On October 9, 2025, China's Ministry of Commerce issued two new regulations one after another, raising the threshold for rare earth export control. As long as the rare earth content in export products exceeds 0.1%, must be approved. It's not just rare earths that are named-lithium batteries, diamonds, and superhard materials are also included in the new round of export control.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Department of Industry and Security issued a provisional final rule that would automatically sanction the subsidiary as long as a parent company’s foreign investment share in the U.S. list of restricted entities exceeds 50 percent.
The Dutch government then set out to try to “rob” the Anselm Semiconductor back to Europe to circumvent the U.S. sanctions list. A commercial act that seems to be a legal operation is actually naked economic coercion. If China no longer provides rare earths to the United States, will the United States really dare to kick China out of the SWIFT system? Is this financial trump card of the United States really the "last trick"?
In March 2022, seven major Russian banks were removed from SWIFT, rubles fell in a matter of days, stock markets fell, and the banking system almost paralyzed.The United States and the European Union also froze Russia’s $3250 billion overseas assets, allowing the world to see the power of financial weapons.
The problem is that China is not Russia. China's GDP will reach US $19.47 trillion in 2024, making it the second largest economy in the world. Its manufacturing industry accounts for one-third of the world's total, and it is a major trading partner of more than 160 countries.If China is kicked out of SWIFT, not only will the Chinese economy be impacted, the global supply chain and financial markets will be involved.
Many countries in the world rely on China's exports, electronics, raw materials, industrial parts, livelihoods should have as much as possible. Once the financial communications lines with China are broken, these countries will fall into the trouble of not being able to pay and trade. The United States is really clear about this. That's why so far, the United States although frequently threatening "financial sanctions", but late and late do not dare to really press the button.
Against China, the plan has long been prepared. The country’s cross-border payment system CIPS has connected more than 200 countries and regions around the world, with 142 direct participants and more than 13,000 indirect participants.
Although the scale is not as good as SWIFT, CIPS is a system specially designed for RMB and has the characteristics of autonomous controllability and efficient settlementOnce SWIFT channels are blocked, CIPS can quickly interconnect and support China’s trade with the world.
More importantly, energy giants such as Saudi Aramco have begun to accept RMB payments, and in three months the share of the RMB in Saudi oil transactions jumped from 19% to 34%.
Not only that, commodity giants such as BHP Billiton in Australia and Vale in Brazil have also begun to try to settle iron ore in RMB after October 9, 2025. Iron ore is the world’s second largest trade commodity after crude oil, and China is the largest importer.
The United States certainly does not want to see this happen. The reason why the US dollar can dominate the world is not because of the speed at which money is printed, but because the world uses it for settlement. The US dollar can earn US$50 - 150 billion in benefits every year based on seigniorage, which is a sum of money in vain. Countries around the world will also invest foreign exchange reserves in U.S. debt, providing a steady stream of funds for the United States to cover its finances every year.
But the premise of all this is: the world is willing to use dollars and believe in dollars. When Russia was kicked out of SWIFT, the world became alert. The United States can freeze a country's assets at any time, so who dares to put money in the United States with confidence?
As a result, a wave of "de-dollarization" quietly arose.Countries began to use their own currencies to settle trade and establish their own payment systems. China’s CIPS, Russia’s SPFS, the EU’s INSTEX systems have gradually expanded, and gold and digital currencies have also become new settlement tools.1.9% Growing to6% in July 2024 , more than tripled.
Ports, gold stores, and financial platforms in Southeast Asian, Latin American, and African countries have successively launched RMB settlement functions. Bangkok, Jakarta and other places have even begun to accept digital RMB. If the United States really wants to kick China out of SWIFT, it will be equivalent to breaking its own arm. It will not only weaken the US dollar system, but will even "force CIPS to open" and quickly swallow SWIFT's market share.
This is actually the most worrying thing for the United States. Washington think tank CSIS has warned that if China's rare earth supply is limited, it will take the United States 8 to 10 years to rebuild its independent rare earth system, with an investment of more than 10 billion US dollars, and environmental approval will be extremely difficult.
The F-35 is used. 417 kilograms of rare earth, where a large number of high-temperature magnets require andMore than 90% of the world is produced in China. Mountain Pass, the only rare earth mine in the United States, can only dig out raw ore and have to be sent to China for refining. Many industries such as AI chips, semiconductor wafers, missile radars, and aircraft engines in the United States are inseparable from the superhard materials and rare earths provided by China.
This is why China released several export control measures simultaneously on October 9. Not only rare earth, but also lithium batteries, diamonds, silicon carbonate and other key materials.95% of ultra-hard materials production capacity, More than 90%Energy storage lithium battery production capacity. The control of these industrial chains is the strongest bargaining chip in China's hands.
The United States once tried to crack down on China shipping companies through port fees. As a result, China imposed a special fee for shipping companies with "US-funded shareholders accounting for more than 25%," allowing American companies themselves to fall for it. China has also included 14 U.S. companies in the "Unreliable Entities List," launched an antitrust investigation against Qualcomm, and implemented countermeasures against Hanwha Marine's five U.S. -funded subsidiaries.
Even Nvidia has also been investigated, and the China State Administration for Market Regulation requires companies to submit special instructions when purchasing its graphics cards. Faced with China's series of "king bombing" counter-measures, the United States began to look at a loss. Trump, the Treasury Secretary and trade representative frequently made malicious remarks in public, and even threatened to attack international students, but they never dared to really announce the SWIFT issue.
Because once financial nuclear weapons are really used, Not only will China accelerate de-dollarization, but other countries around the world will also follow suit. By then, the credit of the US dollar will collapse and the demand for US bonds will plummet. The United States will face consequences that cannot be borne.On October 19, 2025, Trump relented in an exclusive interview and said that "100% tariffs cannot be sustained for a long time" and expressed "willingness to get along well with China."
Although this statement is lightly depicted, the information released behind it cannot be ignored. This game around rare earth and SWIFT, in fact, has long gone beyond the scope of trade. It is a comprehensive confrontation of finance, technology, energy, diplomacy. The United States has financial nuclear weapons, while China has the vitality of the industrial chain, no one of the two sides dares to start easily.
In this war without smoke, victory or defeat depends not only on weapons, but also on wisdom and endurance. This contest between China and the United States has been upgraded from tariffs to industrial chains, from trade to financial systems, from goods wars to currency wars. The battlefields are everywhere and the means are becoming more and more complicated.
Whether to kick out SWIFT is no longer just a technical issue, but a strategic choice that affects the vitality of the global economy. For China, we must not only preserve the strongholds of rare earth, energy, and industrial chains, but also accelerate the internationalization of the RMB and build our own financial channels.The game of the future has just begun.