Last year, Founder & CEO of Freedom’s Fund USA, wrote a brief for a specific government entity, showing the link analysis of how China is using Rare Earth Elements (REEs) to advance in technology which threatens our national security and defense. By using Rare Earth Elements and halting the export of REEs to the United States, China will develop their own technology in order to further their economy, with the attempt to become the global leading market. China launched, “Made in China 2025,” which is a state led industrial policy that seeks to make China the dominant nation in high-tech manufacturing, surpassing the West in technology.[1] The plan was released in 2015, as a ten-year plan to rapidly develop ten high-tech industries to include Huawei, ZTE, and more. In addition, China’s plan is to become the leader in global markets by 2049, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.[2] Therefore, China has no intention of slowing their global expansion economically and technologically.
Thirty years ago, China made the decision to make rare earths a strategic material the globe would need, and ban foreigners from mining them in their own country. This paved the way for China to surpass the U.S. as the world’s leading producer of REE. By 2010, China reduced global rare earth exports critically effecting the technological use of REE that had already begun. This created global dependency on China’s export of rare earths and caused foreign nations to become dependent upon China for these elements. Thereby, significantly aiding in the boosting of China’s economy. Between 2014 and 2017, the United States imported 80% of its supply from China. The United States has failed to compete with China on this front. Through REEs, the US obtains cellphones, batteries, computers, metals for various military hardware, etc. from China. Which was a concern during the Trade War between China and the United States under the Trump Administration.
Therefore, don’t think for one moment that China was not involved in the debacle in Afghanistan that we all witnessed two months ago. It has been reported that on July 28th, top Taliban leaders met with China’s Foreign Minister in Beijing, in which China legitimized the Taliban. This gave the Taliban diplomatic power which has never happened before. When the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, and India evacuated their embassies in Kabul, China’s Embassy remained untouched and unscathed. By China legitimizing the Taliban and recognizing their new form of government “Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan,” one can surmise that China’s leverage and negotiation is to obtain Rare Earth Elements and further their global expansionism through their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which is China’s global infrastructure development plan. It has been reported that Afghanistan has over $1 TRILLION worth of Rare Earths, to include: gold, silver, mercury, lithium, aluminum, and more.
Why should this be of concern? Because major tech companies rely on China for Rare Earths to develop smartphones, technology, radars, batteries, microchips, etc.
Google has close ties to China, as Huawei has become intertwined with Google. According to NPR, Chairman of Huawei has been hopeful that Google can influence U.S. Officials to allow Huawei to be in the United States, after President Trump partially banned Huawei from entering our nation.[3] Huawei has been leaning on Google to influence the Commerce Department on their behalf. The purpose for the ban was to prevent American companies from doing business with Huawei due to National Security concerns of surveillance, as they use software within their technology that could be used as a spying mechanism for the Chinese government. Another Chinese telecom company, ZTE, has also been deemed a threat to U.S. National Security.
Peter Thiel, a leader in Silicon Valley, has suggested that the tech industry needs to understand the adversarial threat China poses. According to Politico, foreign spies have been showing up uninvited to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Due to Russia and China’s increasing aggressiveness and concentration of world leading science and technology firms, there’s a “full-on epidemic of espionage on the West Coast right now.” Politico stated in their report, “As Silicon Valley continues to take over the world, the local spy war will only get hotter and the consequence will resonate far beyond Northern California.”
Despite warnings from government officials, isn’t it interesting that big tech companies are placating China? According to The Federalist, Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO of Amazon, has direct ties to the Chinese business market, which is regulated by the CCP. The production of Amazon’s most popular products-the Echo and Kindle-take place in Chinese factories using Chinese laborers who work long hours with little pay and little safety training. Bezos backed a treaty between the U.S. and China to allow technological companies to increase their business in China and to invest more into the Chinese economy. Bezos also purchased the Washington Post, which now promotes China in their advertisements.
An app that many Americans use today, especially celebrities and youth, is TikTok. TikTok is an app usually used for social media purposes to create fun short videos. However, the app is owned by a Chinese company and could be used to spy on Americans. If you or your children use TikTok, we encourage you to remove it from your phone. China has the capability of obtaining facial recognition and your private information from the app. According to Gordon Chang, a fellow at the Gatestone Institute, it is believed the China used TikTok videos to further the protests of BLM last year, which resulted in $2 billion in damages across the nation due to mass protesting. Secretary Mike Pompeo stated last summer that the Trump Administration was looking into TikTok and warned Americans to use caution, unless they want their private information in the hands of the CCP.
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[1] James McBride, Andrew Chatzky, Is ‘Made in China 2025’ a Threat to Global Trade?, Council on Foreign Relations (May 13, 2019). https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/made-china-2025-threat-global-trade
[2] James McBride, Andrew Chatzky, Is ‘Made in China 2025’ a Threat to Global Trade?, Council on Foreign Relations (May 13, 2019). https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/made-china-2025-threat-global-trade
[3] NPR https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730536125/as-google-advances-its-interests-it-serves-as-huawei-emissary-to-u-s
