Did China Test Fire its Resource Weapon?

[Valin]

Real Clear World:

Daniel McGroarty
9/24/10

From the heyday of the Cold War to our present-day monitoring of rogue nation nuclear quests, the U.S. and its allies have maintained a technological picket fence to pick up evidence of test firings. In detecting the launch of a new weapon in the past 48 hours, however, NORAD's tracking screens were of no use. The trip wires in this test-launch are cargo shipping agents and port manifests. Their message was mixed, but ominous: China may have just test-fired an economic weapon in the Resource Wars.

A multi-sourced story by The New York Times' Keith Bradsher - fast becoming the first combat-correspondent in the Resource Wars - reported that China had unequivocally blocked exports of critical rare earths resources to Japan, effective immediately. Almost as quickly, Chinese government sources strongly denied Japan had been singled out for embargo.

The controversy takes place amid rising tensions between Japan and China. The trigger: Escalating tensions over an early-September collision between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese coast guard vessels in the disputed waters of the East China Sea - claimed by both countries, and prized for vast oil, gas and rare earths riches beneath the sea floor. Japanese authorities have detained the Chinese ship captain; China has demanded his release. Speaking at the United Nations, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took a hard line, stating that "Tokyo bears full responsibility for the situation, and it will bear all consequences." Declining to meet with Japanese leaders while in New York, Wen promised "further action."

(Snip)

[clearvision]

Not having these metals would cripple any manufacturing economy. I saw a number like 95% of quantity used in the world is from China. How can we be so stupid as to allow 1 country, let alone China have such control. Maybe these metals are not available elsewhere, but I suspect it is more mining them is dirty business very few countries would allow anymore.