“I understand Nork has many rare earth mineral resources, a market currently dominated by Chinese sources. “
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True. But the Japanese just found some incredible supplies on the sea bed, and its good for several hundred years at current rates of usage. China isn’t going to be dominating that market for very long.
That find is 100 km from their nearest (tiny) island, 1000km from mainland Japan and is on the ocean floor a couple km beneath the surface. That find. is NOT going to be easy or cheap to collect! Even starting from the low Nork level of infrastructure that's got to be cheaper to exploit. And there would be plenty of relatively cheap (even if we provide food and paid 5x Kim's wages) unskilled labor available.