[MeganC]

China is insisting that firms that want to use China’s rare earth metals produce their products in China instead of just exporting the raw materials to be finished elsewhere.

Arguably, this makes sense to a country that has a historically justifiable reason to be sensistive to colonial mercantilism. But in this case I believe it has more to do with China trying to steal tech from the West.

[from occupied ga]

China trying to steal tech from the West.

As opposed to the US government trying to steal wealth from the country's productive citizens?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

There is a rare earth mine in California due to open shortly after expansion.

[af_vet_rr]

Arguably, this makes sense to a country that has a historically justifiable reason to be sensistive to colonial mercantilism. But in this case I believe it has more to do with China trying to steal tech from the West.

Ironically, China is doing what we should be doing - they are protecting Chinese jobs.

There is some self preservation at play. More and more peasants are headed into the cities looking for work, and in communist or pseudo-dictatorships, an unemployed population is a threat to the powers that be. China is having a hard time keeping the outer provinces under their total control, and it's much easier if they can take the youth of those provinces, bring them into the cities, and stick them into jobs.

Take some peasant who might have been having a hard time finding food or providing shelter, throw them into a job where they are working 6 day workweeks and have a roof over their head and a couple of meals a day in their stomachs, and you've removed a lot of the reasons why they might rebel.