US, EU, Japan Complain To WTO Over China's Rare Earth Ban 218
eldavojohn writes "China's rare earth monopoly has resulted in a shortage as China blocks their export and the rest of the world resumes their operations. Now, in a first-ever joint filing from three members of the World Trade Organization, Japan, the EU and the U.S. are not sitting idly by as China repeatedly ignores the WTO's orders to export rare earth metals and raw materials at a fair price to other countries. China claims the embargoes are in place to protect its environment, while Obama denounces China as being unfair and not playing by the rules of the WTO. In 2009, the WTO released a report (PDF) that explained how actions like China's hurt trade partners."
Bogus article (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, the WTO has no means to order any country to sell anything at what it determines is a "fair price". Second, China does not have a monopoly on rare earths. They exist is many many countries. Those countries may not be actively pursuing them and exporting them to the same degree but that is not China's fault.
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At the same time, the Chinese claim that theyre doing it "for the planet" takes some serious chutzpah. I laughed a little when I read that.
Re:Bogus article (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though it's probably not the real reason (they just want to keep the materials for themselves, obviously, which is the smart thing to do), but in politics it's often advantageous to use your opponent's rhetoric--they risk making themselves look bad if they disagree with something they themselves said earlier.
Make China the bogeyman (Score:3, Interesting)
It all boils down to election posturing
Obama accuses China of not selling the rare earth "at fair price" while in California there is a large rare earth mine still remain closed
Re:Make China the bogeyman (Score:5, Insightful)
in California there is a large rare earth mine still remain closed
Check again. [molycorp.com]
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This is not about posturing. In fact, I am guessing that it was EU and Japan that dragged us into this. Though I am also guessing that more will pop up. In particular, I
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China has a long history o
Re:Bogus article (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny? I thought we are supposed to protect the environment. I guess they mean OUR environment, not China's.
For 200+ years China was bullied by western powers. Now they have the upperhand with the resources AND the money. LOL. It's like watching the second collapse of Rome unfold (We're probably at year 400 in the timeline). Strong enough to raise an army but not strong enough for a real war. EU/US influence is shrinking.
Re:Bogus article (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, what? China isn't shutting down mines, it's increasing mining, it's just making sure that the output from the mining goes to factories in China (which have lower environmental standards than in most of the rest of the industrial world, which is a big part of the reason why companies can manufacture cheaply there) rather than being sent abroad. Although they'll quite happily send them to factories producing goods for export.
If anything, reducing rare earth exports increases pollution in China.
Slightly delusional (Score:5, Interesting)
For 200+ years China was bullied by western powers
This is true. And then China proved itself to be the equal bully of Victorian era European powers.
/severe/ environmental issues.
You are right about the declining influence of the USA and the EU. I suspect, however, that China will not rise above, but will trace a similar arc as the soviet union did. In many ways, the Chinese miracle reflects the decade-long double-digit growth of the soviet union. And likewise, both countries have serious internal problems, including
I do believe that the chinese leadership will not sit idly by on these environmental issues, and their environmental policy looks bizarre to outsiders. I suspect they are drawing down on the possibility of future technical solutions which they are now investing in. But the future of industrial china has not yet been written.
btw, the USA, France, Britain, Germany, Japan, Russia and China are probably the only countries that can sustain a significant war. There may be a dearth of political will within the USA, France, Britain, German and Japan -- but if the will is ever galvonised, make no mistake, they could prosecute a real war anywhere on the planet.
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What miracle, straight up western corporate greed and the government of China treating it's own citizens like disposable assets.
So western corporations were happy to access a disposable labour market, make goods really cheap and then sell them at grossly inflated prices with the double benefit of crippling labour markets and gutting the middle class to maximise profits for the 1% and fuck everyone else.
The autocratic leaders of the government of China who own a piece of the action were content to enric
Re:Slightly delusional (Score:5, Funny)
Simple. Gundams.
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And they've got the political will too, no shortage of angsty and nihilistic spiky-haired teenagers.
Re:Slightly delusional (Score:5, Informative)
If they had to go to war tomorrow, they have a significant high-tech air-force, navy and army with a modern capable war doctrine. If engaged in a protracted war, like WWII, they could draw down on over 50 million personal, and deploy a massive high tech manufacturing base and indigenous know-how. They are also the 3rd richest country in the world. (Most of their debt is domestically held.)
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However, it does not matter. Any war that Japan gets in, will not be sustained. It will be over in under a day.
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...because of said mobile suits.
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I normally try and refrain from this sort of idiotic banter running rampant in slashdot because most are IT people and get their sense of world politics from regular news sources and rarely take the time to read government research. As it stands China without a major development still lacks major resources for most things. They have rare earth elements which is awesome, but so do the US and Russia (along with various other places). We choose not to exploit them for cost mainly. If rare earth keeps incre
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As it stands China without a major development still lacks major resources for most things.
China now has a trade deficit [reuters.com] with the rest of the world. Part of that is due to copper prices, also increases in soybean imports.
Re:Bogus article (Score:4, Interesting)
and the cost of dog meat too I assume. Australia for example is mining like crazy just to keep China going. Presumably chinese companies are mining China like crazy too. So two huge land masses funneling production to mainly one. Chinese companies are also buying up canadian resource companies like crazy too. All the resources funnel into the country building stuff which for the most part is China.
The WTO can be upset about it but how about making the US export strategic assets they don't want to give away? Say Iran wants to buy a few nukes. NK wants some fighter planes etc. Every country decides what is in their best interest and I don't think WTO can do anything to make China share things they want to keep to themselves. Worst case scenario they would just create unofficial mines like Iran's nuke program and deny it to death and claim all their mines have been closed.
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The WTO can be upset about it but how about making the US export strategic assets they don't want to give away? Say Iran wants to buy a few nukes. NK wants some fighter planes etc.
I would guess nukes and fighter jets are not covered by WTO agreements.
Every country decides what is in their best interest and I don't think WTO can do anything to make China share things they want to keep to themselves.
Protectionism is bad for everyone in the long run*, so we have made the WTO disincentivise countries from doing that. The WTO can not force China to do anything, but they can allow other countries to enforce import taxes on goods from China. If the import taxes are high enough, I am sure China would comply. The question is: Will the western countries enforce import taxes, or are China to big a trade partner?
* It is only a good idea if
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Protectionism can be bad in a purely economical sense but still done for strategic interests. For example the US could have decided that the ability to make TVs was of critical importance since it is used by everyone including military planners etc. But alas they didn't and so as far as I recall there is no TV manufacturer still building sets in the US. People get cheaper sets and in theory the employees move on to the segment of the local economy that the US is competitive. Unfortunately the segment of the
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I think it is also a strategic thing. China 15 years ago was mainly a low cost goods manufacture. Toys, pens, etc. They want to move up market where there are higher margins. They have had some success in those areas. By being the only guys in town with lots of rare earth element X they can make sure that everything that needs X is made in China, meaning they get the battery tech, the solar tech and engineering jobs rather than the assembly jobs.
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>>> over the course of the last 230+ years we've managed to pay off our debt several times.
Several times?
Try once. Way back in the 1820s under the Madison and Jeffersonian-Democrats. Hardly something to brag about in the modern age. We have a candidate now (Paul) who is promising to pay off the debt starting in year 2 of his presidency, but the voters don't want him. They want the other guys who continue to put forward budgets that will add close to 1 trillion year-after-year.
The political will
You're joking, right? (Score:2)
If the US/EU/Japan shut down trade with China, who do you think that hurts the most?
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This is why everybody who goes to the WTO either goes to complain that somebody is
Re:Bogus article (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, DeBeers are sitting on large stockpiles of diamonds in order to "protect the war-torn orphans".
Nope, not about artificially high prices at all. Nope.
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For the planet, for small business and for justice we can just turn it into a boycott and make the * marts and Target quit selling us plastic Chinese crap.
Thats probably at least 80% of their exports to us( on would almost believe). They can come off their rare earth or drown in their own happy meal toys.
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The poisoning of the environment in illegal mining operations is really nothing to joke about.
Re:Bogus article (Score:5, Insightful)
Other country's rear earth providers all went bankrupt and shut down because China was dumping. Now that they are all gone, China cuts back on supply (for environmental reasons.. right) to drive prices up.
I think the term is call 'cornering the market.' Except this time its not orange juice, and they pulled it off.
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Then start your business extracting rare earth, you will be rich !!!
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Then start your business extracting rare earth, you will be rich !!!
Right... because starting a business that handles toxic chemicals, destroys the environment, and involves feeding out of and into a huge industrial complex is a piece of cake... and once you've got it set up, China won't undersell you.
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Until China dumps again, and then you lose your billion-dollar investments into infrastructure and engineering as demand for your (comparatively) expensive product drops to zero.
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Other country's rear earth providers all went bankrupt and shut down because China was dumping. Now that they are all gone, China cuts back on supply (for environmental reasons.. right) to drive prices up.
I'm not sure you understand what happened.
The rare earth providers didn't go bankrupt, they got bought by China's mostly-state-owned mining company.
China cornered the market, but not the way you're suggesting.
Now china mines and refines almost all the rare earths in the world.
In the next few years, old mines will be reopened and new refineries will be built in order to break China's monopoly.
Re:Bogus article (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it is not a "bogus article", and the WTO is not "ordering any country to sell anything at what it determines" is a fair price. WTO is a free trade agreement. China signed it.
As such, WTO has rules which parties agree to abide by in return for protection of their own exports. WTO does not charge China with having a monopoly, but with using government rulings (environmental laws) to manipulate markets. There are rules in WTO which allow a country to limit exports of raw materials, but doing so in order to manipulate prices is against WTO rules. China doesn't have to BE in the WTO (Iran is not), and if they don't WANT to abide by the WTO ruling they can leave WTO. Or, they can live with / suffer the sanctions, as others have. But if you are in WTO and use it, you have to play by the rules.
I'm not anti-China, and the USA deserves WTO sanctions for its agricultural subsidies. But whoever "modded up" this post doesn't understand WTO agreements. If you agree to follow WTO rules, you get unique market access to sell your products, but you also agree to sanctions if you use government to replace tariffs you've agreed not to use with "bogus" traffic laws, pollution laws, registration laws, or other "non-tariff barriers", or cut off the Japanese because you want to take over their electronics markets.
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Yeah, on Maher or The Daily Show someone said that China will do what works and call it 'Socialism'. ;)
Though kinda like we call 'Democracy'
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Thankfully, a company is ramping up with this. Molycorp. I am actually surprised that USA/EU/Japan a
Re:Bogus article (Score:4, Insightful)
No its not, its because of dumping and market manipulation.
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Okay, so those short-term-profit-maximizing execs made decisions that hurt the west, and by allowing them to benefit from the pain they caused the west is collectively responsible.
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In the US, for example? No, the government has basically zero influence over industrial policy and basically every bit of industrial law is lobbied in by other companies.
The major companies in the US have major influence - far over the influence of the people - on policy.
Re:Bogus article (Score:5, Informative)
The first part involved the actual dumping and eliminating competition.
Indeed. For many years there were multiple export nations selling Rare Earth Minerals. For many years, as the demand was quite low they all sold their goods to a small market. However, when the demand started to rise, China did something that the other players didn't see coming. They started to seriously undercut the prices of competitors. Other mines such as Mountain Pass [wikipedia.org] were run out of business - and due to political pressures on the environmental damage that was being caused. When China became pretty much the only place left selling any reasonable quantities of REM, they bumped the price up by orders of magnitude. This coupled with much higher (and still growing) demand for them makes it a wonderful masterstroke. They then further used it when an incident with Japan caused political turmoil between the two nations - by blocking sales to Japan [nytimes.com] completely.
While it is possible (and being done) to re-open the old mines and cease the monopoly that is currently held, it takes time to get these things up and running. Even then, China does hold a very major share of known REM reserves, so unless another (very) major deposit is found, it is likely that China will continue to hold an interesting political/trade card to play whenever it wants to.
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You see that as evil. Most see it as proper application of the free market. We see this all the time. Companies sell *under* cost, to bring in sales. For places like retail stores, they'll sell particular items at a loss, to make a higher profit on others. Look at places like Best Buy. They'll sell some electronics at or under cost, but sell you cables for 1000% over cost.
In the case of China's application, they did it perfectly. Lower the sale cost so others can't compl
Re:Bogus article (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn, what is this naive "they can't enforce any ruling, free markets yeah!!!" thing all over these comments? Don't you guys know shit about global (free) trade?
That all the major trading partners of China have gone to the WTO, an unprecedented event, it means that a ruling (which will clearly be against China) will mean that a number of Chinese export industries get hit with tariffs at a level sufficient to redress the perceived losses. And considering the impact such REM restrictions have all the way down high-tech manufacturing chains it won't be a small sum.
And yes, this _IS_ free markets, free markets where some things like military and high-tech trade can be limited. However other things are not allowed to be restricted, cause that's what collectively got agreed upon by the people who compromise the free market. Add some quotes to 'free market' if it doesn't fit your ideologically pure interpretation.
Also, China will be fucked even more if the same group decides to go to the WTO over the weak Yuan. The rest of the world will obviously also be fucked, but they might decide they're less fucked than status quo.
Re:Bogus article (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that if everybody played by those rules, you'd end up with a bunch of monopolies and nothing else.
The largest company would dump products at a ridiculously low price until the last competitor died, then crank prices up. As that monopoly became entrenched, they would get significantly lower prices on components than any new competitor could get because of their volume. At that point, it would be nearly impossible for anyone else to enter the market unless they were already a huge company that could weather the inevitable dumping campaign by the monopolist.
Any market that allows such unfair competition can only have one end result, and that is a permanent one-company market. The company wins, but everybody else loses. So yes, I see that as evil. When you cross the line from "I want to be the best" to "I want to destroy the competition so that I'll be the only seller", you're squarely in evil territory, no matter how you try to spin it. (Mind you, I'm not saying it's never acceptable to want to destroy a competitor, but it's never acceptable to want to destroy all of your competitors.)
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Do you shop at Walmart? Best Buy? Amazon? McDonalds?
Walmart is the worst. They can (and do) move into a town, undercut all the mom and pop stores, and then adjust their pricing to what the market will support. Employees are paid less than the competition. If Walmart has a department for it, that's an area that competing stores will die. The first that I noticed, and knew competition failing because of, was toy stores. Then bicycle shops. Mom and pop food markets were
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While it is possible (and being done) to re-open the old mines and cease the monopoly that is currently held, it takes time to get these things up and running.
Time... and money. There's currently an investment bubble building up around rare earth mining, lots of hype. All China need do is bide their time and stockpile while upcoming companies burn through investor cash, setting up mines and equipment. Then just as they're about to ramp up production, China can open the export floodgates.
The ensuing crash will make sure no investors try again for the next several decades.
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China is just a little bitch that doesn't have the balls to float their currency.
That is the stupidest comment I have read in a while. China is not floating its currency due to the fact that if it did, it would rise much much higher than it currently is. In fact, the Chinese currency is holding up the US dollar due to being tied to it.
China doesn't want to float its currency as a much higher value would be very detrimental to their current position as "cheap". There are numerous estimates online that their currency is significantly (warning, PDF) undervalued [aabri.com] by as much as 50%. If you wa
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Except none of the large countries actually change when the WTO tells them to, because they know the WTO can't do anything to them
This is what happens... (Score:5, Insightful)
when you shut down mining and manufacturing in western countries and ship it all to China just because they are cheaper.
Other countries have these deposits, but they determined they could just buy China's for less money.
And this is a... (Score:3)
...good thing! The mines that were shut down will eventually come back on line when it is profitable to do so again. In the meantime:
1) Rare earth materials can be purchased cheaper because China was undercutting everyone (even if they were used for manufacturing within china, the goods were still being sold abroad).
2) Less pollution generated in my home country (USA) because that mining was put on hold.
3) Non-Chinese resources are preserved and will last longer while China burns through theirs.
What we're
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So the government prohibiting the export of something is a level playing field? Can the US also choose to impose a 1000% tariff on Chinese products and also call it a level playing field?
Re:This is what happens... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did I say China was working on a level playing field? Nooooooooooo. Now, go take your cookies and milk then go back to kindergarten until you learn to read.
For the rest of you, a level playing field means you do NOT hand someone the ball and then complain that you've no balls. (Take that as you will.) A level playing field means that you demand of yourself no less responsibility than you demand of others.
A level playing field ALSO demands that ALL sides play by the rules. You know Boeing and Airbus have both been found guilty of getting illegal subsidies, right? That this isn't new and that both blocs have known for over a decade that what they were doing was indeed illegal? Sorry, I have difficulty feeling sympathy for people who are equally corrupt and criminal. Sympathy for the devil is easier to stomach than sympathy for the corporations. It also has a catchier tune.
The US ITAR regulations banning the export of computer systems to China that can - and are - used by US corporations to cut costs -- you think that's a level playing field? When NASA made it possible to turn a pile of PCs into a supercomputer, the software was banned. (Those old enough will remember Slashdot helping smuggle the software to Canada.) Sure, they relented later, but only because they had no choice. The cat was already out of the bag and ripping people's limbs off - as cats formerly in bags tend to do.
The US has been in trade wars with the EU, seeking to cripple EU industries via restricted exports.
Sorry, but the moment the US did that to Europe, it LOST all rights to complain when others do the same to it. Remember, the US may have relented but it never apologized and never changed its attitudes. It grudgingly tolerated obedience to the law, but we all know perfectly well that it will violate that law every chance it has to gain an edge.
As, indeed, it did in the 90s, when the US Government's signals intelligence passed confidential internal documents from Airbus to Boeing. The US Government, involved in industrial espionage in order to profiteer.
A level playing field is where ALL such activity is banned, where ALL such activity leads to more than a gentle slap on the wrist but serious economic consequences, and where ALL countries are required to participate fairly, openly and (above all) honestly. THAT is a level playing field.
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Sorry, but the moment the US did that to Europe, it LOST all rights to complain when others do the same to it.
Just to point out, most of us whose jobs might be lost due to countries diddling around with the economy are not the ones who made the decision to do it to europe, nor did we directly benefit from it. So, how about we don't act like the people who will be affected by this deserve it because other people from their country did it to other people?
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> So, how about we don't act like the people who will be affected by this deserve it because other people from their country did it to other people?
A simple word: democracy. With power comes responsibility.
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+1
@Sub-Topic:
If we do consider ourselves democracies or republics then WE are the ones responsible for the governments we elect.
Not like other totalitarian states where we love to punish the populace for actions committed by government they had no part in creating.
Strange that we elect them, yet when they pull some dumb shit, we quickly claim innocence and that we have no involvement!
Sorry, in a democracy they represent US (as in the people) and what they do in our name reflects upon us.
a level playing field is a fantasy (Score:2)
it doesn't exist in the real world
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Yes, yes we can. Since American employment and salaries are at an all time high of course we can all afford to pay $7,500 for a laptop guaranteed to fail in 5 years. And after a decade of toil spinning up American manufacturing and rare earth extraction again, labor unions and incredibly high health care costs will make sure that you only have to pay $2,700 for a base-model tough-as-nails American laptop.
Personally I'd love to see computers made here again but really, go convert the late 70's to early 80'
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I'm not advocating tariffs on ALL imports. Just on those from countries that use unfair trade practices. If China decides to sell rare earths to foreign companies for ten times the price that domestic companies pay, then why shouldn't their products be 'taxed'? I'm sure China's neighbors will be more then happy to ramp up production if China is no longer able to compete with them.
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China didn't ask for such power.
But China sought such power. Asking implies the seeking of approval for an action. No such attempt was made.
You can't opt for "market forces" only when it's in your interest, and demand powerful central government when market forces are in a competitor's interests.
Didn't happen here. China created a competitive advantage through government interference. No "level field" was in play here.
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How did it "seek" such power? By not closing its mines when the US ones were caught dumping illegal waste?
Far as I can see, it sought no such thing. It merely continued to trade when others couldn't be arsed. Now it has a de-facto monopoly and it's abusing the hell out of it. China should pay a very heavy price for that. But equally, so should every other nation that has abused monopolistic powers. Since we know the latter won't happen, it follows that the former should not happen either. One Law, not one f
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How did it "seek" such power?
By dumping rare earths on the market. And then artificially restricting global supply once it had driven foreign competitors out of business.
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Some commentators on this article seem to be blithely unaware of the relative concentrations of the Chinese deposits versus others worldwide, and how the consequent low production cost might be abused to establish and exercise power over the market.
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China wasn't dumping at the time the mine was closed. The US mine was closed because it was dumping hazardous waste and got caught - an entirely voluntary action on its part. No alternative was set up in the US for the same reason US drug companies test their products in Africa - you make more money by not obeying the rules.
I cannot find it in me to be sympathetic to economic mobsters who get beat up by other economic mobsters. The US created most of the global economy, the US is reaping what it sowed. Chin
Fair price? (Score:2)
So what's the fair price for Windows 7 Ultimate? Or Adobe CS 5?
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Ummm. Free? No, wait! You pay me and I'll consider installing it.
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$0, but computing is a hobby for me, not a lifestyle. I enjoy the challenge of making things work. Others might be willing to spend a few bucks for them if they value time over freedom.
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Waana be a member of the WTO? (Score:2, Interesting)
then you gotta surrender your sovereignty.. I think China signed... So there
Hate the game not the player (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hate the game not the player (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually the complaint is that China didn't play the game. They cheated by dumping and are now cheating by restricting exports. Not unexpected from them, but don't claim it's capitalism in action.
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Globalist whining (Score:3)
Re:Globalist whining -ignored unless they agree (Score:2, Informative)
For a good look at this compare to the US ignoring NAFTA (even though they were its champions) when US sought tariffs against Canadian companies that they alleged were 'dumping' softwoods even though the terms of NAFTA supported the Canadians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_softwood_lumber_dispute
Or how Bush, Cheney and Ru
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You claim Obama authorized waterboarding. Care to supply a citation?
Very recently [go.com] President Obama said waterboarding is wrong, is torture and he was glad that practice was ended. Read here [wikipedia.org] where President Obama banned waterboarding in January 2009.
Re:Globalist whining (Score:5, Informative)
I am not a Chinese government fan by any means but as a sovereign country they have an obligation to protect the interests of their citizens above the financial gains of the globalists.
They absolutely do, but they can't do that while still remaining a member of WTO.
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Unless they are violating their obligations under the WTO charter that they agreed to, which they are. That's what most posters seem to be missing. China previously agreed to a set of conditions upon joining the WTO (their choice) and is now violating them.
If China doesn't want to be in the WTO, that's fine. But it means that countries like the US aren't under any obligation to follow the WTO rules with regards to China either.
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I am not a Chinese government fan by any means but as a sovereign country they have an obligation to protect the interests of their citizens above the financial gains of the globalists.
Free trade is about doing the best for the citizens, although in an abstract and long-sighted way. Your wage might drop 10% with free trade, but if the average price of all you buy will drop with 20%, you are still better of. There are exceptions, mostly when developing countries need to build their own industries, but most of the time, free trade benefits everyone [wikipedia.org].
The world's smallest violin (Score:2)
Shouldn't have let them get a monopoly on something that's so important. This is just one of many ways China has the rest of the world under their thumb and we're going to see a lot more of this in the coming years. From where I'm sitting at my desk, I'd be hard-pressed to lay my eyes on more than 10 things that weren't made in China. My watch (though it was assembled in China so I guess that doesn't count). An old radio scanner (which doesn't work). Metal shears (used to open blister packs). CR2016 b
Rare earths (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not about mining quotas, but export quotas. (Score:5, Informative)
If China were simply limiting the amount of rare earths permitted to be dug out of the ground, there would be no WTO issue. The problem is that this is an export cap which has the potential to create different pricing for rare-earths between domestic and foreign purchasers of these materials.
Now if you look at mentions of today's prices of rare earths (by googling for "rare earth prices"), as yet, there is no such disparity. The linked WTO article also doesn't directly talk about price disparities between domestic and foreign purchasers. It turns out that global demand for rare earths went down quite a bit last year, and as a result, only about 60% of the export quota was used up (according to this FT article [ft.com]).
The concern is that as the global economy recovers, if demand is seen to exceed the quota, then a huge price difference between what domestic companies and foreign companies pay will emerge. This would amount to a kind of state subsidy (making prices for domestic producers artificially cheap) and would violate WTO rules.
The two metrics to watch to determine whether or not the claim of environmental protection vs. economic protectionism would be:
(1) Domestic rare earth production volume (e.g. in tons) - If slope of this curve continues unchanged, then there really is no environmental effect. If the slope flattens out, then it could be argued that the quota did slow down the pace of mining and did have an environmental consequence
(2) Domestic (China buyer) vs. Foreign (non-China Buyer) price (e.g. difference $/ton) - If this disparity is big, then there's a stronger case that there is some kind of domestic subsidy occurring, if the disparity is small, then the case that there is a subsidy is weaker.
This is not really a matter of sovereignty since China is a willing party to the WTO and has volunteered to play by those rules.
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Kony 2012.
Re:I know where we can get some (Score:4, Funny)
>Kony 2012
Is that who you're voting for this November?
--
BMO
Don't blame me - I voted for Kodos.
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I see you have no idea of the meaning of the word capitalism.
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For some reason, this "Related Link," from almost exactly two years ago (March 16 2010), is missing from this submission:
US Sits On Supply of Rare, Tech-Crucial Minerals [slashdot.org]
The relevant part is this (emphasis added):
"China supplies most of the rare earth minerals found in technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives, and cell phones, but the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation. Those reserves include deposits of both 'light' and 'heavy' rare earths... 'There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can't get enough material,' said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired. 'No one [in the US] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,' Hedrick explained. ... [S]uch a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths. The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years. [But the CEO of a rare earth supply company said] 'From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices.'"
If the complainants had realize the "security of supply" is real, we'd already be 1/4 of the way (2 of 8 years) to having productive plants.
Instead these countries took the easy and cheap path, namely: foolishly trusting communists to uphold their part of an agreement.
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Seriously, the resources are on Chinese territory they can do with it as they please.
What will be interesting will be if the main sources of Rare Earths are in some of the places the aren't really Chinese territory, but ones that China 'acquired'. To wit, Tibet. Will the west then have a cause to get China out of there for *cough* humanitarian reasons?
Meanwhile Tibetans are setting themselves on fire to protest the occupation. Ok it's not the best way of protesting but you've got to be fairly committed to do that.
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Re:only about the env. when it's your backyard (Score:4, Insightful)
The ONLY reason why rare earth minerals are dominated by China is because no other country is willing sacrifice the environment to extract these minerals.
Wrong, it is because China's ore deposits are more highly concentrated than any other, by a very wide margin.
From my vantage point, China has every right to restrict this trade to protect its environment.
I don't know about your argument (which seems wildly far fetched to me) but do know that subsidizing domestic industry with favorable pricing of raw materials is, in general, not allowed by the WTO.
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Add to it the fact that there hasn't been any thorough mapping of locations where they can be found so they can literally be under your doorstep at home.
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