China and the United States are going to battle in Kuala Lumpur for two days, the US media noted the situation is not good: In addition to the rare earths stuck in the neck of the U.S. military industry, China also holds a more fatal "nuclear option" in its hands.
Middle American trade.
In fact, this consultation has long been paved, it is the "regular communication" agreed by the U.S. in Geneva talks in May this year, before three rounds of talks in London, Stockholm and Madrid, and there have been times.
But this time differently, the anxiety of the U.S. media is visible - Bloomberg directly said that "the Chinese side has more encryption than imagined", and even reversed the internal reports of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, in the words all the smell of panic.
The core conflict is simple: The United States wants to rely on technology to block China, but finds that its military industry and people's livelihoods are both in the hands of China's industrial chain.
When it comes to rare earth, many people know it’s an “industrial vitamin,” but how important is it specifically?
Look at the U.S. F-35 fighter and understand - each fighter aircraft must use 417 kilograms of rare earth, small to the magnets of the navigation system, large to the heat-resistant parts of the engine, without this thing, the advanced fighter aircraft can not fly.
rare earth raw materials
Not to mention the U.S. military's "Zeus Shield" destroyers, nuclear submarines, there is no rare earth, the radar is not moving.
China holds 92% of the world's rare-earth metallurgy production capacity, and rare-earth magnet manufacturing accounts for more than 93% of the world.
The United States is not without rare earth mines, the key is without technology.
That's why U.S. Treasury Secretary Bescent said "China's rare earth control cannot be accepted" as soon as he opened his mouth. He was not tough, but really scared.
If the rare earth stamp is the U.S. "security weak rib", then the US media called the "nuclear option" of the drug raw material, in the stamp is the U.S. "civil life door".
Someone may not know that 80% of the commonly used pharmaceutical raw materials in the U.S. are imported, such as the most commonly used antibiotic in the U.S., amoxicillin, of which the four key ingredients are almost all produced in China.
Bloomberg: “China’s drug leverage is a nuclear option in U.S. trade talks”
The consequences of this dependence became apparent in April this year.The Trump administration added 145% tariffs on Chinese medical devices, resulting in the price of drugs in U.S. pharmacies went straight up.
It is not that the United States has never thought of finding a "spare tire", such as India.
After all, India has the reputation of "the pharmacy of the world". But when they checked, they found out, 70% of India's raw materials are imported from China, which is equivalent to China's "source supplier" and India's "distribution plant".
That's why the US media said that once this "people's livelihood card" is thrown out, the effect may be stronger than that of rare earths.
The U.S. people may be less concerned about the military, but if the price of drugs rises, everyone can feel it.
Rare-earth magnets are also needed in medical devices.
In fact, the anxiety of the US media is essentially a failure to understand the logic of the global industrial chain-these two "cards" of China are the result of decades of industrial accumulation.
In globalization, the United States only wants "high-profit" links, such as R&D and branding, and throws the "dirty work" of smelting and manufacturing to others. As a result, the key links are lost.
China is different. From the mining and smelting of rare earths to patent research and development, from the production of raw materials to the formulation of quality standards, the entire chain has been built step by step.
This advantage is not based on the "card neck", it is based on the cost, technology, production capacity.For example, China-produced raw materials, the price is 50 percent lower than in the United States, the quality also meets the world's strictest standards, other countries can not compare.
In the final analysis, the contest of this Kuala Lumpur consultation is ostensibly a game between rare earths and other economic and trade issues, but deeply it is a competition for the right to speak in the global industrial chain.
U.S. President Trump
The United States wants to maintain its hegemony with unilateral sanctions, but has forgotten that it has long been unable to separate itself from China’s industrial chain.
The US media shouted "the situation is not good", perhaps because they really realized that the global economic structure has quietly changed, and it is increasingly unfeasible to rely on "hegemonic thinking" to suppress people.
For ordinary people, the most intuitive revelation of this game is: Whoever can hold the key links of the industrial chain in his hands will be able to stand more stably in the competition. This is not a "stuck neck", but a real industrial confidence.