Rare earths in the United States are all imported. For example, the Patriot missile they built militarily uses a large number of rare earths in the guidance system, and the engine and fuselage of the F-22 fighter depend on rare earths. An American military officer even said that all the military miracles in the Gulf War and the subsequent military development were made by rare earths. Without rare earths, the military strength of the United States will be greatly weakened in the next 30 years.
China is the country with the most rare earths in the world, which has attracted many netizens' abuse because of its low price, but we need to know the story behind it. In 1960s, due to the backward domestic production technology, the United States monopolized the global rare earth energy supply at that time, so China could only sell rare earth minerals at a low price and then import rare earth finished products at a high price. This stage was forced by backward technology and blockade, and then China researchers broke the purification technology.
However, after 1990, China advocated market-oriented reform, economic development and social progress. At this time, small and medium-sized enterprises in China all take "profit maximization" as their action goal. At that time, the domestic research and development of rare earth purification technology was not patented, which led to a significant reduction in the threshold of rare earth production. Lured by short-term profits, rare earth exports began to expand greatly. At that time, China had not realized the importance of rare earth, and domestic foreign exchange was scarce, so rare earth became the main source of foreign exchange.
According to statistics, from 1990 to 2005, China's rare earth export volume increased by 10 times, accounting for 80% of the world, and vicious competition among a large number of enterprises became the main source of rare earth price reduction. In addition, western countries have completed the primitive accumulation of technology and capital, and started to shear the wool of our developing countries. In fact, this is a helpless move, and it is also a process that China must go through in the accumulation of primitive capital.
Fortunately, the process of economic globalization system has been perfected, and developing countries have become the main force of world economic development, and China is one of them. It can be seen from the rapid growth of GDP year after year that China is not short of money now. Through the efforts of researchers, there is no shortage of technology in some fields.