All along, English is the first language of foreign exchanges in political circles of various countries, but recently China has completely overturned this rule.
On October 9, China's Ministry of Commerce issued Announcement No. 61, officially imposing stricter control on rare earth exports. Article 6 of the announcement clearly stipulates: When specific overseas export operators apply for export licenses for dual-use items (including rare earths), All application materials shall be in Chinese； The file format must use China-made software WPS.
[Screenshot of rare earth control announcement]
In short, two requirements: To buy rare-earth first learn Chinese; format to Chinese common WPS format.
On the surface, these seem to be just two "technical requirements", but in fact it sends a very strong signal: In the rare-earth trade, China is no longer dealing with Western rules, and if it wants to buy rare-earth, it must follow Chinese rules.。In a sense, this is actually a strong return of the right to speak.
The last few decades, the international trade system has been almost monopolized by Western languages, software and rules. English is the only general language of business, the file format is in Word, PDF, the system operates with U.S. software, and even the logic of international negotiations is "Western writing script, other countries in mind".
This time, China directly "flipped the table" and required that everything be based on the Chinese text, which means that the rules are determined by China and the right to interpret also lies in China's hands.
For example, in the future, if foreign enterprises have ambiguity in their understanding of the terms, they will no longer take the English version as the basis, but the original Chinese version as the legal effect. This fundamentally reversed the status of "subordinate translation", and Chinese became the direct language of international rules.
Every country that wants to buy rare land must first learn Chinese.
Looking at the "WPS format" article, the outside world is even more debated.WPS is China's independent development of office software, this requirement is normative declaration materials, in fact is the international application of China's software ecology.
In other words, countries used Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF to submit documents in the past, and now using WPS is equivalent to promoting Chinese digital standards worldwide. This is not a “format dispute,” but a “dominance dispute.”
Why does China dare to do so?。China's share exceeds 70% of the global rare earth supply. Whether it is the United States, Japan or the European Union, they are highly dependent on China rare earths in new energy, military industry, chips, aviation and other fields.
For example, an F-35 fighter jet uses more than 400 kilograms of rare earth materials, and rare earth metals such as neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are also indispensable in the motor of a Tesla electric car. It can be said that without China's rare earths, global new energy transformation and military production would be "stuck".
For a long time, the West has been trying to “get rid of China’s dependence on rare-earth”, but the years of effort have had little effect.The U.S. has re-produced the Mantenpas mine in California, but the refining process still requires China’s participation; Australia has reserves, but lacks mass processing capacity; Japan does not have enough resources.
[U.S. trade rules no longer work for China]
As a result, the whole world has to acknowledge one reality: If you want high-quality rare earths, you must get from ChinaBuy. It is precisely because of this that although the outside world was surprised by the new requirements put forward by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, no one dared to oppose them. Companies from all over the world understand that as long as they want to import rare earths from China, they must follow China's rules.
Many people may not understand: why does a language prescribe such a great response? The language is something that seems insignificant, but behind it is the logic of culture, the way of thinking, and even the self-confidence of the system.
In the past, we used English to negotiate and Western rules as templates in international affairs for a long time, which meant that "discourse logic" was dominated by others. This time, for the first time in the key field of rare earths, China let the world "do business in Chinese". This is not only a change in language, but also a "fine-tuning" of the international order.
In the future, if global companies want to enter the Chinese market and buy Chinese rare earths, they must learn to use Chinese, use WPS and understand Chinese-style processes. It’s a mild and far-reaching “reverse education” that makes the world begin to “learn China” unconsciously.The spread of languages and systems will also bring new global influence to Chinese tech enterprises.This is a silent “standard output”, but may be more strategic than any diplomatic statement.
Looking back, the rare earth is only the beginning. Whether it is the technical standards of artificial intelligence, the financial order of digital currency, or the supply chain system of new energy, China will promote "local standards" to the world in its own way."Per in the near future, one sentence will become a new consensus: Learn Chinese to really get around the world.