China’s Attempts to Corner Global Rare-Earth Metal Markets Turn to Dust

choi

Joseph Sternberg, How the Great Rare-Earth Metals Crisis Vanished; China’s attempt to control the market for materials essential to the tech industry is turning to dust. Wall Street Journal, Jan 9, 2014 (op-ed).
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303848104579308252845415022

My comment:
(a) The essence of the article is reminiscent of Oil Crisis engineered by OPEC, which is not mentioned in the article, though.
(b) “Except that it turns out Beijing doesn't have the wherewithal to execute such a dastardly plan. Consider the new plan Beijing unveiled last week to consolidate its rare-earth industry into six large extraction and processing companies. As a start, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Company (yes, that's its name) is buying nine of its smaller competitors in the north, with more mergers and acquisitions to come. This is at least the second time in roughly a decade that Beijing has attempted rare-earth rationalization.”
(i) dastardly (adj): “characterized by underhandedness or treachery <a dastardly attack> <a dastardly villain>”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona ... =0&t=1389300162
(ii) Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Company, Ltd  内蒙古包钢稀土高科技股份有限公司