The secret is in the plastic

With a simple adChina unleashed an unprecedented form of commercial war, one in which there were no tariffs or tariffs, but by manipulating a strategic resource that the West never knew how to diversify in time. In a few weeks, the scarcity threat of these Rare Earth Materials and Icans has caused paralysis alerts in sectors that move the economies of the world. The entire planet desperately seeks what Beijing dominates with iron fist.

And everything starts with plastic.

The strategic origins. As we said, the partial suspension of rare earth exports by China has put on alert to governments around the world, but for the Beijing leadership These raw materials have been a priority issue during Almost half a century. Unlike other powers that began to assess their use in a later way, China’s interest in rare earth elements dates back to the late 1970s, when the country tried to overcome the structural deficiencies inherited from the inherited Maoist industrial model.

Under the leadership of Deng Xiaopingwhich happened to Mao Zedong In 1978, China became aware of the strategic value of these elements not only for their industrial utility, but also for its Military and Technological Potential. While Mao prioritized the amount of iron and steel, without paying too much attention to its quality, Deng promoted a more technical and focused modernization. His executing arm was Fang Yia trusted technocrat who assumed as a viceprimer minister and head of the State Commission of Science and Technology, from where reorganized the strategy National towards a more sophisticated exploitation of mineral resources.

A decisive advantage. The turning point occurred in the Baotou cityin interior Mongolia, where the greater site Iron mineral from China, key to war production under Mao. Fang and his team of scientists took A critical decision: Also take advantage of the important rare earth concentrations contained in the site. There abounded light elements such as hill, useful for manufacturing ductile iron and glass, and the Lantano, essential in oil refining.

In addition, there were medium reservations Samarioused in heat -resistant magnets necessary for supersonic aircraft and missiles engines. By 1978, while relations with the United States improved, Fang already publicly articulated The cross value of rare earths in industries that went from ceramics and steel to electronics and defense. That same year he brought Chinese engineers to Visit factories by Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas in the United States, a trip that would mark the convergence of industrial ambition and technological learning.

A chemical revolution. And here comes one of the keys to this domain. The real advance came when Chinese engineers managed to develop a Separation technique Much cheaper chemistry than used in the United States or the USSR. While the West depended on complex facilities in stainless steel and expensive nitric acid, China opted for Use plastic materials and hydrochloric acid, much cheaper.

The use of plastic is not trivial. This innovation, together with lax environmental standards, allowed China to flood the market with Rare earth at low costcausing the progressive closure of refineries in the West. In fact, the process of deindustrialization outside of China consolidated the Asian monopoly. At the same time, Chinese geologists discovered that the country housed approximately the Half of global reserves Known of rare earths, including exceptional deposits of heavy rare earths in the country’s center-south, keys for magnet technologies in electric vehicles, medical equipment and other critical applications.

An consummated domain. I remembered The New York Times That, in the 90s and 2000s, Chinese engineers perfected the refining of heavy rare earths, raising China to an almost total domain position in this segment. The famous phrase De Deng Xiaoping in 1992 (“Middle East has oil, China has rare earths”) synthesizes the strategic vision that had already materialized. This policy was not random: Deng and Fang formed the next generation of leaders to continue with this approach.

One of them was Wen Jiabaogeologist specialized in rare earths, formed during the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution. Wen, who amounted to VicePrimer Minister in 1998 and Prime Minister in 2003, declared during a visit to Europe in 2010 that almost nothing related to rare earth occurred Without his speech direct. This continuity in the political elite guaranteed that the exploitation, refined and control of the global rare earth market became central pillars of the Economic and Geopolitics Strategy from China.

The economic offensive. Thus we arrive at the current moment. He counted The Financial Times That, until now, Chinese economic sanctions had been notoriously inaccurate, based on diffuse boycots or administrative blockages that rarely reached their political objectives. Neither South Korea withdrew his antimile shield after commercial reprisals, nor Australia changed his foreign policy when China stopped buying his wine.

Even sanctions against US defense companies were more a symbolic gesture than A coercive tool real. But the new measures on rare earths mark A turning point: They are specific, measurable and directly affect key industrial sectors. The threat is no longer abstract; translates into factories on the edge of closureblocked supply chains and western governments forced to reconsider their commercial positions.

Everything is calibrated. The effectiveness of this offensive lies in the improvement of the Chinese normative arsenal. Beijing has developed a legal framework that not only restricts exports, but requires foreign companies to avoid the use of Chinese minerals in products for industry American defense. This extraterritorial clause has been designed with intelligence: instead of direct confrontation, it seeks to generate pressure between third countries, pushing them to act as diplomatic intermediaries that urged Washington to soften their commercial policies.

The simultaneous fall of exports to Japan, South Korea and India shows that China is willing to Accept economic costs limited to reinforce their strategic position and dilute the direct confrontation narrative.

West is late. Thus, the most revealing is not The maneuver China itself, but the Lack of preparation of the West. From the first cut of exports to Japan in 2011, governments and industries knew that Beijing had an almost absolute domain of rare earths and that this advantage could be used one day as a pressure instrument.

However, the answers They were warm: South Korea increased its reserves, Japan financed some mines in Australia, and the European Union wrote strategies that never financed. Meanwhile, most manufacturers maintained Minimum inventories of rare earth magnets, without a substitution policy or strategic stock, despite the growing rhetoric on industrial resilience.

This carelessness has turned a calculated risk into an open vulnerability.

Difficult to replicate. Although some governments now cry out for Alternative production and the European Commission takes magnets to the G7 peaks as Emergency symbolthe reality is that the structure of the rare earth market cannot be replaced overnight. Unlike high -tech products such as turbine or chips, rare earth oxides are more difficult to track and restrict, but also more difficult to replace in quantity and purity.

China not only extracts most of these elements, but dominates the chemical process of separation and purification With something so sensitive that no one has exploded Like plasticwhich gives it a technical advantage that is not solved with simple investments. Even if other countries They increase their extractionthe bottleneck is in the refined capacity, which is still concentrated within its borders.

Global implications. In short, unlike countries that have React late Given the strategic importance of these elements, China has been Designing and executing A coherent national policy on rare earths, based on an integral industrial vision, state investment in R&D, chemical domain of the refining and logistics control of the supply.

This combination of technical planning, political support at the highest level and, of course, environmental tolerance, allowed it conquer the market World of Rare earth Without shooting a single bullet. The partial suspension of exports is not an isolated act, but the logical culmination of a policy drawn from The years of Deng Xiaopingwhere the technological advantage was built patiently based on applied science, strategic discipline and long -term vision.

And meanwhile, the rest of the world, now barely aware of this critical dependence, faces the titanic task of rebuilding a supply chain that clearly never had to abandon.

Image | ITOLDYAChristophe Meneboeuf, Reinhard Jahn

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