| Rare earths are critical minerals for the United States,and 78% of the rare earth(Compounds and metals)imports of the United States directly come from China.In the background of Sino-U.S.strategic competition,the United States regards its dependence on China’s rare earth as a major risk.There have been many discussions on China’s export control of rare earths against the United States,but most of them are based on the current situation of rare earth supply between China and the United States,ignoring interactions among China,the United States and the international community.Based on the existing research,this study will systematically analyze the feasibility of China’s use of rare earth export control to counter the United States.Focusing on the core research question,firstly,based on the asymmetric interdependence theory,a theoretical framework is constructed to analyze the feasibility of countermeasures.Then,the degree of dependence of the United States on China’s rare earth and the feasibility of China’s countermeasures are discussed in detail.The study found that the United States was highly dependent on China’s rare earths in the midstream and downstream of the rare earth supply chain,especially in the midstream,which provided conditions for China to counter the United States with rare earth export control.Rare earths are irreplaceable in the United States economy and security,and the United States rare earth industry is difficult to achieve mass production in the short term.In the long run,the United States is faced with constraints such as incomplete elements of rare earths,high environmental governance costs and the international market obstacles,which further confirms the feasibility of China’s rare earth export control against the United States economic coercion.But imposing rare earth export controls on the United States could damage China’s international image,expose China to WTO legal challenges and boycotts by western countries,which would reduce the feasibility of export controls.Therefore,before implementing rare earth export control,China should weigh the advantages and disadvantages and should not use rare earth export control tools rashly.This study has both theoretical and practical significance.At the theoretical level,compared with the existing studies,on the feasibility of rare earth export control,this study takes the asymmetric interdependence theory as the starting point,and incorporates the factors of the initiator,the target and the third party to construct a theoretical framework to analyze the feasibility of countermeasures.It fully reflects that counteraction is an interaction among the sender,the target and the third parties,which helps to promote the in-depth development of relevant research in the field of counteraction.From a practical point of view,under the background of Sino-U.S.strategic competition,scholars at home and abroad are highly concerned about what policies China can adopt to counter the economic coercion of the United States effectively.Taking the rare earth supply chain as the research object,this study explores whether it is feasible for China to use rare earth export control to counter the economic coercion of the United States,and provides policy suggestions for China to use rare earth export control in emergency situations.This paper is divided into five parts.The first part mainly puts forward the research questions,introduces the research contents and methods,and reviews the literature.The second part establishes the feasibility study framework of sanctions based on asymmetric interdependence theory.The third part analyzes the dependence of the United States on China’s rare earth and discusses whether China has the necessary conditions to counter the economic coercion of the United States with rare earth export control.The fourth part analyzes the factors affecting the feasibility of rare earth export control from the perspectives of China,the United States and the third parties.The fifth part briefly summarizes the research conclusions and puts forward some suggestions on strengthening the feasibility of China’s rare earth export control. |
