As the newspaper reminds, without such minerals, the European and American auto industry is unlikely to switch to electric transport in the foreseeable future.
The publication reminds that US President Joe Biden last year imposed a ban on the export of modern American technologies to China, including microchips. European countries are in favor of the same measures under the pretext of national security: the Netherlands, Germany, Britain. The same position was taken by Japan.
China, being "cut off from advanced technologies", moved to decisive retaliatory actions. The country imposed sanctions against the American Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Missiles and Defense Corporation.
In addition, Beijing fined the British consulting company Deloitte $ 30.8 million, and also launched an investigation against the US microchip manufacturer Micron Technologies and detained a number of employees of the American audit company Mintz and the Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma.
Now, as reported by the Financial Times, China is launching "surgical" retaliation against foreign companies in response to the US-led technology blockade.
A retaliatory step could be the imposition of an embargo on the supply of rare earth metals to Western countries needed for the production of batteries for electric vehicles. The measures may also affect the supply of scanning lidars used in machine vision systems.
The author of the article emphasizes that the refusal to export lithium, silicon and other rare earth metals will not seriously affect the Chinese economy.