In October 2025, the game of the global industrial chain entered a key node, and the two policies launched by the Ministry of Commerce of China and the Ministry of Transportation - Implement export controls on rare-earth-related technologies and charge special port charges for U.S. vessels.
These two policies are like two precisely thrown "technological bugs" directly into the U.S.-built technology and trade hegemony system, and in this smoke-free dispute, this not only rewrites the power pattern of high-end manufacturing, but also drives the world economy to accelerate the evolution towards multipolarization.
Grasp the "technical life gate" of high-end manufacturing
On October 9, the Ministry of Commerce announcement No. 62 officially entered into force, incorporating all-chain technologies such as rare earth mining, metallurgy separation, magnetic materials manufacturing into export control.
This list, known as the "strictest in history", for the first time included technical carriers, process parameters, simulated data and other intangible assets into the scope of control, and even stipulated that China's technical content of overseas products exceeds 0.1% and requires a license.
And this full-process blockade of "from ore to finished product" directly hits the weakness of the US military and semiconductor industries.
Taking the F-35 as an example, the magnets used in its engines are 90% dependent on Chinese technology, and Loma estimates show that if it is not possible to obtain a patent for rare-earth metallurgy in China, the production cost of a single jet will rise dramatically by $ 2.3 million.
More seriously, the vacuum pump components in the Asma light engraving machine, and the magnetic ring in the Tesla motor drive, are all using the rare earth secondary resource recovery technology covered by the regulated list, this technology's disproved chain reaction, is triggering a "domino" shake in the global supply chain.
According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, 92% of the world's rare earth refining capacity is concentrated in China. Although the Mount Weld mining area in Australia and the Mountain Pass mine in the United States have accelerated production expansion, they lack China's original "calcium roasting-sulfuric acid leaching" process, and its rare earth oxide purity has never exceeded the critical threshold of 99.5%.
This technological gap has caused U.S. military companies to relocate key component production to Malaysia and Vietnam, but environmental standards and worker skills in these countries have become new bottlenecks.
Reconstructing the "rule lever" of the shipping market
On the day after the rare earth control came into effect, the Ministry of Transport announced that special port fees would be charged to US-related ships starting from October 14.
This policy, implemented in four stages, includes all U.S. shipowners, U.S. holding companies and ships hanging U.S. flag in the fee scope, and the rate is gradually increased from 400 yuan per net tonne to 1120 yuan, this "precision strike" type of fee design directly offsets the U.S. port charges on Chinese ships.
According to the detailed rules of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, if a 10,000-box container ship built in China calls at a U.S. port, the shipowner will have to pay a single fee of US $8.5 million.
According to China's new regulations, when ships of the same type call at Shanghai Port, the special port fees paid by U.S. shipowners are only 12% of their expenditures in the United States.
This cost upsurge prompted shipping giants such as Maersk and Dafa to urgently adjust their capacity deployment and move 12 Chinese-built ships originally deployed in the U.S. West Line to the European line, resulting in a 40% increase in the port container accumulation in three weeks.
The deeper changes occur at the level of rules. China has simultaneously revised the International Shipping Regulations to clearly stipulate that "any country that takes discriminatory measures against China ships will take reciprocal countermeasures."
This legislative breakthrough forced the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to review the Maritime Anti-Monopoly Exemption Regulations, and the European Shipowners Association was forced to convene a special meeting to discuss the establishment of a "New Silk Road Shipping Price Index" that is separated from the US dollar.
The “reconstruction wave” of the global industrial chain
Now the overlapping effect of the two policies is generating a profound adjustment of the world economic pattern, and in the field of technology, resources countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brazil have accelerated the construction of a "de-dollarized" technology exchange system.
The Common Strategic Defense Agreement signed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan stipulates that any country that purchases China's 052D destroyer technology can obtain Pakistan's nuclear umbrella technical support. This "technology-for-security" model has reduced Middle Eastern countries 'demand for the US-made "THAAD" system by 67%.
In the field of trade, the "Critical Minerals Supply Chain Alliance" launched by RCEP member countries has absorbed 23 countries. The alliance stipulates that rare earth trade among member countries shall be settled in RMB, and technology transfer must be reviewed by three parties.
This institutional arrangement directly led to Australia's LYNAS being forced to interrupt its joint venture project with the American Blue Line Company, and 40% of the production capacity of its Malaysian rare earth processing plant was shifted to supply South Korea's LG Chem.
The financial markets reacted more intuitively, after the policy was released on October 10, the three major New York stock market indices fell by more than 3 percent on a single day, while the Shanghai Gold Exchange's rare-earth concept plate rose by 9.2 percent.
What's even more intriguing is that the price of Bitcoin broke through the US $120,000 mark for the first time. Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency market analysis agency, pointed out that 27% of the incremental funds came from sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, and these funds are building a technical payment network independent of the SWIFT system through digital currency channels.
The irreversible trend of multipolarity
While the Office of the United States Trade Representative is still threatening to "put China on the highest-level sanctions list", a new picture of global technical cooperation has already unfolded.
At the Global Supply Chain Summit held in Berlin, BASF of Germany, Total of France, and Sinochem Group of China signed an agreement to jointly invest in the construction of a hydrogen energy transportation corridor running through China and Europe.
This new channel, which does not rely on the Suez Canal, will be driven by China's quantum encryption technology and German fuel cells. It is expected to reduce Eurasian trade costs by 22% when completed in 2027.
This trend of decentralization is also significant at the micro level. The agreement signed by South Korea's Posco and India's Kingdele Southwest Steel stipulates that the two parties will jointly develop rare earth permanent magnet materials that do not contain Chinese technology, but the technical standards need to be certified by China's National Standardization Administration Committee.
The establishment of this "competitive relationship" marks the transformation of the global industrial chain from the "center-outside" structure to the "nodal-network" model.
History has always unfolded in unexpected ways, and while the United States is still safeguarding its hegemony with the 301 investigation clause, China is providing new institutional supplies for global industrial restructuring through its double breakthrough in rare-earth technology and maritime rules.
This change is not a simple "breaking-up chain", but a more inclusive multipolar order through technological standards, trade rules, and innovation in the financial system.
conclusion
China's rare-earth technology control and ships' special port charges policy are essentially a precise counterpart to U.S. unilateralism, while the U.S. momentum of global "disconnection" is the reflection of the laws of world economic development.
And when one country continues to violate global trade rules and technological blockades with the principle of “America first,” other countries will inevitably seek security through diversified cooperation.
Trump’s shift of stance in the face of the two measures reflects the vulnerability of the U.S. hegemony system, while the rise of “South-South trade” and the formation of regional technology alliances mark the growing clarity of the multipolar world.
In the future, how to adapt to rather than counter the trend of globalization will become a strategic issue that the United States must face, and the process of the world's initiative to "decouple" the United States may be further accelerated as more countries join.
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The source:
The Ministry of Commerce: Implementing Export Controls on Rare-Earth-Related Technologies
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1845465603666628217&wfr=spider&for=pcMinistry of Transportation: U.S. ships charge special port charges for ships
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1845577845103625356&wfr=spider&for=pcZhou Xiaochuan: Difficult Choices in the Dollar and Change Opportunities in the International Monetary System
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