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Why does the rare earth kingdom have no right to speak?
China's Ministry of Commerce said that on March 13, China received a request for consultations on export management measures for rare earths, tungsten and molybdenum proposed by the United States, the European Union and Japan under the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism. At the same time, US President Barack Obama announced that he has signed the amendment to the 1930 Tariff Act, renewing punitive tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, and will take further action to appeal to the WTO on China’s restrictions on rare earth exports. Negotiating with China. In response, the Chinese government quickly responded. The Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have demonstrated their attitudes from their respective fields of work. The general principle is that China will properly handle relevant matters in accordance with the WTO dispute settlement procedures. China’s disputes with the international market on rare earth exports have a long history. Rare earth is a collective term for 17 elements that are used in a wide range of high-tech products, including solar panels, wind turbines and mobile phones. In recent years, the industrial application field of rare earths has gradually increased. However, rare earth is a scarce resource. The world's proven rare earth reserves are only 100 million tons, while China's rare earth reserves account for 36% of global reserves, while exports account for 90% of the global market. In 2008, the Chinese government began to implement strict export quota management for rare earths, which naturally caused serious international dissatisfaction. Now, the dispute has been turned over to the WTO, and from the perspective of the WTO's handling of similar disputes in the past, China is not entirely in a favorable position in this dispute. When China joined the WTO 10 years ago, the export of 84 products listed in the signed protocol can be invoked by reference to the "exception clause", but unfortunately, rare earth is not within this range. This situation can only show that China's serious shortage of product technology innovation capabilities, as well as the lack of understanding of the strategic position of rare earth resources, led to the loss of the right to speak today. Another aspect that needs to be learned is that, for a long time, driven by the GDP baton, the excessive development of rare earth resources by some local governments not only caused irreparable damage to the local environment, but also caused disorder of export. status. Before the implementation of export quota management, foreign rare earth traders can directly sign export contracts with local governments, and they are also happy to see the chaos of rare earth development. Faced with the challenges of the US, Europe and Japan, China has already demonstrated its positive attitude of responding to the initiative. However, export quota management is a practice that is easy to be grasped by people, and it is difficult to get approval from the WTO. We must reinforce and find a proper solution to play a positive role in complying with WTO rules and protecting our own resources. Most importantly, we must learn from this case carefully. In international trade, we cannot give up the right to speak for the immediate benefit.