“China shook the world in 2010 when it imposed an embargo on exports of crucial rare earth metals to Japan. Panicked Japanese executives appeared on television to warn that they were running out of the critical raw materials,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The embargo, prompted by a territorial dispute, lasted only seven weeks.
But it changed the global supply chain for these metals. When the embargo was over, China took forceful control of its mineral bounty. Top officials in Beijing rooted out corruption, crushed smugglers and consolidated the industry under state control.”