Newsletter Subject

Going Underground

From

thesgnl.email

Email Address

newsletters@thesgnl.email

Sent On

Sun, Nov 26, 2023 11:03 PM

Email Preheader Text

Why are Washington and Beijing fighting for control over minerals? Nicholas Kumleben on China’s

Why are Washington and Beijing fighting for control over minerals? Nicholas Kumleben on China’s dominance of key components in renewable energy and military hardware. Going Underground Why are Washington and Beijing fighting for control over minerals? Nicholas Kumleben on China’s dominance of key components in renewable energy and military hardware. Clem Onojeghuo There’s been a new turn of events in the global struggle between the U.S. and China this month, as Beijing announced export rules on rare-earth elements considered critical minerals: They’re essential in producing advanced technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and military equipment, including missiles, submarine sonar, and fighter jets—as well as consumer technologies, including every cell phone and semiconductor chip in the world. While China dominates the production of important critical minerals globally, the U.S. and its allies have been working to create their own supply chains. Beijing’s new export controls, meanwhile, require Chinese companies to report to the government details of every export transaction involving rare-earth metals. The new rules come just four months after China altogether banned exports of the germanium and gallium needed for semiconductor chips and solar panels. Why all this tension around these minerals? Nicholas Kumleben is the energy director at the consulting firm Greenmantle, where he leads research on energy, commodities, and climate change. According to Kumleben, both the U.S. and China see critical minerals as strategically important—and only becoming more so over time. Yet they’re also unusual among key economic sectors where the two countries are competing: Washington has greater power in industries like energy and semiconductor chips, but China dominates a lot of markets for the minerals that go into them. So China uses its leverage in these markets to retaliate against U.S. moves to damage the Chinese economy—as they did after the U.S. administration’s [ban last fall]( on exports of the most advanced semiconductor chips to China. Meanwhile, the United States is having some success building a critical-minerals supply chain outside China’s reach. But, as Kumleben sees it, it’s still very unclear whether the U.S. or any alliance of Western countries will be able to compete with China in global mineral markets—on account of all the advantages China has with its low labor costs and light regulation. Michael Bluhm: How much control does China have over critical minerals in the world? Advertisement Nicholas Kumleben: It depends on the minerals. China has a lot of control over rare-earth metals and some very specialized metals. Mostly, these are used as components in electronics; but they’re also used in electric vehicles—EVs—and energy technologies developed for the transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. This control is partly a result of the fact that Beijing is pushing to create a strong supply chain in the extraction and processing of critical minerals within China by the year 2030; but it’s also a result of the fact that the markets for critical minerals altogether are relatively small. It’s a lot easier to corner a market worth $10 billion a year in total than it is to dominate global markets in the hundreds of billions for, say, copper or aluminum. Now, however, we’re starting to see more geopolitical competition in the supply chains where China has the most control. It’s no accident that in July, China put export restrictions on the rare-earth elements gallium and germanium. Why? Because China dominates these markets; the markets are relatively small; and the elements are used in important areas of manufacturing—such as semiconductor chips and solar panels. Bluhm: You mention the relatively huge global markets for commodities like copper or aluminum. How much control does China have over these bigger markets? Kumleben: Let’s take cobalt and lithium, for example—China’s control over the markets for those minerals is somewhere in the middle of the range. It’s not a monopoly; there are major Western firms at every link in the supply chains—from mining to refining, trading, and end use. But Beijing has been working to increase the role of Chinese companies and the Chinese state throughout these supply chains. Their control has gotten stronger in recent years. For instance, Chinese companies have taken a greater share of cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of Congo; they’ve signed lithium-extraction monopolies in Bolivia; and they’re buying more projects across Latin America. Overall, China is increasingly controlling markets that are becoming increasingly important. That’s pushed policy makers in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere to create medium- and long-term plans to build a more secure supply chain—meaning one that excludes China. Bryan Robinson More from Nicholas Kumleben at The Signal: “Beijing is trying to increase and protect its access to these minerals. It has two reasons: One, it sees Washington moving to reduce or eliminate dependencies on China economically—to decouple from the Chinese economy—and increasing U.S.-China tensions generally. Two, China’s whole economic strategy for the next few years is built largely on industries that rely on critical minerals.” “If supplies of critical minerals were disrupted, there’d be a lot of things that would be very difficult to produce. Cell phones are a good example. They use tiny amounts of many rare-earth elements, and their batteries rely on lithium. … Even basic infrastructure requires critical minerals. … The U.S. administration’s big plans to shore up American infrastructure would be very difficult to pull off without a secure supply chain for critical minerals.” “Critical minerals are exceptional because they’re a field China dominates. In many other fields of U.S.-China economic competition, the U.S. has a lot more leverage—even its own dominance—as with [semiconductors](. In the economic competition between the two countries, the U.S. has many ways to hurt China—but the critical-minerals industry is one of the few where China can really hurt the U.S., with relatively little downside.” [Continue reading]( … and become a member—for access to full articles, our full archive, and to support The Signal as we build a new approach to current affairs. [Join here]( The Signal | 1717 N St. NW, Washington, DC 20011 [Unsubscribe {EMAIL}]( [Constant Contact Data Notice]( Sent by newsletters@thesgnl.email

Marketing emails from thesgnl.email

View More
Sent On

25/01/2024

Sent On

18/01/2024

Sent On

11/01/2024

Sent On

04/01/2024

Sent On

21/12/2023

Sent On

07/12/2023

Email Content Statistics

Subscribe Now

Subject Line Length

Data shows that subject lines with 6 to 10 words generated 21 percent higher open rate.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Number of Words

The more words in the content, the more time the user will need to spend reading. Get straight to the point with catchy short phrases and interesting photos and graphics.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Number of Images

More images or large images might cause the email to load slower. Aim for a balance of words and images.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Time to Read

Longer reading time requires more attention and patience from users. Aim for short phrases and catchy keywords.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Predicted open rate

Subscribe Now

Spam Score

Spam score is determined by a large number of checks performed on the content of the email. For the best delivery results, it is advised to lower your spam score as much as possible.

Subscribe Now

Flesch reading score

Flesch reading score measures how complex a text is. The lower the score, the more difficult the text is to read. The Flesch readability score uses the average length of your sentences (measured by the number of words) and the average number of syllables per word in an equation to calculate the reading ease. Text with a very high Flesch reading ease score (about 100) is straightforward and easy to read, with short sentences and no words of more than two syllables. Usually, a reading ease score of 60-70 is considered acceptable/normal for web copy.

Subscribe Now

Technologies

What powers this email? Every email we receive is parsed to determine the sending ESP and any additional email technologies used.

Subscribe Now

Email Size (not include images)

Font Used

No. Font Name
Subscribe Now

Copyright © 2019–2024 SimilarMail.