A Chinese trade official yesterday denied a New York Times report that China had banned exports of rare earths to Japan following the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain near the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台).
The report, which was sourced to unnamed industry experts, said an initial trade embargo on all exports of rare earth minerals would last through the end of this month.
“China has not issued any measures intended to restrict rare earth exports to Japan. There is no foundation for that,” said Chen Rongkai (陳榮凱), a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce.
“I don’t know how the New York Times came up with this, but it’s not true. There are no such measures,” Chen said.
This week, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) threatened retaliatory steps against Japan unless it released the trawler captain, whom Tokyo accuses of ramming two Japanese coastguard ships.
Major rare earths traders in China and Japan said they had not heard of any ban. One Japanese trade official said he had heard rumors of an embargo, but could not comment further.
Rare earths, a group of 17 metallic elements including yttrium and lanthanum used in small quantities to enhance batteries, computer and weapons systems, and other applications, are generally found together.
China is the dominant source of rare earths, accounting for 97 percent of world supply last year. Steep cuts in export quotas for the second half of this year mean that total export quotas for this year are about 40 percent below last year’s levels.
“Rare earths export quotas were cut pretty sharply and have been basically used up, you can’t export any to Europe or the US either. People think it’s about Japan, but it isn’t,” said Bruce Zhang (張曉鑫), a rare earths expert at consultancy Asian Metal.
“This has nothing to do with the fishing boat incident. The export quotas were issued long before that,” he said.
China has gradually over several years reduced exports of rare earths and some minor metals through a quota system designed to keep more of the minerals for its own industry. That effort has been undermined by smuggling, especially through Vietnam.
The trawler dispute, which analysts say is largely a row over energy resources beneath the sea around the disputed Diaoyutai or Senkaku islands, has heightened tensions between Asia’s biggest economies.
Beijing has suspended high-level contacts with Japan over the issue and postponed talks on increasing flights between two countries with close business and trade ties.
Japanese prosecutors have until Sept. 29 to decide whether to bring charges against the captain.
Chinese media have quoted researchers as speculating that cutting rare earths and other exports to Japan would be an option open to China, if the spat escalates.
“Japan has a great need for these resources from China, reducing or restricting resource exports to Japan would be a useful measure,” the Global Times newspaper cited Ministry of Commerce researcher Tang Chunfeng (唐淳風) as saying.
Rare earth miners in Canada, Australia and elsewhere are citing the reduction of supply from China when seeking financial backing for their own projects, leading some industry experts to project that any supply squeeze will be short-lived.
Also this week, hundreds of workers at a unit of Japanese-owned Synztec Precision Parts (Shenzhen) Co went on strike for higher pay, the Hong Kong Apple Daily yesterday quoted Shenzhen television as saying.
The strike was the latest in a series of labor actions by Chinese workers at Japanese factories this year.
An employee at Synztec Precision confirmed the strike at the company’s subsidiary in Longgang, but said she believed the dispute was resolved. She said she had no other information.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to