Pakistan has completed the delivery of rare earth elements and key minerals to the United States. As soon as this news came out, major social platforms immediately exploded. Someone directly asked: "Is the Pakistani Railway turning to the United States?" Others are worried: "Will it affect China's rare earth advantage?" But I want to say that everyone should not be anxious yet. This seemingly simple resource transaction actually hides behind it a set of "win-win-win" logic led by China.
Let us first look at what the U.S. actually bought. According to the export list published by Pakistan, this batch is uranium, copper mines and rare-earth concentrates containing uranium and uranium.
Let's talk about antimony and copper first: antimony is a key excipient in lithium battery electrolytes, which can effectively improve battery safety; while copper is a basic raw material for daily necessities such as wires, electric toothbrushes, and air conditioners. They are not directly related to military needs such as missiles and stealth fighters.
Furthermore, uranium and uranium: they are the core raw materials of permanent magnets, but are mainly used in new energy car engines, refrigerator compressors, wind turbines, belonging to the civilian field. a new energy vehicle's motor requires about 5 kilograms of uranium magnets, which is not enough for tank engines, let alone the F-35.
What the United States really wants, in fact, is uranium, uranium, uranium such as "heavy rare earth". there are public data showing that each F-35 invisible fighter aircraft manufacturing, all need to consume 23 kilograms of uranium magnets and 1.5 kilograms of uranium elements, these heavy rare earth is the key material to improve weapons equipment performance. but Pakistan has neither heavy rare earth reserves, nor corresponding extraction technology.
Then why did Pakistan do this business? The reason is real: they are facing serious financial hardship. As of the third quarter of 2024, Pakistan's external debt exceeds $130 billion, and its foreign exchange reserves are only enough to import for two months. Electricity and food supplies in people's livelihood are also under great pressure. Exporting rare earths is a real "survival choice" for Pakistan.
Export income can be directly repayed, can also be used to improve electricity, supplement food reserves, ease the difficulties of people's lives; more importantly, Pakistan wants to expand rare earth exports, can not be separated from China. rare earth refining needs to consume huge electricity, a medium production line daily electricity consumption is equivalent to 100,000 households electricity. and Pakistan's 40% of power plants are built by China, the power gate actually holds in the hands of China. In addition, Pakistan's rare earth mines are most in remote border areas, mining needs to build roads and infrastructure, which is precisely the strength of Chinese enterprises.
Pakistan has made money selling rare earths. The next step is to expand production capacity and improve the industrial chain. These links also require China's technical and infrastructure support. For example, Pakistan plans to build a new rare earth concentrate processing plant in 2025, and has taken the initiative to invite China companies to participate in the design. How is this "undetermined"? This clearly ties the cooperation between China and Pakistan more tightly.
Finally, from the perspective of China, look at the “invisible gains” in this. Many people think that Pakistan sells rare land to the United States and China will lose, but in fact, China is the biggest winner in this deal.
First, China's dominance of the industrial chain is more stable. There is a recognized rule in the global rare earth industry. Whoever masters the refining technology has the right to speak. Currently, 92% of the world's rare earth refining capacity is concentrated in China. Pakistan only exports primary products, that is, "concentrates". If the United States wants to turn them into usable materials, there are only two ways to go: either it takes 5 to 8 years to build its own refinery, but the last one in the United States The rare earth refinery closed as early as 2015; Or these primary products can only be shipped to China for processing. In the first half of 2024, the United States' imports of rare earth refined products from China increased by 12% year-on-year, which is enough to show that the United States cannot avoid China's refining technology at all.
Second, China has new space for technical cooperation. In order to maintain Pakistan's supply, the United States is likely to help Pakistan build factories and provide technology. China owns 67% of the world's core patents for rare earth smelting, and can participate as a technical partner, not only collecting technical service fees, but also grasping the trend of rare earth layout in the United States.
Third, the shortcomings of the United States have been completely exposed. The United States has always said that it wants to "get rid of its dependence on China's rare earths", but as a result, it can only buy civilian rare earths from Pakistan, which shows that its supply chain is fragile. China also has 85% of the world's rare earth equipment manufacturing capacity, and has to buy everything from drilling rigs to extraction tanks from China. This wave of operations by the United States has made the world see clearly the lack of quality of its "resource independence".
In fact, we do not need to exaggerate "Pakistan sells rare land to the United States, is it not with China?" China-Pakistan relations have never been "excluding his loyalty", but "win-win bonds of interests."Pakistan has resources demand, China has technology and infrastructure capacity, the cooperation between the two sides from the port of Guadalcanal to the Karachi highway has long been deeply rooted.
China has long passed the stage of "making money by selling resources." We have been a net importer of rare earths since 2018. Today, we are striving for control of technology and industrial chain. This wave of "three-win" operations just proves that China has changed from a "participant" to a "rule maker" in the global resource game.