It takes nearly a decade to get a mine online, under optimal conditions. If a conflict breaks out and China embargoes the West, what's your plan then?

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Gigachad 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Stockpile it beforehand and don’t create pointless conflicts.

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mort96 4 days ago | parent [-]

Stockpile 10 years worth of the entire west's consumption of rare earth minerals? That's not gonna be cheap. Would China even have the production capacity to handle it in a reasonable time frame?

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williamdclt 4 days ago | parent [-]

Would China even want to sell it, even if they could? Letting a country stockpile doesn't seem in their interest: the whole reason you want to do it is to reduce reliance on them, they'd probably want to keep you hooked

	▲	floatrock 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		We're letting them buy all our gold reserves and water rights (see alfalfa farming in the West), so everyone's got their price. Question is whats more cost-effective: paying market rates to secretly stockpile, or paying for another Iraq or Afghanistan in the south china sea...

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themafia 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

We're reasoning about the current state of things. We're /not/ suggesting this is good or should continue.

The unwritten implication is, we can do it ourselves, but the price will skyrocket as a result. I personally think that would be fine. Wait a minute and someone else will come by to yell about this the other way.