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China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

351–360 of 611 posts

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's safer to say it /concurred with/ the longest era of peace and prosperity in the history of the world.

Yes. The long peace in my view was more so caused by the invention of nuclear weapons which drastically lowered the incentive for war, forward-thinking decision makers who constructed a reasonably stable alliance between great powers, and mass communications technologies allowing for greater control and integration of populations.

This sums it up nicely. Many wars have been fought that might have been avoided with better communication.

Nuclear weapons created an era with highly concentrated destruction. Major wars are much less frequent, but the next world war will be cataclysmic. Up until the next world war one should expect unprecedented peace and prosperity. Hopefully we can avoid undoing all of those gains and more in the blink of an eye.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#352

In 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…

Saudis will never be a military threat to the democratic order the way China can be. That's a key difference.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 You do realise that a sizeable chunk of the world's oil and gas are sourced from "non-democratic" countries in the Middle East, yet somehow we leave them alone to openly torture, abuse and murder their citizens? And on top of that they're left alone to operate a ca…

yet somehow we leave them alone to openly torture, abuse and murder their citizens

Huh, like maybe "a sizeable chunk of the world's oil and gas are sourced from "non-democratic" countries in the Middle East" is the problem, and the reason those countries get a pass? So like we shouldn't be outsourcing manufacturing, we shouldn't be outsourcing energy production to terrible countries.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#354
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the US consumer simply cannot afford to pay more for products no produced in non-democratic nations with impossibly cheap labor. They are already being pushed to the brink.

As long as many companies continue to make year-on-year record profits, I reject that prices are a product solely of non-Democratic countries' impossibly cheap labor.

In addition to that, a large portion of necessary spending is unaffected by outsourcing. A person can their spending on clothes or electronics quite low if needed; but housing, food, and energy costs are largely driven by domestic circumstances.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is the CCP so intent on controlling the land of another country? The way you frame the question already suggests that you're not interested in why China (not just the CCP - this is a broad sentiment inside China) sees things the way it does. Taiwan is not seen as "another country" in China. It's seen as a Chinese province that is temporarily separated from China due to the civil war. This was also the view of s…

> So if both China and Taiwan wanted and want to be united why don't they? I was gonna ask that but researched a little bit of history first. So the CCP won the civil war against the government at the time, the PRC, which retreated to Taiwan. What I didn't get is that both governments consider China to include the Taiwan territory, they just don't agree on which is the legitimate government. Please correct me if I'm…

> What I didn't get is that both governments consider China to include the Taiwan territory, they just don't agree on which is the legitimate government.

No sane Taiwanese actually believes that (1992 Consensus), it's just stating otherwise would be seen as provocation by China. CCP wants Taiwan to stay a civil war faction rather than an independent country.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#356

Earlier 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…

> Losing power in an authoritarian government could mean you are arrested for “corruption” and sentenced to death. The US is nearly there.

I would love to hear which US politicians you think narrowly evaded a death sentence simply from losing an election.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#357

In 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?

More like a Plutocratic Republic.

Oligopoly is more of an economic term than a political one.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 You do realise that a sizeable chunk of the world's oil and gas are sourced from "non-democratic" countries in the Middle East, yet somehow we leave them alone to openly torture, abuse and murder their citizens? And on top of that they're left alone to operate a ca…

yet somehow we leave them alone to openly torture, abuse and murder their citizens Huh, like maybe "a sizeable chunk of the world's oil and gas are sourced from "non-democratic" countries in the Middle East" is the problem, and the reason those countries get a pass? So like we shouldn't be outsourcing manufacturing, we shouldn't be outsourcing energy production to terrible countries.

If by we you mean the US then we don’t. The US has effectively zero direct dependence on middle eastern oil due to domestic production and transportation costs. Canada is much closer and has a lot of oil.

Where it matters is they can impact the global prices and thus what people pay at the pump. Though the actual profits from such spikes in American gas prices end up going to suppliers in America or Canada.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#359

In 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…

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…

Whether china is good at the long game is the wrong question. They are obviously playing that game, they have even planned out the whole thing in "the 100 year marathon". The right question is if any of their democratic competitors are even in the game at all given their regular planned regime changes (elections) and multiple competing political parties. Even if china sucks at it, they win by default if there is no one else playing the game.

If China holds the minerals and the west finds another way then China would have to sell it Cheaper to non-western emerging nations like india and brazil even cheaper, improving their relations in the long term with those nations.

You can be an incompetent fool and lead a western nation so long as you can smoothtalk. But cleverness and competency are not optional if you want t o politically wrestle your way to be the leader of the CCP and almost half the planet's population.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#360

In 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…

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…

>There are deposits of these rare earth minerals elsewhere. There are always more deposits, it’s just that they’re untapped until we deplete our cheaper sources. If China withholds its minerals, we will use more expensive sources, but we will still get the minerals.

Same thing if you with-hold semiconductors. Somebody for sure is willing to sell general purpose chips to China second hand at a more expensive price.

>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.

Unlikely. China is subject to different struggles but they are much better at playing a long game given that their power is more centralized and has longer terms. Xi Jing ping is likely here to stay. Bidens term is almost up and the next guy may just undo everything he did.

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