Apparently, we don't even have the right to our own natural resources.
Mining executives and national security experts are warning the federal government about China’s domination of strategic mineral supplies, saying Ottawa needs to better protect supply chains for modern technology that relies on them like electric vehicles and smart phones.
In testimony before the House of Commons natural resources committee this month, experts described China’s decades-long efforts to control the market for critical minerals — including the 17 rare earth elements — by rapidly expanding its processing capacity or by acquiring foreign assets to dominate supply chains. The minerals, which include magnesium, lithium and scandium, are used to develop such strategic products as solar panels, wind turbines, electric car batteries, mobile phone components and guided missiles.
Canada sits atop an abundance of such minerals, from a large deposit of neodymium in northern Saskatchewan (used in the manufacture of magnets) to the sizeable pockets of lithium found in Quebec. That strategic advantage, experts said, makes it incumbent on Ottawa to help strengthen Canada’s supply chain and protect against China’s coercive foreign policy tactics.
The witnesses are sounding the alarm as Canada-China relations deteriorate over the detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The impasse has revealed China’s willingness to inflict economic pain by restricting Canadian exports.
Robert Fung, chairman of Canadian mining firm Torngat Metals, said China has over the years amassed around 80 per cent of global processing capacity for strategic minerals, and has used that position to manipulate prices as a way to punish competitors.
“We all know that is not a geopolitically acceptable situation,” he said in testimony earlier this month.
Fung and others stressed that Canada’s abundance of natural deposits of minerals like lithium, nickel and others could give Canada a significant strategic edge in coming years. Minerals used in the manufacture of magnets for electric cars, for example, are almost exclusively located in Canada and in Australia, which has already taken the lead over Canada in their development.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime shot at being in a position to have a degree of control in a very large market,” Fung said.
Pierre Gratton, head of the Mining Association of Canada, described an “increasingly uncomfortable reliance” on China for commodities, particularly for rare earths and other critical minerals. He said China declines to “play by our rules” in the development of those minerals, effectively undercutting the free market.
Somewhat related - don't throw your life away, Greenland:
Greenland holds an election on Tuesday that could decide the fate of a vast deposit of rare earth metals both coveted by international companies and vital to the Arctic island’s hopes of economic recovery and independence.
Though Greenland is home to a little more than 56,000 people, diplomats from Washington to Beijing will be watching carefully as the nation holds snap parliamentary polls.
That’s because Greenland sits on what the U.S. Geological Survey calls the world’s biggest undeveloped deposit of rare earth metals.
Why were two Chinese scientists allowed to walk away with a henipavirus sample, Iain?:
A Commons committee yesterday by a 6-5 vote ordered the Public Health Agency to disclose records on the firing of two Chinese scientists at a federal lab. Iain Stewart, president of the Agency, refused to take questions on the Winnipeg incident when cross-examined by MPs: “There is obviously a profound public interest in this.”
It's time for other Asian countries to nuclearise:
The Chinese communist regime is accelerating its plans to invade Taiwan, an expert warns, as Beijing ratchets up military maneuvers against the island.
Twenty Chinese military aircraft—including four nuclear-capable H-6K bombers, 10 J-16 fighter jets, two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, and a KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft—entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on March 26, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. It was the largest incursion ever reported by the ministry.
Taiwan’s ADIZ, located adjacent to the island’s territorial airspace, is an area where incoming planes must identify themselves to the island’s air traffic controller.
The incursion caps off a significant increase in hostility by Beijing against Taiwan since 2020. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, re-elected last January, has taken a hard line against threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while the island has deepened its cooperation with the United States—prompting the regime to escalate its warmongering towards the island.
The CCP sees Taiwan as a part of its territory and has threatened war to bring the island under its fold. The self-ruled island is in reality a de-facto independent country with its own democratically-elected government, military, constitution, and currency.
At a moment of bitter tensions between the two countries, she has taken on Chinese citizenship and hopes to compete for her adopted country in this year’s Tokyo Olympics.
The reasons, Schultz has said, are deeply personal and seem to predate the current turmoil in China-Canada relations. Still, some critics of the regime in Beijing question her choice.
Her maternal grandmother in China once held the high jump world record but could never compete for that nation in the Olympics because it was boycotting the Games at the time. Her grandfather was a Chinese record holder in the high jump. The granddaughter expressed a wish as long ago as 2017 to achieve what her mother’s mother could not.
For various reasons, Schultz has competed little in the past three years, but she certainly has the potential to win an Olympic medal some day, said Glenroy Gilbert, head coach of the Canadian track and field team.
“Clearly, we saw her as a rising star in the heptathlon,” said Gilbert, an Olympic gold medalist himself. “We wanted her and tried very hard to get her to stay with Canada … but this was something she was firm on.”
She is a selfish opportunist.
Leave her stranded there. Revoke her passport.
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