When China said this month it would impose sanctions on Lockheed Martin in retaliation for a US decision to sell missiles to Taiwan, it did not elaborate on what this would entail.
But the Global Times, China’s state-owned nationalist tabloid, speculated that Beijing would probably “cut off material supply including rare earths, which are crucial to advanced weapons production”.
That would mark the latest phase in the weaponisation of rare earths — a group of 17 metallic elements that are embedded in most high-tech products.
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