• CoolerOpposide [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    This has actually been the case for quite some time, and the west just kind of walked right into it because no central planning. I posted about it a while ago when China declared all rare earth minerals belonged to the state. The situation is not at all akin to the fossil fuel industry where Russia or Saudi Arabia or Venezuela control massive reserves, but are still just one of many major producers. China wields an effective monopolistic share over several critical rare earth mineral resources to the point that ramping up production anywhere else in the world is not even feasible without direct state intervention to subsidize the industry in order to circumvent long long LONG term unprofitability, and even then China also has a monopoly on actually processing these materials.

    • Dragonstaff@leminal.space
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      2 days ago

      There is a lot of Sinophobia right now* because China planned for actual reality while Americans argued about whether 2 + 2 is woke, invested in pictures of apes, and built a police state rather than infrastructure.

      *(Just to be clear: The comment I replied to isn’t Sinophobic, but there are a lot of breathless articles who seem to think a nonwestern country acting in its best interests is an attack.)

      • CoolerOpposide [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 day ago

        I completely agree. When people say “China is living in 2100” the reality is that China is living in 2025 and that everybody could be seeing improvements like this in their lives if they lived under proper and conscious economic planning