I suddenly realized that the completition between China and the United States has entered a decisive stage, and the fundamental reason is that China has played the rare earth card.

After this card was played, Americans increasingly feels being “choked”. They will definitely invest in the rare earth industry and study refining technology. Although their manufacturing has declined a lot recently, we obviously cannot expect them to never make a breakthrough, it will takes 5 or 10 years or more.

Within the 5-10 year window, rare earth card can be used to either exchange some geopolitical benefit such as Taiwan or greatly weaken the American military production for years. Both great for China! China can live with either result.

But if China now relax rare earth exports now, it will only give American more time to build its own rare earth industry, and China will lose this card by then. This determines that once China decides to play this card, it will definitely be strategic and long-term, rather than short-term.

This is actually somewhat like the steel and oil embargo the United States imposed on Japan before the Pearl Harbor incident. Americans are now in a state of anxiety and madness, just like the Japanese in 1941. The options faced by the Japanese at the time were to either withdraw their troops from China as the United States requested or their naval vessels were unable to go to sea due to lack of oil in 1-2 years. Japanese finally chose the Pearl Harbor.

For China, The first thing is to realize that the big moment has arrived. PLA must be well-prepared for the war. The possibility of the United States attacking China’s “Pearl Harbor” cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, China also should tell Americans that as long as they support China’s unification with Taiwan, the supply of rare earths can be restored. There indeed is a way out other than WW3.

Vir: DaiWW