English
After entering the new era, in order to enhance their own military strength, all countries have devoted their energy to the research and development of high-precision weapons. When it comes to this, it must be mentioned that rare earths are an important resource. Due to the differences in geographical environment, the reserves of rare earths in different countries are very different. As the country with the largest rare earth reserves in the world, China has naturally attracted the attention of many countries. It is reported that China’s rare earths once accounted for 70% of the global reserves. After years of consumption, my country’s rare earth reserves have dropped significantly. Even so, China is still the world’s largest rare earth country.
China’s rare earth export volume has dropped sharply, and the United States has no choice but to seek a next home: In the past many years, the United States has frequently purchased rare earth resources from China, which not only led to a sharp decline in my country’s rare earth reserves, but also made the United States extremely dependent on us. In order to prevent rare earth resources from being hollowed out, China has issued a number of export bans, not only that, but also updated the rare earth resource tax. China’s decision has greatly affected the rare earth purchase plan of the United States. In order to prevent its country from falling into a passive situation, the United States has been looking for a new home in recent years. After years of persistent search, the United States finally came out with good news. It turned out that the country set its sights on China’s neighbor, Mongolia.
Rare earth is known as “industrial gold”. Because of its special physical properties, it can form a variety of new materials when combined with other materials. With the help of rare earth resources, the quality and performance of other products can be greatly improved. It is often used in manufacturing projects such as fighter planes and tanks. Once it is applied to the military, the country’s military strength will also increase sharply. After the end of the Cold War, the United States has launched many wars. The overwhelming effect is directly related to rare earth resources.
Want to fall to the west? Mongolia: a good opportunity to stand up
Although Mongolia has a small land area, its rare earth reserves exceed 30 million tons, making it the second country in the world with rare earth reserves. The United States is very excited about this. In order to get rid of its dependence on China as soon as possible, the United States hopes to reach cooperation with Mongolia as soon as possible. This cooperation is beneficial to both parties, and Mongolia can also take the opportunity to improve its own economic development status. This cooperation seems to have no problems on the surface, but the United States quickly realized the importance of the problem. Since Mongolia is a landlocked country, close to China and Russia, the United States wants to smoothly ship rare earths under the situation of China and Russia. , The difficulty can be said to be very large.
A new question comes to the United States: how to ship it back?
Although Mongolia has a large amount of rare earth resources, the country’s transportation system is immature. Under such circumstances, even if the United States can spend money to buy a large amount of rare earths, there is no way to smoothly ship them back to the country. Take Russia as an example. Since the Soviet era, the two countries have accumulated a lot of contradictions. For Russia, it is impossible to watch the United States ship rare earths back. The country is bound to find opportunities to disrupt the two countries’ transactions. The reason why the U.S. military is so strong is mainly because it is drenched in the light of the army and advanced weapons. To produce such advanced weapons and equipment, it will inevitably consume a large amount of rare earths. If the United States and Mongolia successfully reach cooperation, it will pose a fatal threat to Russia. In order to prevent itself from being passive, Russia will never wait to die. In fact, the United States can transport rare earths back without passing through China and Russia. Air transportation can meet the needs of the United States. Compared with land transportation, the cost of air transportation is doubled. Even the United States, which is economically powerful, cannot withstand such pressure. Using transport aircraft to transport rare earths will at least double the US budget. For the United States, this is indeed not a foolproof solution. Due to such considerations, the United States and Mongolia have not reached an agreement for a long time. It is better to say that even if the United States successfully transports rare earths back to China, the newly mined rare earths cannot be used directly. Countries with mature processing technologies in the world do not. Not many. China is one of them. After all, the United States still cannot get rid of China’s dependence.