China is betting long on green, but also disturbing strategic planners in the way Germans and French played brinksman with coal and iron once upon a time, and Russia does with gas and oil. The irony is that these green metals have been mined in the most polluting of ways:
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a draft plan last April to halt all exports of heavy rare earths, partly on environmental grounds and partly to force other countries to buy manufactured products from China. When the plan was reported on Sept. 1, Western governments and companies strongly objected and Ms. Wang announced on Sept. 3 that China would not halt exports and would revise its overall plan. But the ministry subsequently cut the annual export quota for all rare earths by 12 percent, the fourth steep cut in as many years.
Here’s hoping China exercises quotas wisely. It would be a terrible irony to have a war over green tech.
