none other than the United States. The US also has total disregard of the whole human race, invade and attack any countries at will. So get off your high moral horse and kiss the ground. You ban whatever you want to ban selling, and China will reciprocate the same!

At the America haters you act as if the common public is aware of all the negatives our monetary , and government leaders do. We can't even figure out for ourselves how they are screwing us so how are we supposed to help you.
At this point the idea of revolutionary seeds is there, but the will/ability to propagate such an act is unlikely. We are hooked, and much like the fish there isn't a whole lot we can do besides hide under a rock and hope the line breaks.

for the record I love my country and am a patriot of her people, but believe that my leadership is broken and needs a mass overhaul. We need a ground up restart. Sadly I will get bad mouthed by a few ignorant people that have no idea what has been taken from them. We are no longer the land of the free and for the most part have fewer freedoms than many other countries now. However we don't have anyone amongst the common class that can pull the clout to do anything about it without the current government leaders labeling us as a terrorist group, lonewolf, fanatic et cetera, that makes it ok for the current government to squash anyone with a different direction.
Furthermore other government such as china, and many others would move on the American people if we tried to change the government. Since we are the breadbox and power to make that much of a wave would truly disrupt the world. In other words if we tried to overthrow our government other governments would actually send troops to put the people down if our own government couldn't in order to either keep things as they are or to get foothold on the soil of this continent.

Yes these are tings we discussed while in active duty military. These things are what stops the people from forcing a change. Much as everyone having guns prevents invasion. Please keep in mind the government no longer needs weapons of death to control her people they have the tracking capability as well as space age weapons of sorts. Take the puke flashlight, the radio waves that make you feel as if you were on fire, or even the mass crowd control tazers. On top of that most people in this world are no longer inoculated against certain bacteria that will indeed kill on mass scale again. They are common and have caused devastation in the past, but since no one gets vaccinated for them anymore the more pure strains would just make a mess of us all... how many people do you know of current generation that have the old vaccine burn scar on their arm?

In short don't blame us common people in the us. As it is we are pretty hungry too. I have been living on four pounds of lunch meat a month for nearly two years... with bread of course the cheapest stuff on the shelf. So quite hating on us we are not all rich, and many have lost this richness you think we have.