This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Julie Klinger, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware’s Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, about rare earths — a family of 17 elements that are essential to the function of modern industry and are indispensable in everyday technology. Julie debunks many of the myths surrounding China and rare earths, and lays out her ideas about why, despite the relative ubiquity of mineable rare earth deposits, China has dominated production of these vitally important minerals for decades.
3:00: Debunking conventional wisdom on China and rare earths
9:55: What are rare earths and how important are they
21:30: How China’s near-monopoly on rare earths came to be
32:49: Mining and environmental degradation
45:32: China’s decision to slow down rare earth production and its consequences
Recommendations:
Julie: Going outside for the sake of going outside, and The Probiotic Planet: Using Life to Manage Life, by Jamie Lorimer.
Kaiser: “The chip choke point,” by Tim De Chant, in The Wire China (listen to the article on China Stories).
Robert Daly of the Kissinger Institute on the morality of U.S. China policy
China Tobacco: How China's tobacco monopoly also has ensured that China keeps smoking
The Philadelphia Orchestra commemorates the 50th anniversary of its groundbreaking China tour
Ian Johnson on "Sparks," his new book on China's underground historians
U.S. Congressman Rick Larsen (D-WA) on his new U.S.-China policy white paper
The case for the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement
The Rise and Fall of the EAST: MIT's Yasheng Huang on his new book
China Stories summer special: The best of This Week in China's HIstory
Wargaming a Taiwan invasion scenario: Lyle Goldstein on the CSIS wargame “The First Battle of the Next War"
The state of play of generative AI in China, with Paul Triolo
Is the Biden administration resetting U.S.-China relations?
The CFR Taiwan task force report: advice and dissent, with Maggie Lewis and Paul Heer
Transnational repression and China's "overseas police stations," with Jeremy Daum of Yale's Paul Tsai China Law Center
China after COVID: UPenn's Neysun Mahboubi reports on scholarly exchange in a tightening political space
China's Military-Civil Fusion program: CNAS fellow Elsa Kania on the myths and realities
Mr. Blinken goes to Beijing, with former NSC China Director Dennis Wilder
Economist Keyu Jin on her new book, "The New China Playbook"
David Ownby of ReadingtheChinaDream.com on the intellectual mood in China
Curtain-raiser on the Shangri-La Dialogue, with the man who runs the show: James Crabtree of IISS
Harvard's William Kirby on China's higher education system and his book "Empires of Ideas"
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