China is overplaying its rare-earth hand in Japan

That’s the latest approach Beijing is taking in its dispute with Tokyo sparked by comments from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about the possibility of military conflict over Taiwan. Exports of all items with potential military applications to Japan will be immediately banned, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday.The most obvious victim of this threat will be rare-earth magnets made with the elements neodymium and praseodymium, and increasingly spiced up with rarer samarium, dysprosium and ter ...