Oh yeah. And it was “lefty liberal” Paul Krugman that raised concerns about REs and China last week:

Rare and Foolish
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last month a Chinese trawler operating in Japanese-controlled waters collided with two vessels of Japan’s Coast Guard. Japan detained the trawler’s captain; China responded by cutting off Japan’s access to crucial raw materials.

And there was nowhere else to turn: China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare earths, minerals that play an essential role in many high-technology products, including military equipment. Sure enough, Japan soon let the captain go.

I don’t know about you, but I find this story deeply disturbing, both for what it says about China and what it says about us. On one side, the affair highlights the fecklessness of U.S. policy makers, who did nothing while an unreliable regime acquired a stranglehold on key materials. On the other side, the incident shows a Chinese government that is dangerously trigger-happy, willing to wage economic warfare on the slightest provocation.

Some background: The rare earths are elements whose unique properties play a crucial role in applications ranging from hybrid motors to fiber optics. Until the mid-1980s the United States dominated production, but then China moved in.

“There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China,” declared Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic transformation, in 1992. Indeed, China has about a third of the world’s rare earth deposits. This relative abundance, combined with low extraction and processing costs — reflecting both low wages and weak environmental standards — allowed China’s producers to undercut the U.S. industry.

Continues.

Notice the year of Xiapong’s statement, 1992. Where was the Republican controlled House and Senate over this issue during the Gingrich years? What about the 8 years of President Bush? Now, I’m not blaming them but I point this out because we have one dummy trying to blame the left. And it should be important to note that it’s been the right wing that has objected to hybrid and green technology in favor of oil and petroleum. The very policies of the right has been detrimental to the expansion of REs over the years.