Johnson: Can China ＂disconnect＂ the US military arsenal?

US President Trump often said that China may lose more than the United States in the Sino -US trade war, but critics have pointed out that there is a key point in the United States that the Trump administration cannot defend: the control of key materials is ChinaProvide a strong leverage so that it can control the war ability of the main strategic opponent.

Each advanced weapon in the US military arsenal; MDASH; from Tomahawk cruise missiles to F-35 fighters, to all kinds of ships such as the destroyer and cruisers equipped with Aegis; MDASH;Parts, including permanent magnets, special alloys and other key items, they are almost all produced in China.Perhaps even more worrying is that if the United States intervene in conflict in Syria, Iran or other places, it is necessary to quickly supplement smart bombs and precision missiles, and their long -term supply basically depends on China's acquiescence of continuous production of such materials.

Application of Rare Earth in the Guidance and Control System of U.S. Army

In late May, Beijing's release of Fengsheng China may cut off the rare earth supply in the United States. This threat has not been eliminated so far.At the beginning of June, Chinese official media said that the high -end rare earth products required by the US defense industry may be included in the list of Chinese restrictions on technology exports. This restriction itself is to respond to the pressure of US communications giants Huawei.The Society of China Global Times has a targeted process of rare earth processing. It writes: It has the ability to concentrate on the complete supply chain of American companies through some technical controls.

Three Consulting is a rare earth consulting company focusing on security issues. Its founder James Middot; Kennedy said: China has actually changed our way of managing war in the United States and may change the result of war.

Kennedy said that the signs of the Sino -US New Cold War have emerged. US national security officials regarded China as a commonly matched competitor and strategic opponent, while the United States' combat capabilities were largely in China.

He said: Rare earth is actually a hegemony trigger.If the United States falls into conflict, most of the advanced weapons it uses are supplied by China, which means that China can determine the conflict, which may lead to the transfer of hegemony.

James Middot; Kennedy compares the number of patents in China, the United States and Japan,

Rare earth elements are the key components of various advanced civil technology, such as mobile phones, electric vehicles and renewable energy equipment.They are even more important to national defense.According to the 2013 report of the US Congress Research Service Center, each Virginia-class attack nuclear submarine requires 9,200 pounds (4173 kg) rare earth materials, and each F-35 needs 920 pounds (417 kg).

The defense industry is different from most other industries and does not require low -end rare earth materials.Although rare earth has a thin word, in fact, there are a lot of reserves around the world.However, what the defense industry most needs is highly processed rare earth products, especially permanent magnets, and its producers are basically only Japan and China.In 2010 and 2011, Japan was influenced by China's rare earth embargo. Although it has reduced its dependence on Chinese suppliers to a certain extent, its rare earth value chain is still closely connected to China, and it has almost no ability to increase production to meet its domestic domestic.Take care of the United States while demand.

The highest -end rare earth products are high -power magnetic materials. It is applied to the guidance system of smart bombs and cruise missiles, and it is also indispensable for the tracking and safe communication of Zeng's missile missiles.

High -power 磁 magnet

Kennedy said that the US defense industry is also very dependent on many other rare earth products, including high -temperature coating and alloys for jet engines, as well as stealth coating for the fuselage, all advanced aiming systems, advanced radar and sound system system, Even include night mirror.

For many years, the Pentagon has been working hard to overcome the vulnerability of important rare earth materials to the foundation of the defense industry.The United States Government has tried to regain the extremely prosperous US rare earth industry, reserve key materials, and arranged alternative suppliers, but has achieved little results so far.

China often subsidizes its rare earth company and sold at a cost price or lower cost price, which makes it difficult for private companies to get involved in this industry.

Suppliers who can provide rare earth ore instead of China abound, but China occupies a dominant position in rare earth processing products, and these products are needed by the US defense industry.The US Department of Defense lacks a clear definition of the key materials in the end, and the key materials for their reserves are often not available.

In 2016, the U.S. government's accountability office concluded that the US Department of Defense has no comprehensive and unified ways to determine which rare earths are most important to national security.Once the supply is interrupted, there is a lack of response measures to ensure the sources of persistent and reliable.

Under the White House request, the Pentagon issued an evaluation report in 2018, which clearly expressed the US military's concerns about rare earth issues. The report accused China of intentionally using its monopoly on rare earth mines to squeeze the foundation of the US defense industry.The report specially warns that China is the only source or main supplier of some key materials used by many US military and missiles in the U.S. military.For example, a gadget that helps missile guides is called 钕-iron-boron permanent magnet. In the past, the United States could produce itself. Now it is made by almost all of them. The United States is completely produced at all.

Made in and national defense industry foundation and supply chain elastic assessment and enhancement report

The report found that in most cases, this material lacks alternatives, and in other cases, the time and cost of testing and identification alternatives are daunting.

The report summarizes: some key materials and technologies are strategic to US national security, and their supply is risky by major and growing risks from China.As the Sino -US trade conflict heats up, this dependence highlights the potential national security loopholes of the United States.

According to the report, the US manufacturing and defense industry base relies on strategic competitors to provide key goods, services and goods, while China's trade dominance and its willingness to use trade as soft power weapons have increased the risk facing the United States.

Former US defense officials emphasized that although this potential vulnerability has attracted much attention over the years, it is unclear whether there are solutions.

Andrew Middot, former director of the US Strategy and International Research Center of Pentagon, who used to be a senior official of the Pentagon; Hunter said: Rare earth elements are important for national defense applications. They have no simple alternatives, so we definitely need them.If our rare earth supply is cut off, the foundation of the defense industry will be severely hit.

Hunter said that China's rare earth export embargo has once led to a time agoThe price is soaring, but only temporary interference is caused, so many Pentagon officials hope that it will be in the market solution.However, he believes that I think the market plan is still feasible, but if the government does not take more intervention measures, I will not be optimistic about its future feasibility.

Nevertheless, it is unclear whether Beijing will really cut off the United States to obtain certain key minerals.At the end of May, Hu Xijin, editor -in -chief of the China Global Times, said that the government did not consider this idea, but may not take action immediately.Both China and the United States know that the rare earth disconnection will be a provocative step mdash; MDASH; especially considering that China has been trying to become an important supplier of rare earth materials in the past ten years.

Hu Xijin wrote on Twitter: I think the Chinese government will not do this immediately, but it is carefully evaluating the necessity of doing so.

Lao Hu's tweet

Since the Deng Xiaoping era, China has always attached great importance to the importance of rare earth and its importance in advanced technology.Deng Xiaoping has compared the importance of rare earth to China with the importance of controlling oil supply to the Middle East. He pointed out that there is oil in the Middle East and China has rare earth.

The leading position of China's rare earth industry provides support and cooperation with military technology.The Gulf War demonstrated the advanced nature of US military technology, and the US military's smart bomb completely changed the modern war.Robert Middot, Executive Deputy Minister of Defense of the United States; Walker and his colleagues Greg Middot; Grant's new report on Chinese military-technical offset strategy written by the New American Security Center pointed out that the Gulf War made Chinese leaders believe that technology must catch up with technology.To constitute a trusted threat to the US military forces, this is also what China has been doing in the past 30 years.

However, from the 1960s to the 1980s, it was the United States that dominated rare earth mining and processing.However, because rare earth is a niche industry that is difficult to make great profits, coupled with China's relatively loose environmental standards (rare earth often mixes with radioactive substances) to make it dominant in mining, the dominant position of the United States has begun to shake.

In 1980, the United States amended the regulatory policy of dealing with radioactive elements, and prohibited traditional mining companies from using raw materials such as iron and zinc while using raw materials such as iron and zinc, forcing them to deal with rare earth mine.This has caused a heavy blow to the rare earth industry in the United States, coupled with China's maintenance policy to seize the market, various factors are superimposed, bringing a thorough change: as a rare soil for the key components of the modern economy and modern army, grasping powerIt's easy.

While the rare earth leadership turned to China, another military revolution was in progress. The US military's high -tech weapons increasingly used those difficult materials that were difficult to obtain.Taking the most common Tomahawk cruise missiles in the US military ax as an example, if the key materials controlled by China are not obtained, Tomahawk missiles cannot read the terrain and find the target.

Kennedy said that next -generation weapons and quantum computing such as hypersonic missiles, orientation energy weapons, and quantum computing may rely more on rare earth materials that are highly processed.

Perhaps the scene of targeted weapons

Although the Pentagon reserves a variety of key materials and rare earths, it is mainly primitive or intermediate forms, rather than high -processing finished products required by the defense platform.For example, rare earth oxides must be further processed or refined in order to form metal and alloys, and eventually make permanent magnets for missile guidance systems and M1 EBrams series navigation systems.The ability to process rare earth in the United States is very poor, and it takes many years to rebuild.

Kennedy said: Key material reserve is a joke.

The Trump administration and many members are trying to restart the mining of rare earth in the United States. The Ministry of Commerce issued a report this month calling on the United States to solve the problem of importing dependence on key minerals.

The U.S. Department of Defense recently applied for federal funds to Congress to support rare earth mineral production.California's Mantin Pas mine is currently the only rare earth facility in the United States.It is worth noting that according to Reuters, China Shenghe Resources Holdings Co., Ltd. holds a minority equity of the mine, which owned the MP material company of the mine owner MP material company each year concentrated the mining of about 50,000 tons of California to China to process in China.

According to Reuters, at least three U.S. companies plan to open a rare earth processing plant, of which the house in Mantinpas will start next year, with a rare earth output of about 5,000 tons each year.

Mountain Pass in Mohwa Desert in California

However, even if the United States opens more mines and processing plants, it may be difficult to weaken China's control of the entire production chain from mines to magnetic.Even if it is high -profile, such as Lenas, its measures to establish a rare earth separation factory in Texas cannot solve the problem of the Pentagon, because rare earth oxides still have to be transported overseas to make alloys or permanent magnets.

For many years, some people have suggested that the U.S. government allows technology companies to set up cooperatives MDash; MDash; this is also a method advocated by Kennedy.It will provide a dragon -style rare earth service: from mining, separation, processing to making advanced metals and magnets, without worrying about the problem of continuous bankruptcy of the industry for decades.

Some Republicans of the House of Representatives are urging the government to take this step as soon as possible, and the White House can achieve these measures by issuing administrative orders.

But at present, the rare earth dilemma in the United States has not been resolved.

(Observer.com Yang Yiyi is translated from foreign policy website)