Recently, U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer publicly stated in Fox News that China did not communicate with the U.S. before announcing new rare earth export control measures, and refused to listen to the U.S. phone calls.
The real turning point came in a subsequent TV interview with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
On October 13, Bessent said on Fox Business Channel that the U.S. government’s proposal to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese goods “is not necessarily implemented” as long as China can lift its latest rare earth export restrictions.
This cliché is neither an initiative to show weakness, nor a strategic change. Its essence is more like a "tone test" caught off guard-an attempt to "express a willingness" in the field of public opinion but retain room for maneuver. In the eyes of the United States, China's new regulations have dealt a substantial blow to it, and "shouting" to China through the media to remove controls can not only maintain policy authority, but also preset conditions for negotiations.
However, China has not responded, nor has it shown interest in the US concessions.This silence, on the contrary, is a direct proof that China holds the initiative.
Why is China not responding?
In the U.S. view, China’s rejection of calls is an expression of “non-transparency” and “irreparability”, while in China’s strategic system, this non-response is itself a response.
The core of China's newly introduced rare earth export approval mechanism is not the export "embargo", but the "case-by-case licensing" of products involving sensitive uses. Including rare earth metals, magnetic materials, rare earth-containing intermediates, etc., are all included in the approval list, covering multiple links from raw ore to high-end device manufacturing. In particular, the five newly added elements-yttrium, ytterbium, terbium, lutetium, and gadolinium-directly affect the core links of aviation, laser, radar and other technologies in the United States.
The key to the examination and approval system lies in "buffering uncertainty": it does not cause the escalation of trade wars like the ban, but it can introduce political and strategic considerations into the examination and approval of individual cases. To some extent, it allows China to hold the rhythm controller in the global high-tech supply chain.
Under this trend, China's "no call" is not an emotional decision, but part of an institutionalized strategy. It refuses to respond passively within the "exchange schedule" set by the US, and chooses to promote its own interests with practical policies. China has not commented on Besant's statement, nor has it adjusted the regulatory mechanism that will be officially implemented on December 1, this silence is more deterrent.
Who is afraid of new rules on rare earth exports?
The key reason why rare earths make the United States highly nervous is that they are irreplaceable in the core system of the US military.
In the U.S. defense industry chain, rare earths are widely used in guided weapons, electromagnetic guns, radar systems of stealth fighters, submarine sonar, satellite communications and precision electronic devices. For example, the number of rare earth magnets in the F-35 stealth fighter exceeds 400 kilograms, and the missile tail control system needs high-performance magnetic materials to support it. In these key nodes, Chinese rare earths are almost irreplaceable.
Although the United States began to promote "localization of rare earths" as early as ten years ago, so far, it still lags far behind China in terms of mineral source development, refining technology, environmental governance, and intermediate product manufacturing capabilities. The core links of rare earth purification and magnetic material manufacturing, such as sintered NdFeB technology, are still highly dependent on the supply chain of Chinese companies.
China has not banned exports, but has switched to an "examination and approval system", which makes the American military industry even more anxious. Because the approval itself means "uncertainty", it means that even if the order exists, it may not be approved as scheduled. For the US military system operating on the basis of "inventory + plan", this risk is not a theoretical possibility, but a fatal bottleneck that may lead to the interruption of missile inventory and the delay of weapons maintenance in reality.
What’s worse is that once this bottleneck breaks out, it will not only affect military capabilities, but also impact policy confidence in the U.S. domestic manufacturing industry’s recovery. That’s why U.S. military-industrial enterprises have been lobbying the Treasury Department and Congress in recent years to avoid too radical policies against China to retain critical raw material supplies.
This also explains why Besant was willing to step in to downgrade the tone. What he represents is not a single government department, but the capital logic behind industrial interests.
Internal game in the United States: Ministry of Finance and Trade Representative declare division
On the surface, Besent and Greer are just sending signals to China in different ways. In essence, they respectively represent the division of the two logic of China policy.
Trade Representative Greer emphasized "no advance notice" and "refusing to answer the phone", which corresponds to the Trump administration's usual pressure logic-to promote the negotiation process by creating tension. Greer needs to echo the political posture of the White House through tough words and maintain the political consistency of being tough towards China.
Bescent, on the other hand, is closer to "realism". The Ministry of Finance is concerned about market stability, capital hedging and the continuation of the military industry chain, and is not interested in the "tough tone" of diplomatic strategy. His statement is to strive for space for a possible "policy buffer period": to prevent US policies from triggering more severe Chinese counter-measures, and at the same time reserve inventory and adjustment windows for enterprises.
The two statements of separation reflect the chaos of the US government's internal line on the "rare-earth issue" - on the one hand, political confrontation is to beined, and on the other hand, it is difficult to bear the actual cost.
For China, there is no need to choose the person to respond to in the long-term speech, but should continue to lengthen the dialogue cycle and push the issue back to the US side.
New phase of the game.
Bescent's initiative to release the "negotiable" signal is a measured concession at the domestic political level, and a recognition of China's counter-measure capabilities at the international political level. It declares a reality: rare earths are not a simple resource issue, but a strategic tool in the power game between China and the United States.
This change in attitude has not been accompanied by substantial results, which just shows that China and the United States have entered a pattern of checks and balances in which "we can't talk about it or turn our faces".
From a Chinese perspective, the advancement of the rare-earth approval system has far exceeded the initial expectation. It has not triggered intense confrontation, but has forced several key U.S. officials to openly decline, thus disrupting the consistency of U.S. internal strategy against China.
In the next stage, the United States may try to lead the dispute to WTO channels, resort to international trade arbitration, and try to deny the legitimacy of China's rare earth export restrictions. However, this path itself means that the procedure is complicated and the time limit is long, and China can continue to maintain its discretion on rare earth exports in the WTO game.
At the same time, China still needs to guard against two risks:
First, the U.S. may shift from the rare-earth battlefield to other critical resources (such as uranium, uranium, lithium) in an attempt to break the pattern of “China’s resource dominance.”
The second is that the United States will either join Japan and South Korea and other countries to build a "rare-earth circumvention mechanism" to replace China's export routes through Southeast Asia or Africa supply chains.
In response to this situation, China must speed up the institutionalization of the "rare earth reserve approval system", strengthen its technology and application review capabilities, and expand its international influence on high-performance magnetic materials and downstream application materials. Although the results of the rare earth strategy are beginning to show, what really determines the outcome is the medium and long-term supply chain control and industrial initiative.