Deng Xiaoping said in 1992 - The Middle East has oil, we have rare earths

Deng Xiaoping said - The Middle East has oil; we have rare earths. This message was delivered in 1992 to the Chinese people during his Southern Tour of China. How prophetic was Deng's foresight to this day. That was more than thirty years ago, and it already indicated then that China was well into dominating rare earth supplies. It goes to show that China was already working out its intention to dominate in rare earth extraction and refining.

I guess at that time, nobody in the West and Japan paid much attention, as semiconductors, chips, EVs were still relatively undeveloped or known to be so dependent on rare earth magnets. The thinking was that rare earth dirt is so abundant everywhere and there is nothing to fear. What they failed to see was rare earth dirt may be abundant, the difficulty of refining the ore into useful magnets is not simple. And during those thirty years, no country took the trouble to start building the refining logistics on the scale that the Chinese were doing, just harping on the abundance of rare earth ores in countries that they can lay their hands on.

I always say that China thinks long term - always twenty to thirty years timeline at least. And the Chinese work to fulfil that timeline, unperturbed, headstrong and convincing themselves that nothing is going to stand in their way. Not even ridicule, not even gloom and doom prophecies and not even constant demonizing was able to detract the Chinese agenda.

The patience and ability to choose the right course has paid off for the Chinese.


Anonymous