Tag: China
China Prepares for War: A Timeline
Trade War Heats Up With China’s Export Restrictions on Two Critical Minerals
“”China will impose export restrictions on industrial products and materials containing gallium and germanium from August 1 to ensure its national security and interests,” China Daily, a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, announced this week. “According to the relevant provisions of China’s Export Control Law, Foreign Trade Law and Customs Law, gallium, which is used in the production of semiconductors and optoelectronic devices, and germanium, an important raw material for the semiconductor industry, as well as their related products, cannot be exported without permission after July. Export of other industrial materials such as gallium nitride, gallium oxide and zone-refined germanium ingot have also been prohibited.”
That’s a big deal because, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, “in 2021 the top exporters of Gallium, germanium, hafnium, indium, niobium (columbium), rhenium and vanadium: articles thereof, unwrought, including waste and scrap, powders were China ($170M), Chinese Taipei ($53.2M), Germany ($52.4M), Brazil ($43.1M), and South Korea ($32.4M).” China alone is responsible for 29.4 percent of the total (the U.S. is also an exporter, with a 5.47 percent share.)
Specifically breaking out the two restricted minerals, Reuters adds that China produces roughly 60 percent of the world’s germanium and 80 percent of gallium. So, there’s a lot at stake here for computer chip producers and for governments trying to promote domestic producers at the expense of Chinese competitors.”
China’s Secret Mercenary Army Exposed
China secretly sends enough gear to Russia to equip an army
“Russia has imported more than $100 million-worth of drones from China so far this year — 30 times more than Ukraine. And Chinese exports of ceramics, a component used in body armor, increased by 69 percent to Russia to more than $225 million, while dropping by 61 percent to Ukraine to a mere $5 million, Chinese and Ukrainian customs data show.
“What is very clear is that China, for all its claims that it is a neutral actor, is in fact supporting Russia’s positions in this war,” said Helena Legarda, a lead analyst specializing in Chinese defense and foreign policy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin think tank.
Were China to cross the red line and sell weapons or military equipment to Russia, Legarda said she would expect the EU to enforce secondary sanctions targeting enablers of Putin’s war of aggression.”