How China moved its dirtiest mines to war-torn Burma

Connected to pressure generators, the long pipes penetrate the earth like IVs. Water flows into a large rectangular basin. There, it is mixed with powdered acid delivered in large white industrial bags stored under a shelter. The solution is then injected into the ground through the mesh of gray, white, and blue tubes that crisscross this deforested slope of the hill.

The earth dissolves under the effect of the acid before being collected in metal basins closely monitored, on this hot summer day, by a handful of employees. Here are extracted the metals essential to most cars, smartphones, and missile guidance systems: rare earths. These are the metals that Beijing is now using as leverage in the great game of trade relations, and which are at the heart of a summit that promises to be tense between China and the European Union on Thursday, July 24.

Jiangxi, a rural province in southern China, is the center of global production of some of these metals, the so-called "heavy" rare earths due to their atomic mass. These are the seven elements, such as terbium and dysprosium, whose exports Beijing has severely restricted since April, to the point that assembly lines at Suzuki in Japan, Ford in the United States, and some European equipment manufacturers have been shut down.

Transferred from the mines to a major city in the region, Ganzhou, the rare earths are refined and then, mixed with other metals, transformed, among other things, into magnets with unparalleled magnetic properties. China now has a virtual monopoly on refining and transforming magnets: it dominates 90% of their global market.

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