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Rare earths become rare (4) |
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09:52, September 11, 2009 |
<b>Time to realize the value</b>
As fear and criticism of China accumulate, developed nations have hardly mentioned the benefits they have won from China's cheap prices.
"China has not realized the precious value from a strategic perspective," Shen Dingli, a Chinese expert at Fudan University, told the Global Times. "Strategic metals match strategic industries. We own the dominant reserves of rare-earth in the world, but we didn't protect them well."
China produces about 93 percent of global supplies of rare-earth metals, with a single mine in Baotou, in China's Inner Mongolia, producing half of the world's supply.
Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once observed that the Middle East had oil, while China had rare-earth elements. Owning 71 percent of world reserves of rare-earth minerals, China is the only country that can offer 17 different kinds of rare-earth elements. China has incomparable potential in this sector, even compared with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which holds 69 percent of the world's oil reserves.
But China has no OPEC-style organization to contribute to pricing rights. Instead, most of the time, rare-earth minerals are over-exploited under an open policy.
Some of the minerals crucial to green technologies are extracted in China using methods that inflict serious damage on the local environment. China dominates global rare-earth production partly because of its willingness until now to tolerate highly polluting, low-cost mining, the New York Times reported.
According to the Financial Times, China produced 96 percent of the world's rare-earth metals in 2005, of which 60 percent was exported. As the exports decreased tenfold this year compared with in 1998, the price has dropped by 36 percent.
"China has been selling these precious rare-earth metals at a dirt-cheap price for 20 years, " Dai Xu, an expert on military issues, told the Global Times.
"Regulations should be brought into force to limit the exploitation of the mines," Shen said, adding that exploiting the mines can damage the environment and, at the same time, endanger China's strategic economic security.
"Strategic metals are pivotal to the future of great powers," Dai said, adding that the control of resources of future techniques indicates the control of the future.
"It is time for China to upgrade the protection of rare earths to a national strategic level," Dai said.
Agencies contributed to this story
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