China and Japan aren’t talking. Will their rare earth trade go quiet?

When China broke out one of its “big guns” in last year’s trade war with the US – an array of export controls on rare earth elements – it helped spur a temporary truce in the pitched conflict between the two economic superpowers.After Beijing’s announcement, many around the world expressed shock at the size and scope of China’s response to Washington’s sky-high tariffs. But for Japan, a squeeze on rare earth shipments was not so novel a concept.In 2010, following the collision of a Chinese fishing trawler with Japanese patrol boats near the disputed Diaoyu Islands and the detention of the trawler’s captain, Beijing threatened “severe countermeasures”. Some Japanese businesses began to report their supplies of the critical minerals, largely sourced from China, had slowed or stopped entirely.