Thẻ: Chip making

China is overplaying its rare earth hand in Japan

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

CNA Few countries are better prepared against China threatening their rare earth supplies than Japan, says David Fickling for Bloomberg Opinion.

Commentary: China is overplaying its rare earth hand in Japan
A labourer works at a site of a rare earth metals mine at Nancheng county, Jiangxi province, China, on Mar 14, 2012. (File photo: Reuters)
David Fickling 09 Jan 2026 05:59AM(Updated: 09 Jan 2026 09:30AM)

SYDNEY: To a hammer, every problem is a nail. If your most potent means of geopolitical leverage is threatening supplies of high-strength magnets, rare earth elements will always be the solution. 

That’s the latest approach Beijing is taking in its dispute with Tokyo sparked by comments from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about the possibility of military conflict over Taiwan. Exports of all items with potential military applications to Japan will be immediately banned, China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday (Jan 6). 

The most obvious victim of this threat will be rare earth magnets made with the elements neodymium and praseodymium, and increasingly spiced up with rarer samarium, dysprosium and terbium. They’re used everywhere from charging cables to the switchgear in wind turbines to motors powering electric vehicles, missile guidance systems and aircraft flaps.

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Pound for Pound, Taiwan Is the Most Important Place in the World

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Its excellence in the computer chip market puts it at the center of the battle for global technological supremacy.

Ruchir Sharma

By Ruchir Sharma

Mr. Sharma is the chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and the author of “The Ten Rules of Successful Nations.”

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A Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company office in Tainan, Taiwan.
A Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company office in Tainan, Taiwan.Credit…An Rong Xu for The New York Times

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union perpetually threatened to spark conflict in nations all over the world, including battles over the control of a vast array of natural and industrial resources. The new Cold War, between the United States and China, is increasingly focused on access to just one industry in one place: computer chips made in Taiwan.

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