🇯🇵 Japan Is Now Pulling Rare Earths out of Old Air Conditioners to Build Missiles. No Joke.
Japanese News reported on the 4th of July that, due to being hit by China’s tightened rare earth export controls, Japan has launched its first-ever plan to extract the materials from discarded air conditioning units.
Japanese netizens jumped on it immediately. “Takaichi said no problem on rare earths, but here we are picking through rubbish.” Others worried about a surge in outdoor unit thefts. Fair call. But it does does look rather desperate.
But if you dismiss this as a joke and you miss the actual story.
Rare earths are the vitamins of modern industry and the lifeblood of high-end military tech. Dysprosium and terbium are key to the high-performance permanent magnets used in missile guidance, drone motors and fighter radar systems.
This is not a random civilian recycling initiative. It is being led by Mitsubishi Electric, a major Japanese defence contractor deeply involved in electronics, radar and missile systems. Mitsubishi Electric is already on China’s export control list for dual-use items. So those magnets pulled from a neighbour’s old air conditioner could flow straight back into Japan’s military supply chain. This fundamentally alters the core concept of this so-called resource self-rescue.
The process is notoriously difficult and expensive, with low recovery rates and purity problems. Yet here they are, picking through bins to feed re-militarisation. Since Takaichi’s government took over last October, Japan has ramped up efforts to revise the peace constitution, push defence spending to record levels, loosen rules on exporting lethal weapons and talk tough on Taiwan and the South China Sea. The right-wing’s plans to rewrite history grows louder by the day.
China’s controls, stepped up this year on dysprosium, terbium and yttrium, are precise, necessary and legal. Exports of terbium to Japan have been at zero since January; yttrium is down over 90 percent. The controls are aimed squarely at military end-users and anything boosting Japan’s military buildup or nuclear ambitions, not the Japanese people. The goal is simply to restrain remilitarisation and protect regional peace.
Let’s not beat around the bush; Japan’s stockpiles are running dry. Domestic production cuts at places like Tosoh are biting hard. The alternative sources they pinned hopes on, Australia, India and Vietnam, cannot fill the gap anytime soon either. Their much-hyped seabed mud near Minami-Torishima might hold massive reserves in theory, but industrial extraction, processing and refining would cost up to 20 times Chinese supply, with huge technical hurdles.
Africa, Greenland and Deep-sea sludge, they have chased them all. Yet the more Japan pushes remilitarisation and confrontation, the more it starves for rare earths. It is a vicious loop.
Japan would be smarter working with China as a partner rather than against it. The days of Japanese regional dominance are long gone. It will continue shooting itself in the foot like this and the self-inflicted wounds will only get deeper, while stable cooperation could deliver the secure supply chains and economic wins both sides actually need.
Japan is chained to America and, as a result, it is nearly impossible to prioritise its own best interests. The US alliance compels Japan to adopt a containment strategy that benefits American interests over Japanese prosperity, leading to friction with its major trading partner and neighbour amidst escalating economic and resource burdens.
This has nothing to do with lowering risk or diversifying. It’s a direct consequence of making strategic errors. Thinking that military expansion and anti-China containment policies would deliver security, while underestimating China’s resolve to safeguard its interests and regional stability.
Japan’s real shortage is not rare earth resources. It is clear-eyed realism about history, peace and sensible coexistence with its neighbours. Building East Asian stability was a difficult task and it shouldn’t be carelessly destroyed by right-wing delusions of a “normal” military power.
Scrapping air conditioners for missile magnets is not a joke. It is a flashing red warning for anyone paying attention.
What happens when the bins run empty?
"EEUU nunca ha sido una nación cristiana y nunca lo será, una nación cristiana nunca habría matado y desplazado a 20 millones de nativos americanos, que aún viven en la exclusión y en la pobreza. Una nación cristiana nunca hubiese defendido tener esclavos".
Loran Livingston, pastor de una iglesia de Charlotte, decidió soltar verdades en el dia de la independencia de EEUU, exponiendo su verdadera historia ante el mundo.
Ahora Trump dirá que este pastor es comunista y solo tiene rencor a EEUU por decir la verdad. 🤡
Hoy 6 de julio, es cumpleaños del Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, quién fue nombrado al menos 169 veces en los correos electrónicos del pederasta Jeffrey Epstein y se reunió con él varias veces en su casa privada de Nueva York.
En 2023, el Dalai Lama intentó besar a un niño en público y le pidió que le “chupara la lengua” en un evento budista en la India.
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Durante al menos 2 décadas, el Dalai Lama recibió un subsidio anual de 180.000 dólares por parte de la CIA para desestabilizar a China en el Tibet.