Why does China have nearly all the rare earth elements that are needed for modern electronics manufacturing?

为什么中国拥有现代电子制造业所需的几乎所有稀土元素？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam

It doesn't

China has two huge advantages :—

Cost

Scale

China has so much manufacturing that China is able to extract rare earths from their Industrial waste by products from the Nuclear or Aluminium or Steel Industry at a fraction of the cost that it would take say Canada or US to extract the same from a fully developed Industrial procedure

并没有。

中国有两个巨大的优势：

成本

规模

中国拥有庞大的制造业，能够从生产核能、铝或钢铁工业产品的工业废料中提取稀土，所费成本只占加拿大或美国提取稀土成本的一小部分。

China can produce Gallium at roughly 6% the cost that it would take the Canada to produce the same

That is 17 times cheaper

Likewise China extracts so much rare earth metals and has such a huge scale of processing and refining that it can deliver finished rare earths at 25% the price that it would take the nearest competitor to achieve

That's China's advantage

中国生产镓的成本大约是加拿大的6%

这意味着价格便宜了17倍

同样，中国提取了大量稀土金属，拥有庞大的加工和精炼规模，因此中国的成品稀土价格可以压到竞争对手的25%。

这是中国的优势

Not having Rare Earths

Many Nations have as much or more Rare Earth Raw Materials or Ores than China does

Using these technologies, China now has unique technology in making Rare Earth components that no other nation has due to PROHIBITIVE COST

Example we imported Rare Earth filament sheets for 260,000 Yuan in ISRO from China

没有稀土

许多国家拥有和中国一样多甚至更多的稀土原料或矿石

利用这些技术，中国现在拥有制造稀土组件的独特技术，而其他国家受制于成本过高，没有掌握这种技术。

例如，印度空间研究组织从中国进口了26万元的稀土长丝片

Had this been processed and made in US and imported from there at 0% tariff the cost would have been 1.76 Million Yuan

So commercially China has a huge cost advantage that even 40% tariffs cannot stop or mitigate

And they also have the cost effective technologies that no one else has or even tried to develop knowing that the cost would be simply prohibitive

如果这些是在美国加工制造，就算进口时享受零关税，成本也逼近176万元

因此，在商业上，中国拥有巨大的成本优势，就算征收40%的关税也势不可挡。

中国还拥有别国没有的成本效益极高的加工技术，其他国家甚至没有开发意愿，因为他们知道成本会高得令人望而却步。

Deactivated

They don't. The problem is that western rare earth metals are found exclusively with Thorium deposits, and the huge amount of left over Thorium must be stored as radioactive waste, because development of Thorium nuclear plants has been blocked by exsting nuclear interests.

The Uranium industry actively encourages regulations that interfere with Thorium being used as nuclear fuel, and have convinced the nuclear industry to be exclusively Uranium powered.

To make things far worst, nuclear companies actually get to charge for compliance instead of taking it out of profits, so they are rewarded for regulations being as restrictive as possible.

So the Uranium and nuclear industries have multiple incentives to interfere with Thorium production and use, which then limits rare earth metal production as collateral damage.

他们并没有。只是，西方的稀土金属只出现在钍矿床中，现有的核利益阻碍了钍核电站的发展，大量剩余的钍必须作为放射性废物储存起来。

铀工业积极鼓励限制钍用作核燃料的法规，说服了核工业完全以铀为动能来源。

更糟糕的是，核公司非但没有从利润中扣除成本，还额外收取合规费用，所以监管越严格，他们越能得到奖励。

因此，铀和核工业出于多重目的干扰了钍的生产和使用，从而也限制了稀土金属的生产。

Jesuan Wu

Related

China possesses about 80% of the world’s rare earth materials. How come that there are so much rare Earth materials concentrated only in Chinese earth?

The premise is wrong.

China makes up about 80% of the world's rare earth trade, not because rare earth is concentrated in China, but because China is pretty much the only country in the business due to the lax environmental law and its unsuccessful enforcement.

中国拥有全球约80%的稀土材料。为什么这么多稀土材料只集中在中国的土地上？

你这个说法本身就是错误的。

中国占世界稀土贸易的80%左右，其原因并非稀土只集中在中国，而是因为中国宽松的环境法和执法失利，中国几乎是这个行业中唯一的生产国了。

The fact is, excavating huge chunks of earth and using chemicals to wash out the minuscule amount of useful elements, remains extremely polluting.

I've visited a small rare earth plant in my home province of Hunan, and I promise you that the air, soil and water in that plant and the surrounding village will disgust you. The impoverished villagers who have grown accustomed to the monthly dividends, handed out by the processing plant, to pay for their daily expenses, are no less addicted than a bunch of junkies who will protect their stash of drug at all costs.

I assure you that the voices pushing for abandoning or at least rationing the rare earth trade in China are much stronger than the ones questioning China's monopoly worldwide.

挖掘大块的泥土，用化学溶液把极其微量的有用元素溶解出来，会造成严重的环境污染。

我参观过家乡湖南省的一家小型稀土厂，工厂和周围村庄的空气、土壤和水都让人恶心。这些贫困的村民已经习惯了加工厂每月发放的红利来应付自己的日常开支。

我敢说，要求停止或至少限制中国稀土贸易的声音比质疑中国在世界范围内垄断稀土贸易的声音要强烈得多。

Tomaž Vargazon

Related

Is China the only source of rare earth metals in the whole world? Are there alternatives for rare earth metals?

There aren’t any alternatives to rare earths at the time, but many don’t understand why rare earths are named such.

It is not, in fact, because they’re rare.

Rare earths are so named because they’re only present at low concentrations in ores worldwide.

中国是世界上唯一的稀土金属供应国吗？稀土金属有替代品吗？

稀土是没有替代品的，但许多人不明白稀土为什么会被命名为稀土。

并不是因为稀土很罕见。

稀土之所以得名，是因为它们在世界各地的矿石中含量很低。

This ties in to the next part, why is China the main producer of rare earths. Due to the low concentration of rare earths in ore you need significant amount of processing, which produces huge volumes of toxc, sometimes even radioactive waste you can’t really get rid of any more.

China is willing to deal with that, other countries aren’t.

Vietnam has half the proven Chinese reserves at a fraction of the territory and is tied with Brazil, but their production combined is ~0.1% of what Chinese are doing. A quote from Jurrasic Park comes to mind:

We spent so much time thinking what we could but we didn’t stop to think whether we should.

这扯出了下一部分，为什么中国是稀土的主要生产国的问题。由于矿石中稀土的含量很低，所以需要耗费大量的加工步骤，中间会产生大量的有毒废物，有时甚至是放射性废物。

中国愿意做这门生意，但其他国家不愿意。

越南在一小部分领土上就拥有中国已探明储量的一半，与巴西并列，但两国的产量加起来也只有中国的0.1%。我想起了《侏罗纪公园》中的一句话：

我们花了很多时间思考我们能做什么，但我们没有停下来思考我们是否应该这么做。

Ridzwan Abdul Rahman

Related

Does China have a monopoly on rare earth elements?

China used to have a monopoly of rare earth, at 90% of world output, but it has now dropped to about 60%. The U.S., however, is still ship its rare earths to China for processing.

Deposits of rare earth can be found in many countries but the processing is limited to only a few countries. The US is restarting its rare earth processing in order not to be dependent on China.

中国垄断了稀土市场吗？

中国曾经垄断了稀土市场，产量占到世界总产量的90%，现在已经下降到60%左右了。美国现在还会将稀土运往中国进行加工。

很多国家都有稀土矿床，但稀土加工只在少数几个国家内开展。美国正在重启稀土加工，希望能摆脱对中国的依赖。

Meanwhile, China is consolidating its rare earths industry to control pricing levels, increase efficiency, and secure strategic, economic, and sustainability goals. For instance, the merger of three state entities to establish the China Rare Earth Group Co. Ltd is the largest move of its kind in the world.

Prior to the 1980s it was the U.S. that held a majority stake in the rare earth market. But then, China flooded the global market with rare earths at much cheaper prices. And their recent consolidation is sure to keep the prices low, making competition from other countries harder.

与此同时，中国也在整合稀土产业，控制价格水平，提高生产效率，并确保战略、经济和可持续性目标。例如，三家国有实体合并成立了中国稀土集团有限公司，这是全世界稀土业中规模最大的一次企业合并。

20世纪80年代之前，美国在稀土市场上也曾占据大量份额。但后来，中国以极大的价格优势向全球市场供应了大量稀土。他们近期的合并肯定也能保证将价格保持在低位，让其他国家更难和中国竞争。

Jay Snead

Related

A Chinese restriction of rare-earth exports to the U.S. would devastate our economy - why does the U.S. no longer produce it's own rare earth elements?

First of all, despite the name, rare earths are not really all that rare. They exst all over the world including many deposits within the US. China has only about 30% of the known reserves.

Secondly, it will not devastate the US economy, which is not based on rare earths. It will impact certain businesses in the short term until new supplies are put in place. It will raise some costs.

中国禁止向美国出口稀土，将摧毁我们的经济—为什么美国不再自己生产稀土？

首先，尽管稀土被称为稀土，但它其实并没有那么稀罕。它们遍布世界各地，美国境内就有很多储量。中国只拥有全球已知稀土储量的30%。

其次，它不会摧毁并不依赖稀土的美国经济。在找到新的供应渠道之前，短期内会对某些企业造成影响，增加一些成本。

What will happen is that rare earths will get more expensive because China provided it very cheap. But now other nations will exploit their own deposits and sell them and when prices rise high enough, US rare earth production will resume. It made little sense to mine it in North America when it could be gotten so cheap from China.

China may not be doing itself a favor if this action causes the world to open competitive mining and processing of rare earths again. They may not get that market back.

未来稀土会变得更加昂贵，因为中国提供的稀土价格非常便宜。但现在其他国家都会开采自己的稀土矿并进行出售，当价格上涨到足够高时，美国也将恢复稀土生产。既然可以用如此低廉的价格从中国购买稀土，北美自己开采稀土几乎没有意义。

如果中国的行为导致世界各国再次开放竞争性的稀土开采和加工，中国可能只会搬起石头砸自己的脚，可能无法夺回市场。

Joseph Wang

Related

Will China restrict rare earth elements imports to the United States? What would the ramifications be?

It’s really bizarre because the Western press is talking about all of the things that China could do to retaliate, whereas I’ve seen absolutely nothing in the Chinese press to suggest that China is planning to restrict rare earths or do anything to Apple. The only thing that has happened is that visited a rare earth mine

中国是否会限制美国进口稀土？会有什么后果？

很奇怪，因为西方媒体一直在谈论中国可能采取的报复措施，但中国媒体完全没有报道过中国限制稀土或对苹果采取任何行动的蛛丝马迹。

The thing about rare earths was that China had export restrictions on rare earths, but in 2015 the US and Japan brought a case against China for these export restrictions. China lost and removed the restrictions. Then a funny thing happened. Because China was no longer restricting exports, the price went down, and China’s share of rare earth production *increased*.

关于稀土的现状是，中国对稀土采取了出口限制，但在2015年，美国和日本就出口限制对中国提起了诉讼。中国输了，取消了限制。但由此又发生了一件有趣的事情。因为中国不再限制出口，价格下降，中国在全球稀土生产中所占的份额增加了。

It’s times like this when you need to go to the People’s Daily and inhua to see what the Chinese is actually saying. The main points are:

在这种时候，你可以看看《人民日报》和新华社，了解一下中国到底在说什么，重点在于：

China believes in global trade and international cooperation, the policy of the government is to encourage foreign investment into China.

The current issues are because the US are making trouble and China will not be bullied. China has a market of 1.4 billion people and if Trump cuts off US trade, China can rely on domestic consumers for growth.

China’s current economy situation is such that China can withstand whatever Trump decides to do.

The main response should be to strengthen Chinese manufacturing and improve innovation. China needs to spend more money on science and technology.

中国支持全球贸易和国际合作，中国的政策是鼓励外国投资进入中国。

对于当前的问题，归根结底是美国在制造麻烦，中国不愿受人摆布。中国拥有14亿人口的市场，如果美国切断中美贸易，中国也可以依靠国内消费者来实现经济增长。

中国目前的经济形势使得中国可以承受美国的任何决策。

中国的主要应对措施是加强中国制造业，提高创新水平。中国需要在科学技术上投入更多的资金。