Google must have figured out I was perusing sites about rare earths after China recently cut off its supply, both to Japan and to the West. So today, AdSense intuited that I might wish to see a banner ad for this site (a Mongolian rare earth mining venture).
Give them credit: that "Checkmate China!" slogan certainly DOES attract one's attention…
The company's transport lines do that, as well. Can anyone spot which neighboring country they AVOID sending cargo through? Why, it's almost as though they anticipate China might engage in politically-motivated export interruptions, or something . . .
Bright lads. Noticing that China's notorious unreliability as a supplier represents a unique marketing opportunity — for the competition.
Did you think that Beijing would be selective in its rare earth trade embargo, wielding its market position against Japan (alone, among all the countries of the world) as a weapon of last-resort?
American trade officials announced last Friday that they would investigate whether China was violating international trade rules by subsidizing its clean energy industries. The inquiry includes whether China’s steady reductions in rare earth export quotas since 2005, along with steep export taxes on rare earths, are illegal efforts to force multinational companies to produce more of their high-technology goods in China.
[…]
Hours later, according to industry officials, Chinese customs officials began singling out and delaying rare earth shipments to the West. [emphasis added]
Earlier this year, Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party signed a free trade agreement with China, all the while insisting that the Benevolent Butchers of Beijing would never abuse their economic power over Taiwan.
That proposition of theirs appears more divorced from reality with each passing day.
"[This is] going to encourage some obvious policy responses by the rest of the world. Non-Chinese production of rare earths will explode over the next five years as countries throw subsidy after subsidy at spurring production. Given China's behavior, not even the most ardent free-market advocate will be in a position to argue otherwise." [emphasis added]
Beijing's bellicosity wins friends and allies – for America. Danke schoen, Kaiser Hu Jintao.
Incidentally — and I speak only hypothetically — if China is justified in waging economic war against Japan over the Senkaku Islands, wouldn't America be justified in waging economic war against China for its currency manipulation? Robert J. Samuelson at the Washington Post seems to think so.
[Let's be clear though on this last point: As an economic subsidiary of Communist China, Taiwan would suffer terribly from a Sino-American trade war.]
Google went Galt in China earlier this year, and perhaps it's high time that Japan followed its example. Because both the Daily Yomiuri and Asahi Shimbun are reporting that Beijing is erecting politically-motivated customs trade barriers to cripple Japanese industry. From the Daily Yomiuri:
Shanghai customs authorities informed major Japanese transport firms last Tuesday of a decision to immediately boost the ratio of imports and exports subject to sample inspections at the city's customs house from the previous 30 percent to 100 percent.
Shanghai's quarantine authorities have also raised the ratio of quarantine inspections of commodities from the previous 10 percent to 50 percent, they said.
Because of the subsequent delay in the clearance and quarantine procedures, many air cargoes bound for Japan, including electronics parts, remain in Shanghai, according to the sources.
Similar measures have been taken at many other customs houses, including those in Fujian, Guandong and Liaoning Provinces…
"China has no choice but to take the necessary 'coercive measures.' "
And a mere three days later, Japanese prosecutors cut loose Captain Ramboat. A sad spectacle it must have been to watch them claim that their decision was based solely on the law…and then hear them quickly contradict this by declaring that the political importance of smooth Sino-Japanese relations was something they also had to consider.
Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper outlines the precise 'coercive measure' which may have been most instrumental in bringing Japan to heel:
A Chinese government source said Thursday that Beijing resorted to the harsh measure of stopping all exports of rare earth metals to Japan because "Japan had crossed over the red line."
The paper further reports that "a sense of shock, fear and helplessness" began to grow in the Japanese industrial sector, as managers discovered to their horror the folly of economic dependence on Asia's Communist behemoth. The Japan Times elaborates on this latter point:
Japan imported 31,383 tons of rare earths in 2008, of which 29,275 tons, or 92 percent [emphasis added], came from China…
92%. [And in another news, a hospital somewhere in Michigan recently granted Dr. Jack Kevorkian control over 92% of their life-support equipment. Because really, what could go wrong?]
The Asashi Shimbun reports that China's unofficial embargo was apparently not as clumsy or as random as a blaster:
The stoppage was designed to hurt Japan's high-tech industries, and it was apparently planned well in advance.
According to several sources, top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party issued instructions in mid-September to the Foreign Ministry, Commerce Ministry, State Development and Reform Commission as well as researchers covering Japan at government-affiliated think tanks to devise specific measures that could be imposed on Japan.
"Instructions were given to consider sanctions that would hit the Japanese economy where it is especially vulnerable," a Chinese government source said [emphasis added].
It's almost superfluous to point out that earlier this year, the Chinese Nationalist Party of Taiwan assured voters that the Communist Party of China would never, ever, EVER mix politics and economics. Signing a free-trade agreement with Zhongnanhai would be an economic shot in the arm for Taiwan — so the argument went — and there was absolutely no chance that becoming Beijing's industrial and commercial satellite would imperil Taiwan's democracy or its sovereignty.
Ask the Japanese whether that holds true today. Because the Taiwanese should be aware that the KMT's flimsy hypothesis now utterly without foundation.
The only question which remains is: When will Communist China choose to launch a similar assault on the economy of democratic Taiwan?
No way in hell that'll happen. They didn't have the stones to prosecute a mere Chinese fishing boat captain…but instead they'll take on China in a WTO courtroom, mano-a-mano?
All this is contingent on whether Beijing is lying or telling the truth about the purpose of some heavy equipment they've moved into the area — which it claims is simply for maintainence work.
Which come to think of it, strongly resembles their campaign over at Topix:
When the Hokklo Taiwanese came from China 400 years ago they didn't learn the Aboriginal languages!!! Why???
When the Hokklo Taiwanese came from China 400 years ago they didn't learn the Aboriginal languages!!! Why???
It's the way of the future . . . the future . . . the way of the FU-ture . . .
Whoops, sorry. **Phew** Well, that's a good question I asked. I mean, you — YOU asked! …Uh, three times. Anyhoo. Anyhoo, I'll tell you why. They didn't learn the aboriginal languages because they're nothing but a bunch of no-good racists!
No-good racists, you say? I did not know that, my clean-shaven friend.
Shouldn't Beijing then discipline those wayward, spoiled children? As they say in the Han race-nation, blood is thicker than water. So why, oh why, don't the Chinese invade and mass deport all of those Taiwanese racists back to China?
Ethnically-cleanse all 23 million of them? As punishment for not learning a language 400 years ago?
Hmmm . . . That's tough, but fair . . .
I second the motion! A capital idea! And then, once the People's Liberation Army promptly leaves (as we can surely trust them to do) then we can set up a Naruwan aboriginal Republic under UN auspices!
Hee-hee! With my amazing Moktar Stealth Haze, no one can tell they're all just me! Do da do da do . . . Just a wild and crazy anarchist – like that V for Vendetta guy! (Images from Patterico.com)
Bravo, Topix.com, for a site that's so bad it's actually kind of awesome.
UPDATE 2: Unrelated, but fun nonetheless. Feng shui: Is there anything it CAN'T do?
Been meaning to link to this brief (but eye-opening) note on management's decision to light up the Empire State Building to celebrate the founding of Communist Party rule in modern China.
One wonders whether the board of Taiwan's Taipei 101 skyscraper will be willing to sell themselves quite so cheaply.
"I flinch, I shy, when the lass with the delicate air goes by I smile, I grin, when the gal with a touch of sin walks in. I hope, and I pray, for Hester to win just one more "A" The sadder-but-wiser girl's the girl for me. The sadder-but-wiser girl for me."
Hate to hear about the inevitable quality-control problems on THIS one:
Egypt may be up in arms over the latest stroke of Chinese manufacturing brilliance—a synthetic hymen . . .
. . . conservative officials across the Muslim world fear it might find more nefarious uses in countries where virginity is a prerequisite for marriage. Egypt has gone so far as to attempt a ban against the artificial hymen, calling peddlers "bandits" and charging that the device will corrode the moral standards of the country.
[…]
In places where honor killings are practiced against women who can't prove they were virgins on their wedding nights, this little, seemingly innocuous sex toy has opened quite a can of worms.
Still no official denunciation of this dire threat to Islamic decency and virtue by the Taliban wing of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
