Translated from a Dutch Chinese speaking journalist visiting China’s REE mining sites
Today, 07:00
China on a collision course, rare raw materials go under the ban
The first salvos in the chip war between China and America have been discharged. A chip war in which the Netherlands is also involved: export restrictions on ASML's advanced chip machines will take off next week. China has already hit back by curbing exports of gallium and germanium. Substances important for the manufacture of semiconductors. And so China dominates the monopoly on rare earth metals.
It is the Giant hump in the landscape that protrude far above the barren Inner-Mongolian plains. Secluded in northern China, but central to the battle for technology. An important stick to hit with, moreover, in the chip war with the West: the Bayan Obo earth mine is the world's largest. China mines about 60 percent of all earth metals worldwide, a large part of which comes from Baotou.
"I earn ten thousand renminbi a month in the mine," one of the miners can still say, as he walks to the village at the foot of the mine. It's the end of his working day. "If you consider that there are 1.4 billion people who all want to work, that's really a good salary," he laughs. A woman from the local authorities intervenes, even before he can be asked anything noteworthy. "Don't film!"
Environment
Rare earth metals. It's a term that doesn't actually cover the cargo of the trucks and container trains around the Bayan Obo mine properly. The metals are not really rare, but mining them is no mean feat. Concentrations in the soil are low: roughly 95 percent of what is excavated is unusable. Apart from that, its processing is not only complex, but also highly polluting. But China was willing to pay that price.
Today, US Trade Secretary Gina Raimondo is making a four-day visit to China. With the aim of strengthening business ties between the two economies, even as the U.S. government bans exports of sensitive technology.
The air, the water, the lands around Baotou: the environment had a hard time. “Previously it was a gang here,” says one of the village's residents, as he grabs his scooter. He drives on, as soon as the uninvited voyeurs of the authorities come around the corner again. "Now that's a lot better. The government is paying more attention to the environment."
They don't want to say much, the people around the Bayan Obo mine. That's not so strange either. At virtually every call, the unwanted delegates from the local authorities pop up.
“We run eight-hour working days, it's fine working here,” says another miner. He walks back to their residence with two colleagues. Asked how it feels that without his work there would be no smartphones, he laughs. "That's partly true, haha." But it's about more than just smartphone chips.
Rare earth metals
From windmills to MRI scanners and fighter planes, the energy sector, the medical industry, and the defense apparatus can't do without rare earth metals like they mine in Baotou either. "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earth metals," the Chinese People's Journal previously drew from the mouth of then-leader Deng Xiaoping. "That's of great strategic value."
1992 statements that made policy makers in Beijing's ears, when a Chinese fishing cutter collides with a Japanese Coast Guard ship in the East China Sea in 2010. Both countries claim the Senkaku Islands, or Diaoyu Dao, as China calls them. After the arrest of the Chinese skipper, Beijing ceases exports of rare earth metals to Japan, although it has always denied that there was an export ban.
At the time a wake-up call for Japan, now policy makers in the West are also beginning to realize the risks of the dependency relationship. Europe extracts up to 99 percent of critical earth metals from China, Brussels said in a report two years ago. In the coming years, it wants to reduce that dependence. By 2030, a maximum of 65 percent of 'strategic earth metals' may still be imported from one country.
Natural resources
Since this month, gallium and germanium - important in the production of chips - have been on the list of export restrictions. Beijing states that this is necessary to ensure national security, and has not yet granted licenses as far as is known. But the step is widely seen as a response to the far-reaching restrictions on the export of chip technology to China, in which ASML also plays an important role.
It causes frustration in China. Also in the green Silicon Valley, as Baotou calls himself. A reference to silicon, which is taken from the ground here. A hopeful nod to the prosperous west coast of America, of course, where silicon laid the foundation for the current high-tech industry. Some 130 kilometers to the south, in the high-tech district of Baotou, the authorities hope to lay the foundation there.
“We are building larger wind turbines here, from six to seven megawatts,” says manager Liu Wei, of Mingyang Smart Energy in his giant production hall on the outskirts of Baotou. "Every year we plan to produce a thousand large wind turbines. Inner Mongolia is a vast area with an abundance of natural resources," says Liu. Because storms do it, around Baotou.
Aided by rare earth metals from the Bayan Obo mine, such as neodymium - magnets needed in the wind turbines - becoming self-sufficient is the motto for Liu. “That's what we're striving for,” he says. It is no different for solar panels. Cobalt is mainly sourced from China-controlled mines in Congo. “We're working hard to locate,” Liu says.
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