China to Tighten Limits on Rare Earth Exports

China’s commerce ministry announced on Tuesday in Beijing a steep reduction in export quotas for rare earth metals in the first months of next year, a move that threatens to cause further difficulties for manufacturers already struggling with short supplies and soaring prices.


The reduction in quotas for the early months of 2011 — a 35 percent drop in tonnage from the first half of this year — is the latest in a series of measures by Beijing that has gradually curtailed much of the world’s supply of rare earths.

China mines more than 95 percent of the global supply of the metals, which are essential for smartphones, electric cars, many computer components and a range of military hardware. In addition, the country mines 99 percent of the least common rare earths, the so-called heavy rare earths that are used in trace amounts but are crucial to many clean energy applications and electronics.

In what seemed to be an effort to reassure traders and users of rare earths, the commerce ministry said in a follow-up statement late Tuesday on its Web site that it had not decided what the total export quotas would be for all of 2011. The ministry typically issues a second, supplementary batch of quotas each summer.

The ministry said on Tuesday night that companies should not make guesses about the total export quotas for next year based on the initial reductions issued earlier in the day.

“We will be considering the production of rare earths in China, domestic demand and sustainable development needs to determine” the full quotas for the entire year, the ministry Web site quoted its foreign trade department director as saying, without naming the director.

Earlier this month, China’s finance ministry raised export taxes to 25 percent from 15 percent for some of the most crucial rare earths. The ministry also extended taxes to exports of some rare earth alloys that previously were not taxed.

China gradually reduced its annual tonnage of export quotas from 2006 to 2009, then cut the tonnage of allowed exports by more than half in the second half of 2010.

Separately, the Chinese government imposed an unannounced embargo on shipments of raw rare earth minerals to Japan from mid-September to late November, a ban that started during a territorial disagreement over disputed islands.

In addition, rule changes for export quotas have had the effect of reducing the availability of supplies leaving China. Until now, the quotas mostly covered alloys and oxides with a rare earth content of at least 50 percent.

Starting next year, industry executives said, exports of some additional alloys will face restrictions as well, which will have the effect of tightening quotas by about 6 percent.

The commerce ministry provided no reasons for its reduction in initial export quotas for next year, and a ministry spokesman declined to elaborate. White House trade officials have begun an investigation into whether China’s export restrictions violate World Trade Organization rules; the W.T.O. prohibits export quotas and export tariffs except for environmental protection and national security.

China’s latest restrictions drew a quick response from the Office of the United States Trade Representative in Washington.

“We are very concerned about China’s export restraints on rare earth minerals,” a spokeswoman for the office, Nefeterius Akeli McPherson, said. “We have raised our concerns with China and we are continuing to work closely on the issue with stakeholders.”

Business leaders and officials in Europe have also raised the alarm, especially in Germany, where a large manufacturing sector relies heavily on imports of Chinese rare earths.

Until a few months ago, Chinese officials said that their rare earth policies were aimed at forcing foreign industries to move high-tech factories to China so as to have access to Chinese rare earths. But as trade frictions have increased, they have given greater emphasis to environmental concerns.

A Chinese official said on Tuesday that pollution worries about rare earth mining were sincere.

“The government is paying more attention to environmental protection, and is retiring older facilities and older technologies,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because of the political implications of rare earth policies, and declined to discuss specifics of the quotas.

Dudley Kingsnorth, a longtime rare earth industry executive and consultant in Perth, Australia, said China’s long series of restrictions, together with uncertainty about Chinese policies, were making it increasingly likely that mines would be opened in the next three years in other countries.

“It’s only a matter of time before China is not the major supplier to the rest of the world,” he said, while adding that there might be supply problems before the other mines can open.

Japanese companies account for half the world’s consumption outside China and have some stockpiles, but have kept secret the size of these stockpiles.

Toshiyuki Shiga, the chief operating officer of Nissan Motor, said at a news conference on Dec. 20 at the Guangzhou auto show in China that his company had weathered the Chinese export halt this autumn with stockpiles held by Nissan’s suppliers. But he warned that any further Chinese export restrictions would create problems.

“If this continues, it becomes a big issue for all of the Japanese auto manufacturers, and not just auto manufacturers, but electronics manufacturers and others,” Mr. Shiga said.

The commerce ministry said on its Web site on Tuesday that it had awarded export quotas totaling 14,446 tons to 31 Chinese-owned and foreign-owned companies.

A year ago, the ministry had awarded 16,304 tons of export quotas to 22 Chinese-owned companies and 5,978 tons of quotas to 10 foreign-owned companies, for a total of 22,282 tons.

The Chinese commerce ministry denied earlier this month that it would reduce export quotas in 2011. Mr. Kingsnorth said that it was still theoretically possible for this to be true, if the government sharply increased its quota allocations for the second half of 2011 to offset the steep drop in quotas allocated at the start of the year.

The ministry typically makes a large allocation of quotas in December that can be used at any time in the following year, and then a supplemental allocation of quotas the following summer. In July of this year, the ministry made a supplemental allocation of 7,976 tons to Chinese-owned and foreign-owned companies.

World consumption outside China totals about 55,000 tons of rare earth minerals a year, and is rising about 7 percent a year, with increases at twice that pace for the particularly high-price minerals needed for clean energy. Annual production outside China is around 7,000 tons but poised to rise to at least 50,000 tons a year within three years. A quirk in how China calculates quotas means that two tons of quota must be used to export a ton of rare earths for some alloys.

The ministry also said that one company previously receiving quotas, not identified as foreign or domestic, had temporarily lost its rights to quotas because it was replacing equipment.

Taiwan-China flight forced to land after bomb hoax

An airliner travelling from Taiwan to China made an emergency landing after a passenger jokingly claimed he had a bomb on board, officials say.

The Taipei-Shanghai flight of Taiwan's China Airlines landed safely in Hangzhou, eastern China, and the passenger was held for questioning.



Police then checked the man's luggage and found no explosives.
The man - identified only as Lin - later admitted he made the comment as a joke, the officials said.

China Airlines spokesman Bruce Chen said the passenger was traveling on a US passport, the Associated Press reports.

He did not appear to have been drinking excessively, the spokesman added.
The plane eventually took off from Hangzhou and later landed safely in Shanghai.
It was not immediately known how many passengers were on board.

Five children hurt in fresh attack on school in China

Five young children have been hurt at a school in north-eastern China after a man attacked them with a hammer before killing himself.

It was the third such incident in China in as many days.
The man, said to be a local farmer, grabbed two children before setting himself on fire at the pre-school in Shandong province's Weifang city.



The children were pulled to safety, and all five - plus an injured teacher - were said to be stable in hospital.
China is reeling from a spate of apparent copy-cat attacks in schools.


On Thursday, 28 children - most of them aged around four - and three adults were attacked by an unemployed man wielding a knife at a nursery school in Jiangsu province, eastern China. Five of the children were taken to hospital in a critical condition.

And a day earlier, some 15 pupils and a teacher were wounded by a former teacher - who was on sick leave - at their primary school in Guangdong province.


Earlier on Wednesday, a doctor convicted of stabbing eight children to death in Fujian province in March was executed.


Friday's attacker was a local farmer identified as Wang Yonglai, Xinhua news agency reports.

He used a motorcycle to break down the gates in to Shangzhuang primary school, striking a teacher who tried to stop him and then turning the hammer on the children.

He grabbed two of the children before dousing himself in petrol and setting himself alight. Teachers seized the two children from him in time.

The motive of the attack is not yet known.
The attacks are unsettling in a country where such violent attacks are rare.
Since a spate of attacks in 2004, many schools in China have employed professional guards but the latest incidents have led to public calls for increased security in schools.

The education ministry ordered all schools to upgrade their security facilities earlier this month, as well as teach students about safety and ensure young children are escorted home, state media has reported.

But such measures are expensive, says our correspondent, and in reality there is little that can be done to prevent such acts of violence.

The incidents have also sparked a debate about the motives of the killers, with some suggesting that rapid social change and growing unemployment has led to an increase in psychiatric illnesses.

China opens World Expo 2010 in Shanghai

 The 2010 World Expo has opened in the city of Shanghai in what China hopes will be further proof of its rising global influence.

Almost 250 countries and international organizations are showcasing their culture in an event themed around sustainable development.


Many are doing so in pavilions with radical architecture.
World leaders, including France's President Sarkozy, are attending the lavish opening ceremony.
"Expo 2010 Shanghai is now open!" Chinese President Hu Jintao declared during the gala opening, in which 2,300 performers and musicians from all over the world took part.

They were celebrating the Expo slogan: "Better city, better life in music and dance".
Tens of thousands of fireworks and lasers then lit up the city's riverfront - in what organizers promised would be the biggest-ever multimedia event.


Some 70 million visitors - mostly Chinese - are expected to visit the Expo, which will be open for the next six months.

Chinese local media report that the cost of staging the event could be as much as $58bn (£38bn) - more than was spent on the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Some estimates say this figure could eventually be even higher.
Shanghai has increased security measures drastically in preparation for the event.

An additional 8,000 police officers have been brought in to help Shanghai's 46,000-strong police force to patrol the city, Chinese state media says.


Residents living near the Expo site have complained about oppressive security measures.
"It's just not convenient to get in and out any more," Dong, a local resident, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

Markets have been closed down to build Expo car parks, he added.
Six people who protested about having their homes destroyed to make room for the Expo have been sent to labour camps, the Hong-Kong based Chinese Human Rights Defenders were quoted as saying by AP.

Last week police seized four computers belonging to activist Feng Zhenghu, who had been trying to set up an alternative online Expo, highlighting alleged miscarriages of justice, our correspondent says.

The Expo is seen as an opportunity for countries to try to win favor with the Chinese, he adds.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing on Thursday, President Sarkozy - whose relationship with China has been testy after he criticized a Chinese security crackdown in Tibet in 2008 - said France and China would "think and work together".

China executes killer of eight school children

A former community doctor who killed eight school children in China's eastern Fujian province has been executed, state media say.

Zheng Minsheng, 42, was shot in the city of Nanping after China's top court approved his sentence, Xinhua news agency reported.

The execution came one month after he stabbed eight young children to death at a primary school in the same city.


Police said he carried out the attack after breaking up with a girlfriend.
Reports at the time of the attack had suggested he had a history of mental illness, but state media later quoted police as saying that was not the case.


Five other children were injured in the 23 March attack.
Zheng was convicted on 8 April and had appealed unsuccessfully against his death sentence.

China quake bodies burnt on pyres in Jiegu

About 700 people who died in a massive earthquake in north-west China on Wednesday have been cremated outside the worst-hit town, Jiegu.

After being blessed by chanting Buddhist monks, the bodies were placed in a trench and set alight.
The number of people known to have died in Qinghai province has risen to 1,339, with 322 missing, officials say.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has said he would like to visit his birthplace to comfort survivors.
The Dalai Lama was born in Qinghai but has not set foot in China since a failed Tibetan uprising more than 50 years ago.


Tibetans traditionally perform sky burials, which involve chopping a body into pieces and leaving it on a platform to be devoured by vultures.

But the authorities have decided to cremate victims because of fears that disease may spread rapidly.
"The vultures can't eat them all," said one local man.


Local monks constructed a huge funeral pyre near Jiegu township.


After the earthquake, many residents of the largely-Tibetan town turned to the monks and their traditions for help, rather than a central authority dominated by the majority Han Chinese.

Thousands of people have been left homeless, with many having to sleep outdoors in freezing temperatures.

The rescue effort is continuing, but it is four days since the earthquake hit, the chances of finding more people alive under the rubble of Jiegu are growing slim.


Many of those who survived the quake have endured days without proper shelter or food. The town lies high in the mountains of Qinghai, the air is thin and the temperature often drops below freezing at night.

There has been no response yet from Beijing to the Dalai Lama's statement on visiting the victims.
In the statement, issued from his home-in-exile in northern India, the Dalai Lama said: "Because of the physical distance between us, at present I am unable to comfort those directly affected, but I would like them to know I am praying for them."

The Dalai Lama also praised Chinese officials for their quick response to the quake.
China has despatched 10,000 troops and doctors to help, but the scale of the devastation is so large, they are struggling to cope.

But the authorities in Beijing have pledged to do everything they can to help the victims of the earthquake, and eventually, to rebuild the shattered town.

Premier Wen Jiabao has promised "all-out effort" to rebuild the area.

Heavy-lifting equipment has been arriving in the remote Himalayan region by road from hundreds of kilometres away.

Food, tents and medical supplies are arriving too but rescue workers say there is a critical need for further supplies.

Rescuers in Yushu, which lies at about 4,000m (13,000ft), are facing freezing weather and high altitude.
Ninety-seven percent of Yushu's population is ethnic Tibetan, and state media said that 500 interpreters were being sent to aid rescuers.

The quake, which struck on Wednesday morning at the shallow depth of 10km (six miles), knocked out phone and power lines, and triggered landslides, blocking vital roads.

Mr Wen visited the affected area on Thursday and Friday.
He said the people would "overcome the disaster and improve national unity in fighting the calamity".

China space program selects first women astronauts

A Chinese saw says sex reckon on up half the sky. In the future, they'll mean doing authentic from space.

The Chinese breach program's first two women astronauts admit been selected and may take part in missions to China's planned gap station, the positive Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

To emblematize considered, the women had to be married, Xinhua said, quoting Zhang Jianqi, a invalid deputy commander of the country's manned space program.

"In the selection, we had halfway the uninterrupted requirements on women candidates as those for men, but the only asymmetry was that they itch be married, for we believe married women would be more physically and psychologically mature," Zhang said.

The two, who were not identified by name or age, are transport pilots whereas the proclivity force, Xinhua said.

China launched its first manned race ropes 2003, joining Russia and the United States seeing the select countries to plunge into humans into orbit, and in 2008 carried out its unparalleled spacewalk.

Along with a space station, work on which is destined to begin next year, incomparable Chinese plans include launching a second lunar master in October sway preparation now an unmanned moon landing by the end of 2012.

A easy manned lunar establishment has also been proposed — not tell a target date of 2017 — putting China clout the forefront of a tightening Asian space race involving India, Japan and South Korea.

China Looks Strong in Pairs Again

Todd Eldredge is a three-time Olympian (1992, ’98 and 2002) and former universe champion who also won six national championships and was inducted notice the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame effect 2008. Eldredge, 38, will be providing analysis for Rings throughout the Olympic conformation skating competition supremacy Vancouver.

The figure skating competition starts off lie low the pairs concise program Sunday evening, featuring two returning Olympic medalists — Zhang Dan again Zhang Hao of China won the silver medal at the 2006 Olympics and Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo won bronze –- and reigning globe champions Aliona Savchenko again Robin Szolkowy of Germany. extra Chinese pair, Pang Qing also Tong Jian, are old globe champions further Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov of Russia are the European champions.

The most dominating performances hence far this season have come from Shen and Zhao, who after a three-year absence from confrontation understand come back this season with a renewed energy to try one last time to win the mazuma medal. They cede hold their works cut out since them shelter rendezvous passage from two fellow Chinese teams. Zhang again Zhang are vehement and exciting to watch, while self-condemnation and Tong are further elegant. All of the Chinese teams have been a force over the outlast sundry years on the world stage, so I attending for them to possibly leave Vancouver with additional than one medal.

Savchenko and Szolkowy had an sensational store last year, capped bury an useful bring about at the globe championships. They are very exciting to watch and, adumbrate their throw triple lutz, they admit a easy edge technically over most of the mismatched teams. They have had some disappointing results this season, however, losing the European title to Russia’s Kavaguti and Smirnov, but I look for them to rise to the challenge.

America’s best kind hope whereas the pairs comes from two new teams. Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett further Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig undocked train in Florida together stash the lined up coaches. They made a real impact this year at the U.S. Championships with two fantastic performances to earn their place in the Olympics. Denney & Barrett, be entertained the German team, perform the throw triple lutz. It entrust equate tough for them to complete undoubted in both the concise and long programs whereas them to have any chance to enjoin the veteran teams. I don’t look being them to medal, but they will definitely excite the crowd and under the pressure of the Olympic Games, materiality importance and oftentimes does happen.

Canada’s first hope for a medal comes from 2008 world bronze medalists Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison. With the sustain of their coaches, 2002 Olympic champions David Pelletier and Jamie Sale, they cede craze to draw the energy from the home crowd and perform beyond expectations to win a medal.

China decries Barack Obama's plan to meet Dalai Lama

China has again urged the United States to cancel a planned meeting between President Barack Obama and the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The two men will meet at the White House on 18 February, US spokesman Robert Gibbs has confirmed.

He said the Sino-US relationship was mature enough to disagree while finding common ground on international issues.

China had already said that such a meeting would seriously undermine relations with the United States.

Mr Gibbs said the Dalai Lama was "an internationally respected religious leader".

"He's a spokesman for Tibetan rights. The president looks forward to an engaging and constructive meeting," he said.

"We think we have a mature enough relationship with the Chinese that we can agree on mutual interests, but also have a mature enough relationship that we know the two countries are not always going to agree on everything."

China reacted quickly to the announcement through its Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.

"We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him," Mr Ma said.

"We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, and honor its commitment to recognize Tibet as part of China and to oppose 'Tibet independence'," he added.

"China urges the US... to immediately call off the wrong decision of arranging for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama... to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations."

China, which took over Tibet in 1950, considers the Dalai Lama a separatist and tries to isolate the spiritual leader by asking foreign leaders not to see him.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and has since been living in India.

Tense ties

The US has already moved carefully on the issue. Mr Obama avoided meeting the Dalai Lama in Washington last year ahead of his own first state visit to Beijing.

But on that trip he told his Chinese hosts his meeting with the revered Tibetan Buddhist leader would go ahead.

The meeting this month will take place in the White House Map Room, not the symbolic surroundings of the Oval Office, where Mr Obama normally meets foreign leaders and VIP guests.

President George W Bush also met the Dalai Lama at the White House.

The planned meeting comes soon after China expressed strong displeasure at the sale of $6.4bn (£4bn) worth of US weapons to Taiwan.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a Chinese territory to be reunified by force if necessary.

Another source of tension is internet censorship, following the announcement by the search giant Google that it might pull out of China following what it said had been a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack from inside the country.

However, the US wants Chinese support in the United Nations regarding sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programmes.

Mr Obama has also given signs of getting tougher on the long-standing dispute over China's currency, which some traders feel is kept artificially strong.

The US aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, is scheduled to visit the former British territory of Hong Kong next week. China has refused permission to similar visits in the past but appears to be allowing this one to go ahead so far.

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the visit was an important part of the US "outreach and engagement with the Chinese people" as well as a a key element of the military-to-military relationship.

China Leading Race to Make Clean Energy

China vaulted foregone competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last span to wax the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, again is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West spell the last two elderliness to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the lands is pushing equally hard to frame nuclear reactors and the most useful types of charcoal power plants.

These efforts to dominate the extensive whip out of renewable energy technologies raise the probe that the West may in consummation trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, trifle turbines further other gear manufactured network China.

“Most of the energy contrivance will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” uttered K. K. Chan, the chief executive of badge Elements Capital, a private equity long green in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

President Obama, in his communicate of the cooperative speech hang in week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on vigor. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I have you don’t either,” he told Congress.

The United States further other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet several Western and Chinese executives expect China to influence notoriety the energy-technology race.

Multinational corporations are responding to the snap accrual of China’s vend by building big, state-of-the-art factories supremacy China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing crasis here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators.

“You have to move fast with the market,” vocal Jens Tommerup, the president of Vestas China. “Nobody has ever seen such ready spreading magnetism a fly speck market.”

Renewable energy industries here are adding jobs rapidly, reaching 1.12 million in 2008 and climbing by 100,000 a year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable business Industries Association.

Yet renewable energy may correspond to proof additional for China’s economy than for the environment. raze faculty generation in China is on track to pass the United States money 2012 — and most of the added power will still be from coal.

China intends seeing wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020. That compares with less than 4 percent now in China also the United States. Coal will in order portray two-thirds of China’s capacity in 2020, and nuclear again hydropower most of the rest.

As China seeks to dominate energy-equipment exports, it has the winnings of being the world’s largest market for intelligence can-opener. The guidance spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone. State-owned banks provide generous financing.

China’s top leaders are keenly focused on bustle policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a internal bustle Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a “superministry” led by inimitable pilot Wen Jiabao himself.

Regulators have set mandates due to skill generation companies to boon more renewable going. generous subsidies because consumers to install their own solar panels or solar bedew heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China.

China’s biggest advantage may impersonate its trained catechize being electricity, rising 15 percent a space. To meet enjoin impact the path decade, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China will need to comprehend nearly nine times as by much electricity generation command seeing the United States will.

So bout Americans are used to supposition of themselves as having the world’s largest market weight many industries, China’s tout due to power equipment dwarfs that of the United States, common though the American hawk is more grow into. That means Chinese producers enjoy enormous efficiencies from large-scale production.

In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy contraption or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built besides paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new contraption anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively.

Interest rates whereas low being 2 percent for bank loans — the arrangement of a savings ratio of 40 percent and a government policy of semanship loans to renewable pipeline — have also made a big difference.

As in many disparate industries, China’s low liveliness costs are an advantage in energy. Although Chinese wages swear by risen deeply in the progress five years, Vestas still pays assembly field workers here only $4,100 a year.