Did anyone else see this and think:
Man, they must have discovered some weird defense industry application and this will be the first remembered clue that future me had that the worldwide shit was hitting the fan.?
China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
331–340 of 611 posts
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Who's going to vote their government out or jam things up with filibuster? Losing an election in the US just means you are out of a job - and lose all its perks. Losing power in an authoritarian government could mean you are arrested for “corruption” and sentenced to death. The paranoia (and occasional country sabotaging acts) of CCP critters are justified as it’s a no holds barred fight for power and survival. htt…
Look what happened to Hu Jintao at the last party congress. However, China is pretty mellow about this: presidents/party leaders are allowed to retire gracefully since Deng Xiaoping set that precedent. I don't see even Xi or his successor breaking that contract.
If you make it to the very top, perhaps, but plenty of people at the pinnacle of power have been jailed. Here's the guy who lost the power struggle to Xi:
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am less convinced that China is really good at playing the long game, and more convinced that China is subject to many of the same political struggles that we see in the US. It’s just so easy to tap into our fears of China that we want to believe that they’re this smart and ruthless. We look for evidence to validate our feelings. There are deposits of these rare earth minerals elsewhere. There are always more depos…
You don't need to be afraid of China to realize that outsourcing a very large fraction of all manufacturing for half the world to a single non-democratic country doesn't serve our interests in the long run.
Centralization promotes efficiency, until a problem happens.
I can't seem to find anything in news headlines, probably because the event I remember hearing about likely happened before Google's founding (I think it was the 1990s or 1980s?); but at a point in time the plastic used for either all or a lot of ICs was manufactured in one single facility. That plant happened to catch fire and it was a major supply issue. Even if that event was really a hypothetical recounted by a professor years later just to educate the class, it does serve as a good example.
Markets are more stable with more than one single manufacturing site, more than one supplier. Economics will still push towards as much consolidation as possible, so for the good of countries and consumers, regulators must press on the scales and ensure _competition_ remains. Ideally every big country can at least pivot manufacturing centers to be entirely self sufficient if they need. Maybe superpowers have multiple facilities even for small items. Maybe groups of countries (E.G. the EU, NATO, etc) pool their resources and distribute manufacturing accordingly.
Shipping also isn't free and externalities like pollution should not be allowed; they should be part of the cost to ensure that smart decisions about production happen.
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look what happened to Hu Jintao at the last party congress. However, China is pretty mellow about this: presidents/party leaders are allowed to retire gracefully since Deng Xiaoping set that precedent. I don't see even Xi or his successor breaking that contract.
If you make it to the very top, perhaps, but plenty of people at the pinnacle of power have been jailed. Here's the guy who lost the power struggle to Xi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Xilai
Bo Xilai had it coming to him by having that British guy murdered. Even though they pinned in on his wife, he had to have known. That wasn't so much of a lost power struggle as it was "you crossed a line even high officials cannot cross."
But if you give them enough rope and fall out of favor, ya, you will be made an example of. It is difficult to make it very high without creating lots of rope, however.
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#335In a way this is good news. The more China overplays its hand in this undeclared economic war the more likely that Western countries will realize that they are making the exact same mistake with China that they have made with Russia. You can't play nice with dictatorships in the hope that your long term economic interests will be aligned to the point that the other party will be forced to continue to play nice. China…
If China is a dictatorship, what's the US? Gangster Oligarchy?
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#336is this an attempt to suppress the innovation rate of other countries?
maybe they want to milk their rare earth monopoly before technology innovates around it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-20/tesla-tsl...
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#337In a way this is good news. The more China overplays its hand in this undeclared economic war the more likely that Western countries will realize that they are making the exact same mistake with China that they have made with Russia. You can't play nice with dictatorships in the hope that your long term economic interests will be aligned to the point that the other party will be forced to continue to play nice. China…
> You can't play nice with dictatorships in the hope that your long term economic interests will be aligned to the point that the other party will be forced to continue to play nice.
This is a false equivalence of democracy = partner. The US has been happy to trade with friendly dictatorships (e.g. Saudi Arabia) and has itself threatened, overthrown, or interefered in democratic and popular governments (e.g. Chile) that didn't align with its interests.
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree! I just ordered a custom made guitar ("NK headless guitars" on aliexpress for those who are interested). While's there's a bit of a language barrier, there's no way I could get close to the level of customer support and quality for the price ($500). You can't even start a conversation with a US/EU company for less than $2000k USD for a custom guitar build. This Chinese company started off cloning a well known b…
> I just don't get the anti-China hate. Is it racism? It is 100% possible to see China as a long term economic (and possibly military but I doubt that) threat, abhor their human rights violations, love Chinese people and despise the CCP all in one go.
So true. Even the CCP wasn’t so clearly problematic until Xi.
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
> non-democratic country Just because a country is a democracy does not mean it will be a reliable trading partner. Democracies can easily swing from free market to protectionist trade policies -- and back. Outsourcing a very large fraction of all manufacturing for half the world to any single country is an incredibly risky idea.
Democracies aren’t beholden to the ego of an authoritarian. Free trade for free countries, and a tyrant tax for authoritarian regimes should be the norm if we want human centered capitalism. https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2023
Free Trade for Free Countries is a decent slogan! I’ve long been disappointed that this isn’t the mainstream position. Anything else feels very hypocritical (for the US).
Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
#340In a way this is good news. The more China overplays its hand in this undeclared economic war the more likely that Western countries will realize that they are making the exact same mistake with China that they have made with Russia. You can't play nice with dictatorships in the hope that your long term economic interests will be aligned to the point that the other party will be forced to continue to play nice. China…
> You can't play nice with dictatorships in the hope that your long term economic interests will be aligned to the point that the other party will be forced to continue to play nice. This is a false equivalence of democracy = partner. The US has been happy to trade with friendly dictatorships (e.g. Saudi Arabia) and has itself threatened, overthrown, or interefered in democratic and popular governments (e.g. Chile) t…
Indeed, and it shouldn't.