Column: Canada slams the door on China in critical minerals race | Reuters
Category: News & Politics
Via: kavika • 2 years ago • 12 commentsBy: Andy Home Printed Chinese and Canada (Reuters)
Canada has just upped the ante in the global competition to secure critical minerals.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Andy Home Printed Chinese and Canada flags are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration REFILE - CORRECTING YEAR
LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Canada has just upped the ante in the global competition to secure critical minerals.
The Canadian government this week ordered Chinese companies to divest their holdings in three Canadian-listed junior mining companies planning to develop lithium deposits.
The ban comes within days of Canada announcing a tougher policy on investment in the minerals sector by state-owned entities, particularly those from China, which dominates the processing of key energy transition metals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earths.
The order to divest follows what the government said was a "multi-step national security review process, which involves rigorous scrutiny by Canada's national security and intelligence community."
It promised to continue to "act decisively when investments threaten our national security and our critical minerals supply chains, both at home and abroad."
The move marks a hardening of geopolitical battle-lines in the metals sector and raises the question of what Canada and its metallic allies might do next in the name of national security.
PROTECTING THE PIPELINE
The three impacted Canadian companies - Power Metals Corp (PWM.V), Ultra Lithium Inc (ULT.V) and Lithium Chile Inc (LITH.V) - are sitting on lithium deposits in Canada, Argentina and …
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Seems that Canada is taking stock of their vulnerabilities as well.
Cojones on Canada's part. Hopefully the US will follow suit.
The only US rare earth mine in the US is 100% US owned.
The new processing plant being built is on US soil and is a joint US/Australia venture.
What is interesting is that some of the REE goes to China for processing with a new processing plant in the US it will not longer have to go to China but can stay in the US.
It's not only rare earths here in the US
The thing that bothers me the most about that is China can buy property/companies here but we cannot buy land/companies in China.
Corporate decisions/greed allowed China access to much of the technology that they have today when US corporations made the decision to invest in China under the strict laws of China on corporate ownership.
That and Chinese Intellectual Property theft.
The Democracies of the world had the mistaken strategy that global trade would help spread liberal democratic values to China, but Xi's long tenue has proven that authoritarianism can resist economic ties. He has steadily strengthened state control over foreign access at every level of the Chinese economy. He has also more than doubled their military budget.
Now that he is basically President for life and a purge of those he considered not ''loyal enough'' we will be seeing a lot more of it.
This important order was one outcome after Canada's national security and intelligence agencies conducted a multi-step review which determined that the three companies must leave the Canadian mining industry on national security grounds.
The last summer, a Minerals Security Partnership between the US, Canada, Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, the UK and the European Commission was established. It's purpose is to secure the supply of critical minerals such as nickel, lithium and cobalt.
It is going to be interesting to see the Chinese reaction to this move by Canada.
Chinese press releases are saying that Canada should re consider their decision.
It is going to be interesting to see the Chinese reaction to this move by Canada.
Chinese press releases are saying that Canada should re consider their decision.