China And The Geopolitics Of Rare Earths Hardcover

Sophia Kalantzakos

Rare earths are elements that are found in the Earth's crust, and are vital ingredients for the production of a wide variety of high tech, defense, and green technologies - everything from iPhones and medical technologies, to wind turbines, efficiency lighting, smart bombs, and submarines. While they are not particularly "rare" in availability, they are difficult and expensive to mine. Yet, China has managed to gain control over an estimated 97 percent of the rare earth industry since the 1990s through cheap production, high export taxes, and artificial limitations of supply. Rare earths, and China's monopoly over them, became international news after China "unofficially" halted exports to Japan, the United States, and Europe in 2010. This embargo followed a collision between Chinese and Japanese boats in the East China Sea, a locus of geopolitical and economic tension between the two countries. Although the World Trade Organization forced China to scrap its restrictions, it still holds a stranglehold over these elements that are so critical to the economic and security interests of the United States and its allies. Sophia Kalantzakos argues that the 2010 rare earth crisis signaled more than just a trade dispute. Rather, it raises questions about China's use of economic statecraft, and must be regarded as a part of the larger discourse of global power relations. Importantly, this book also argues that the failure of political actors in the United States and Europe to pass policy to address future supply, or the scientific and business communities to devise sustainable rare earth production outside of China, points to future resource competition. Focusing on China's monopoly over the rare earth industry, this book examines the impacts of growing worldwide resource competition and the complexities policymakers face as they develop strategies and responses in an increasingly globalized world.

9780190670931

English

Oxford University Press Inc

8/Feb/18

248

Sophia Kalantzakos is Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at New York University.

With insight and informed analysis, Kalantzakos demonstrates how the 2010 rare earth metals crisis and China's monopoly of them may be a harbinger of world geopolitics to come. Given the vital role of rare earth metals to modern economies, Kalantzakos' book offers a comprehensively researched and incisively written account of one way the 21st century may be 'China's century'. It challenges conventional understandings of international relations and international political economy, and how we need new thinking to cope with complexity, technological innovation, and the dynamic between competition and cooperation as solutions to resource scarcity. This is an important book offering new ways of thinking about global geopolitics in the decades ahead.-John Barry, Professor of Green Political Economy, Queens University Belfast "China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths is a groundbreaking study of the newest global conflict over natural resources. Kalantzakos' account is immensely readable, and without any doubt the best study currently available of the political, economic, and environmental challenges of the rare earths crisis."-Christof Mauch, Director of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich