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China

China Just Stopped Exporting Two Minerals the World's Chipmakers Need (cnn.com) 289

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
schwit1 writes:

China's exports of two rare minerals essential for manufacturing semiconductors fell to zero in August, a month after Beijing imposed curbs on sales overseas, citing national security. China produces about 80% of the world's gallium and about 60% of germanium, according to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance, but it didn't sell any of the elements on international markets last month, Chinese customs data released on Wednesday showed. In July, the country exported 5.15 metric tons of forged gallium products and 8.1 metric tons of forged germanium products.

When asked about the lack of exports last month, He Yadong, a spokesperson from China's commerce ministry told a press briefing Thursday that the department had received applications from companies to export the two materials. Some applications had been approved, he said, without elaborating. The curbs are indicative of China's apparent willingness to retaliate against US export controls, despite concerns about economic growth, as a tech war simmers.

Nobody ever said weaning ourselves off the CCP would be easy, Schwit1 adds.


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China Just Stopped Exporting Two Minerals the World's Chipmakers Need More

China Just Stopped Exporting Two Minerals the World's Chipmakers Need

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  • China has weaponized neoliberal/libertarian flaws (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DeplorableCodeMonkey ( 4828467 ) on Friday September 22, 2023 @01:08PM (#63869547)

    One of the fatal flaws of all of the free trade arguments is that free trade just doesn't work when you have a trade partner whose government is actively engaged in nationalistic industrial policy. China realized a long time ago that the idiot Clinton Democrats, Reaganite Republicans and lolbertarians were so far up their own asses in analyzing the critically flawed assumptions around free trade that they could easily kick our asses by engaging in open, naked Socialism of the old school variety in areas where we are weak.

    The only way out for the US and its allies is to bite the bullet and retaliate in kind. That would mean standing up a state-owned corporation, possibly with joint Japanese and Australian ownership, that would act as the "arsenal of rare earth miners for democracy." Subsidize it, never require it to turn a profit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mordain ( 204988 )

      They are also the source of these materials because they gladly pay the environmental costs involved in their removal.

      • Re:China has weaponized neoliberal/libertarian fla (Score:5, Informative)

        by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Friday September 22, 2023 @01:39PM (#63869681) Homepage

        They are also the source of these materials because they gladly pay the environmental costs involved in their removal.

        Gallium doesn't have much in the way of environmental cost. It's a byproduct of aluminum refining, also zinc, but in relatively low concentration. The price isn't high enough that any of the big aluminum producers sees much profit in refining it out.

        • I came to say the same thing, would have modded you up the irritating block on modding after commenting stopped me.

          The smelter dross from Aluminum production from bauxite in the US and Canada contains gallium. The cost (largely in energy) to extract the gallium has always been more than the gallium was worth. If that changes ... then in 2 years or so we could have scaled extraction of gallium. Instead what will happen is China is going to optimize the pricing of gallium a bit and the US may have to b

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )

      How about you start. Stop buying Chinese crap.

      Oh, wait, no, that would require you to do something. And gasp inconvenience yourself!

      No, we can't have that. Instead, let's suggest something someone else would have to do.

      • How about you start. Stop buying Chinese crap.

        Oh, wait, no, that would require you to do something. And gasp inconvenience yourself!

        You know damn well that in 2023 that means living an Amish lifestyle given how much stuff is manufactured there.

        But hey, let's reverse that. Maybe much of the developing world should stop buying American agricultural goods if they don't like our policy. Just stick it to the American Man, even though many developing countries would face famine if they did that.

        • You know damn well that in 2023 that means living an Amish lifestyle given how much stuff is manufactured there.

          Oh look, we identified the problem. But even if we had domestic production, it would instantly collapse because it's impossible to compete with China in terms of pricing, and since that's the only thing people give a fuck about anymore, either because they're greedy bastards or because they just can't afford anything that costs more than 2 Mars bars, that problem also has no solution.

          • The real problem there is that thanks to insider trading Congress is profiting from the current situation so they won't lift a finger to change it.

            Congresscreeps need to be forced to divest or use a trust. Glwt, I know.

            We could solve the problem with a carbon import tariff but they don't want to.

            We could also address it with a slave labor tariff but the Republicans are bringing back child labor right now so presumably slavery for more than convicts is next.

      • How about you start. Stop buying Chinese crap.

        That may be easier said than done. About 64% of US consumers buy something at Walmart each month [1] and 70-80% of Walmart's inventory comes from suppliers in China [2] -- noting that some of this latter data is old.

        [1] Nearly Two-Thirds of Consumers Shop in Walmart Stores Each Month [pymnts.com]
        [2] FACT SHEET: Walmart’s Made in America Pledge [americanma...turing.org]

    • I don't know about how gallium or germanium is mined but for a long time there's been calls for changes to USA mining regulations to make it profitable to mine rare earth metals in the USA. In spite of the name rare earth metals aren't all that rare, they are just a bit difficult to mine.

      There was considerable mining of rare earth metals in the USA but when the rules changed on what was to be done with the thorium that exists in the same ore as the rare earth metals that made it impossible to compete with

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by KlomDark ( 6370 )
        Can't we just get Germanium from the Germans? Seems the most logical source. ;)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        It's not that they're difficult to mine, it's that they're difficult to refine. That *is* a significant difference. Most of the "rare earths" have chemical reactions so close to each other that refining the one you want out of the mix is a real problem. (In other words, expensive.) I think (not sure about this one) that also most of the ores are pretty dilute.
        But we had rare earth mines in the US until China started selling the stuff to us cheaper than we could sell it to ourselves. And who's going to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      We can implement protectionist or mercantilist policy without resorting state ownership.

      We certainly don't have to retaliate in kind either. We can very simply and unambiguously tie our tariff book to Chinese behavior, enact legislation with triggers that banning the use of Chinese parts and materials in consumer products when other even if completely unrelated trade conditions occur.

      We can tell the WTO to STFU. We CAN do these things we just have to want to!

      • We can implement protectionist or mercantilist policy without resorting state ownership.

        We certainly don't have to retaliate in kind either. We can very simply and unambiguously tie our tariff book to Chinese behavior, enact legislation with triggers that banning the use of Chinese parts and materials in consumer products when other even if completely unrelated trade conditions occur.

        We can tell the WTO to STFU. We CAN do these things we just have to want to!

        So you retaliated against them in the first place because you just don't like them.
        Then they retaliate against that.
        And now you want to retaliate against their retaliation.
        This is just a fucking mess and you are both bringing the whole world down around you.
        Fucking grow up the both of you.

    • You honestly think libertarian philosophy is driving any US policy whatsoever? Give me some of whatever you're smoking, 'cause that delusion is awesome.

      • Libertarians were occasionally useful idiots for globalists, who were useful idiots for Pooh. The US was kow-tow-ing to Davos ideology and influence since the 90s, till Trump/Biden.

        PS. even though Kissinger kicked off the problem, I don't think he was a globalist perse. He just seems convinced that he can win at diplomacy at all times and there is not a lot of room for diplomacy in total isolation, so nothing for him to win.

      • The USA is a Randian fantasy. Corporations control everything and the only merit that matters is money. This is what libertarianism actually looks like. When you let money make the rules, you are ruled by those with money.

    • Yes. I find it most rational to think of the CCP as a ruthless corporation that owns a government, military, national school system, etc and has de-facto control of all other Chinese corporations rather than a political organization that controls a government. They believe that they can and should economically dominate the world. Their behavior isn't communist, it isn't really even socialist. The social safety net for a worker in France is probably greater than what a worker has in China.

      I think part

    • One of the fatal flaws of all of the free trade arguments is that free trade just doesn't work when you have a trade partner whose government is actively engaged in nationalistic industrial policy.

      Eg how the USA imposes sanctions?

      The world is an interlinked web of dependencies. No one country can control it. This isn't the days of the Roman Empire and the USA isn't Rome, nor even the Mongols.

    • In fairness the US has engaged in nationalistic industrial policy long long before china did. This is mostly retaliatory.

  • Time to get local...ish... (Score:3)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Friday September 22, 2023 @01:20PM (#63869591)

    China commands such a vast amount of the market by having no brakes on their metal mining at all, and precious few controls. Other countries could make it, but to make a dent they have to apply a similarly ruthless strategy.

    Canada exports gallium and germanium, but ramping up production of it might cause the Canadian contribution to global CO2 to increase from 1.5% to 1.52%... better fire up the indignation-meter... can't let that go unaddressed.

    • Pretty sure it's the result of lower labor costs in China. Because they have so many people, and also because Mongol and Western invasions were destroying their governments repeatedly resulting in entire people becoming second rate thus cheaper to hire. So I'd say it's all fakery, Chinese exports benefit Westerners more. Main problem that it becomes clear that it won't last because China can't be invaded anymore, with acceptable losses at least.

      • China is running out of people. Well, running out of people young enough to work and raise families.

        There's a number of people talking about the demographic problem in China, and perhaps the most prominent is Peter Zeihan. Zeihan has talked about how China has been under reporting birth rates for five years, making them coming up short on their reported population by millions. The local administrators got away with this deception because there's no real verification on births until the children are old e

        • Demographics take long time to have effect, also western countries are way ahead in the aging process, so it won't matter.

          • Demographics take long time to have effect, also western countries are way ahead in the aging process, so it won't matter.

            A quick trip over to Wikipedia tells me that the one-child policy was in effect from 1979 to 2015. I'd call that "a long time to take effect".
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            As a refresher on what defines the different generations that's like seeing the population of Millennial and Gen Z generations cut nearly in half what they are in much of the West. A Millennial would be born between 1981 and 1996, Gen Z from 1997 to 2012.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            Just because it is permissible to have two or m

    • https://www.canadaaction.ca/al... [canadaaction.ca]

      #5 - Canada was the world's fourth-largest primary aluminum producer following China (1), India (2), and Russia (3) as of 2020. (NRC)

      #6 - By utilizing hydroelectricity and other technologies, Canadian aluminum producers have one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world compared to other large producers, with a world-leading average of 2 tons of CO2 equivalent per megatonne of production. (NRC, AAC)

      #7 - As of 2020, Canadian aluminum miners had 10 active smelters: one in K

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ukoda ( 537183 )
        Fun fact, New Zealand also produces low CO2 aluminum using hydroelectricity, which the USA puts heavy tariffs on to "protect national security". That's right the USA cowers in fear of the power of New Zealand.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      China is copying what we did during our industrial revolutions. Largely unrestricted mining, resulting in terrible pollution, and big profits. Our economies grew fast, before we decided to de-industrialize a bit and move more towards service based economies.

      China is due to hit peak emissions around 2025-26. Mining is already cleaning up, so it's not clear if it will decrease by 2030 or if it will just stop emitting so much CO2. It's bad for the environment in other ways, and the Chinese government has shown

  • China had already stained its reputation as a global trade partner, this will take it farther. No exports of any materials made there can be considered reliable at this point.

  • That's it, no more pandering to the Chinese! (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday September 22, 2023 @01:31PM (#63869647)

    We'll build everything back here now! And mine the Gallium and Germanium we need ourselves!

    Erh... uh... do we have to? I mean, imagine what this means. Remember back when we had an industry that built our own TVs, radios, computers and all that crap over here? I do. Back in the 1980s we did have manufacturing. Remember what a TV cost back then? I do. It was about as much as my dad earned in 2-3 months (I didn't earn anything... except maybe a spanking now and then).

    Who is willing to drop 5000 bucks on a TV (and I don't mean one with all bells and whistles that gives you a blowjob while cooking your coffee, but a simple, ordinary, can-maybe-tune-into-the-next-football-game-if-the-weather-is-right TV)? Who would pay 15 grand for a computer? 2000 for your washing machine?

    Moreover: Who could even afford that?

    Wanting autarky is one thing. Being able to afford it is a totally different story.

    • I agree US manufactured goods would cost more, but by an order of magnitude? Sounds like hyperbole to me. There are advantages both societal and strategic to maintaining healthy manufacturing in a country just like food production.

      • They probably wouldn't. But they also could not compete with Chinese cheap crap. I would expect them to cost about 20% more than Chinese gadgets. And 20% more for essentially the same product is already a no-go. It doesn't have to cost 10 times more.

        On the upside, we'd have domestic manufacturing, which would please a lot of people. First and foremost, of course, there would be jobs for people who could otherwise only get jobs where the catchphrase "you want fries with that" is a key element. Then there is

        • I would expect them to cost about 20% more than Chinese gadgets. And 20% more for essentially the same product is already a no-go. It doesn't have to cost 10 times more.

          That's around the same number I would expect as well. The biggest difficulty would be replacing the labor force. There aren't enough workers in America to replace all the labor done in China, at any price.

          • Yes and no.

            It would maybe even cost less once production is up and we have people with enough money again to buy them. The labor force isn't that big of a problem, considering that we currently have a substantial amount of people in null-jobs like "Walmart greeters" and the like. I think there's more capacity than we expect, provided the wages are right.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rta ( 559125 )

      Washing machines are already $2000

      but more generally this export ban is mostly just for show:

      The Chinese government's decision to impose export controls on gallium has been made after careful consideration. On the one hand, it can majestically respond to sanctions imposed by Western countries and Japan, and on the other hand, it will not cause much negative impact on the industry supply chain. After all, China has a comprehensive strategic deployment in the compound semiconductor industry.

      (https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20230711PD201/gaas-gan-china-supply-chain.html ) (yes that's from July ,not just now, but generally the article discusses how it's relatively unlikely that disruption will happen)

      • You buying industrial ones for your laundromat? The average washing machine goes for 300-400 over here. 500 if you want something fancy.

        • I don't know where 'here' is, but your prices are for low end models in the US. $600 average and $1000 fancy. So 2000 for a set (with matching dryer) isn't really out of touch.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by rta ( 559125 )

            Don't forget the pedestal!

            You're right that $2k is more likely a price for a set, but BestBuy has some consumer grade LG's that are $2k for just the washer just for the washing machine without even a pedestal. And several between $1500 and $2k.

            list sorted by price DESC:
            https://www.bestbuy.com/site/w... [bestbuy.com]

            And this is BestBuy, a middle market retailer with generally reasonable prices, not some specialty place.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by havana9 ( 101033 )
      The higher costs on 1980s electronic appliances was because of the technologies that were available that made the manufacturing more complex, with more components that were less capable.
      A modern CPU now contains all the logic that in a 90s PC was spread on simpler chips on the motherboard and the graphics card was a full size card with a lot of IC on them. I feel also that build quality has fallen somehow: even comparing the same brand the quality of products they made 30 years ago was better than the one

      • It's less that build quality per se dropped, we just grew smaller and faster than we could keep up with our ability to produce quality. We're still producing with (almost) the same margin of error that we did back in the 1990s, only that a nanometer left or right didn't matter back then while today it's the difference between a CPU that works and one that fails at 60% of calculations.

        The problem is that we produce the same quality that we did 30 years ago, but the fault tolerance of our products became smal

  • How quicky you people forgot that biden stopped us from mining out own rare earths. https://nypost.com/2023/03/22/... [nypost.com]

    • Ah yes clickbait. Did you actually read what you posted? Of course not.

      Biden banned access Tuesday to nearly 514,000 acres of public lands, including a new national park in Nevada, Avi Kwa Ame.

      The rest of the article is an op-ed piece. I'm happy public lands aren't being mined.

    • First off the New York Post is not noted for being an unbiased source of journalism. Second, germanium and gallium are not rare earths; google it if you donâ(TM)t know what a rare earth are. They are somewhat rare but can be derived from the refining of aluminum so a ban in the US is a non factor as we import aluminum more cost effectively from other countries like Canada. They have higher grade ire there and itâ(TM)s cheaper. Third, Biden temporarily stopped some licenses until proper environme

    • Just FYI. That site has over 200 different plants that, if we mined the lithium there, they would be extinct. That said, I let "is it a fair price to pay" argument to whoever. Just wanted to forward why the Bureau of Land Management had recommended such. Also, this location has zero of the things that were brought up in the parent story. So why the fuck are you bringing it up? Lithium is not gallium or germanium, just saying.

    • How quicky you people forgot that biden stopped us from mining out own rare earths.

      There's plenty of people aware that rare earth mining in the USA is nearly impossible under existing regulations. This has been going on for a long time due in large part to how naturally occurring thorium in the mining tails is treated under current regulations. We had a market for thorium in the USA but that was largely destroyed by rules controlling disposal of radioactive elements. Thorium is radioactive but more like substitute salt (the potassium salt sold in grocery stores for people with low sodi

  • The problem with G and G (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Friday September 22, 2023 @01:47PM (#63869711)

    You generally get both gallium and germanium as side effects of mining vastly greater quantities of other metals. You don't mine them directly. You mine bauxite or zinc, and get them, sort of as a side effect.

    Gallium is 50 grams per metric ton in bauxite, germanium is about 30 in zinc ore. For reference, this makes them more plentiful than gold (in density, not in general) in similar masses of ore, but you still need to move a whole lot of material to get them. And the price they command isn't nearly as good as gold.

    So what has to scale is metal mining in general, and to vast quantities. China has that going on already - it's why they're top of the export heap.

  • ...is a female dog.

  • Me. That's who. I've been warning about this "strategy" of "containing china tech" for a long time now and it finally bit us in the ass. Actually, it didn't take too long. The Chips Act was like... what, a few months ago? Yeah.

  • Gee (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Saturday September 23, 2023 @08:12AM (#63871171) Journal
    If only some recent president had wanted to wean us off China ...

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