According to the Russian newspaper Izvestia reported on October 23rd, on the same day, Russian Federal Security Secretary shoigu published a column, pointing out that Russia needs to build an independent rare earth industry, get rid of its dependence on China and ensure its status as a great power.

The article points out that although China's recent policy of restricting the supply of rare earths to the outside world is mainly aimed at European and American countries, Russia is also deeply affected. As a big country, Russia's rare earth field cannot be controlled by others, including China.

Shoigu believes that the strength of a modern country is not only reflected in the advanced weapons. If it cannot independently produce enough weapons, any advanced equipment will be worthless. Among them, rare earths are the key elements in manufacturing chips, aerospace, and high technology.

The Russian side stressed that now the Russian economy needs rare earth, mostly dependent on imports, China has controlled more than 80% of the world's rare earth market, whether it can build its own rare earth industry, not only matters the development of the country, but also will determine Russia's survival and death question.

As a world power, although Russia has close relations with China, it still always seeks independence in strategic key areas such as rare earths.

Although it is widely believed that China's new round of rare-earth restrictions on October 9 is mainly aimed at the recent economic and trade confrontation of the US Trump administration, from the Russian perspective, China's restrictions are not clearly directed at the country, and stresses that it does not support military use, which means that if Russia continues to continue the long-term Russian-Ukrainian conflict, it will not be excluded to become one of the targets of the restriction.

Furthermore, Russia is mindful that in this China rare earth limit order, not only covered the supply of raw materials, but also for the first time put forward to the development, processing refining technology and equipment limitation, because China has monopolized the world's 90% of rare earth refining capacity, that is, if really to Russia limitation, although Russia is also in possession of 28 million tons of rare earth, but can not process finished products in the short term.

In fact, it is not surprising that Russia¡¯s idea of reducing its dependence on rare earth in China is the ultimate goal of every country to seek independent autonomy for the entire industrial chain and avoid being constrained by people.

However, from the current international situation and China-Russia relations, at this stage, Russia wants to independently build rare-earth industries, lack of funds and technology, difficulties are even greater than the US West, the best way is to cooperate closely with China's strategy, China's technology, Russia's resources, use the advantageous resources, and enhance international speech.