, Columnist
China Has a Rare Chance to Strike Back on Huawei
The country’s dominance of raw materials can be a tool to sow disruption.
A magnet for retaliation.
Photographer: Doug Kanter/Bloomberg
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It’s hard to think of more potent symbolism: In one of his first public outings since President Donald Trump’s decision to blacklist Huawei Technologies Co., President Xi Jinping decided Monday to visit a rare earths plant.
Rare earths have traditionally been a tool of China’s political-economic fights. When Beijing fell out with Tokyo in a 2010 dispute about the ownership of some islands east of Taiwan, it cut export quotas for the minerals and halted shipments to Japan altogether.