Đất hiếm là 1 trong 5 quân bài lợi hại Trung Quốc tung ra để đối đầu chiến tranh thương mại với Mỹ

• Chiến tranh thương mại Mỹ - Trung đang leo thang, với thuế Mỹ lên tới 245% với hàng hóa Trung Quốc, và Bắc Kinh đáp trả bằng mức thuế 125% đối với hàng Mỹ.

• Quân bài 1: Trung Quốc có thể chịu đau lâu hơn Mỹ. Với thị trường nội địa hơn 1 tỷ dân, Trung Quốc có dư địa để hỗ trợ doanh nghiệp vượt qua cú sốc. Trung Quốc không chịu áp lực bầu cử, trong khi Mỹ bước vào mùa tranh cử.

• Quân bài 2: Đầu tư mạnh vào tương lai công nghệ cao. Trung Quốc đang chi 1.000 tỷ USD trong 10 năm cho AI, xe điện và chất bán dẫn. Công ty nội địa như BYD vượt Tesla, DeepSeek cạnh tranh với ChatGPT, Huawei lấy lại thị phần từ Apple.

• Quân bài 3: Mạng lưới thương mại toàn cầu mở rộng. Sau đợt thuế 2018, Bắc Kinh tăng cường quan hệ với Đông Nam Á, Nam Mỹ, châu Phi thông qua sáng kiến Vành đai – Con đường.

  • ASEAN đã vượt Mỹ để trở thành thị trường xuất khẩu lớn nhất của Trung Quốc.

  • Brazil hiện cung cấp phần lớn đậu tương cho Trung Quốc, thay thế Mỹ – từng chiếm 40% thị phần.

• Quân bài 4: Trái phiếu chính phủ Mỹ. Trung Quốc nắm giữ 700 tỷ USD trái phiếu kho bạc Mỹ, chỉ đứng sau Nhật Bản. Việc bán tháo có thể làm rối loạn thị trường tài chính Mỹ, nhưng cũng gây thiệt hại cho Trung Quốc, nên chỉ dùng "đến một giới hạn nhất định".

• Quân bài 5: Thế độc quyền đất hiếm. Trung Quốc chiếm 61% sản lượng khai thác và 92% tinh luyện đất hiếm toàn cầu. Các nguyên tố như dysprosium, yttrium cực kỳ quan trọng cho chip AI, tua-bin gió, xe điện, và động cơ phản lực.

  • Bắc Kinh đã cấm xuất khẩu 7 loại đất hiếm và trước đó là antimony, khiến giá toàn cầu tăng gấp đôi.

  • Sự thiếu hụt đất hiếm sẽ tác động nghiêm trọng đến công nghiệp quốc phòng Mỹ.

📌 Trung Quốc đang chơi sòng phẳng trong chiến tranh thương mại với 5 quân bài then chốt: khả năng chịu đựng nội địa, đầu tư công nghệ, mạng lưới thương mại đa dạng, nắm giữ 700 tỷ USD trái phiếu Mỹ và thế độc quyền đất hiếm (92% tinh luyện). Dù Mỹ vẫn là nền kinh tế lớn nhất thế giới, Trung Quốc không dễ bị dồn vào chân tường.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kxe1m1y26o

Five cards China holds in a trade war with the US

24 April 2025

A trade war between the world's two biggest economies is now in full swing.

Chinese exports to the US face up to 245% tariffs, and Beijing has hit back with a 125% levy on American imports. Consumers, businesses and markets are braced for more uncertainty as fears of a global recession have heightened.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's government has repeatedly said it is open to dialogue, but warned that, if necessary, it would "fight to the end".

Here's a look at what Beijing has in its arsenal to counter US President Donald Trump's tariffs.

China can take the pain (to a point)

Lessons from Trump 1.0

Lessons from Trump 1.0

Ever since Trump tariffs hit Chinese solar panels back in 2018, Beijing sped up its plans for a future beyond a US-led world order.

It has pumped billions into a contentious trade and infrastructure programme, better known as the Belt and Road initiative, to shore up ties with the so-called Global South.

The expansion of trade with South East Asia, Latin America and Africa comes as China tries to wean itself off the US.

American farmers once supplied 40% of China's soybean imports - that figure now hovers at 20%. After the last trade war, Beijing ramped up soy cultivation at home and bought record volumes of the crop from Brazil, which is now its largest soybean supplier.

"The tactic kills two birds with one stone. It deprives America's farm belt of a once‑captive market and burnishes China's food security credentials," says Marina Yue Zhang, associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney's Australia-China Relations Institute.

The US is no longer China's biggest export market: that spot now belongs to South East Asia. In fact China was the largest trading partner for 60 countries in 2023 - nearly twice as many as the US. The world's biggest exporter, it made a record surplus of $1tn at the end of 2024.

That doesn't mean the US, the world's biggest economy, is not a crucial trading partner for China. But it does mean it's not going to be easy for Washington to back China into a corner.

Following reports that the White House will use bilateral trade negotiations to isolate China, Beijing has warned countries against "reaching a deal at the expense of China's interests".

That would be an impossible choice for much of the world

"We can't choose, and we will never choose [between China and the US]," Malaysia's trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told the BBC last week.

China now knows when Trump will blink

Trump held firm as stocks plummeted following his sweeping tariffs announcement in early April, likening his staggering levies to "medicine".

But he made a U-turn, pausing most of those tariffs for 90 days after a sharp sell-off in US government bonds. Also known as Treasuries, these have long been seen as a safe investment. But the trade war has shaken confidence in the assets.

Trump has since hinted at a de-escalation in trade tensions with China, saying that the tariffs on Chinese goods will "come down substantially, but it won't be zero".

So, experts point out, Beijing now knows that the bond market can rattle Trump.

China also holds $700bn in US government bonds. Japan, a staunch American ally, is the only non-US holder to own more than that.

Some argue that this gives Beijing leverage: Chinese media has regularly floated the idea of selling or withholding purchases of US bonds as a "weapon".

But experts warn that China will not emerge unscathed from such a situation.

Rather, it will lead to huge losses for Beijing's investments in the bond market and destabilise the Chinese yuan.

China will only be able to exert pressure with US government bonds "only up to a point", Dr Zhang says. "China holds a bargaining chip, not a financial weapon."

A chokehold on rare earths

What China can weaponise, however, is its near monopoly in extracting and refining rare earths, a range of elements important to advanced tech manufacturing.

China has huge deposits of these, such as dysprosium, which is used in magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines, and Yttrium, which provides heat-resistant coating for jet engines.

Beijing has already responded to Trump's latest tariffs by restricting exports of seven rare earths, including some that are essential for making AI chips.

China accounts for about 61% of rare earths production and 92% of their refining, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

While Australia, Japan and Vietnam have begun mining for rare earths, it will take years before China can be cut out of the supply chain.

In 2024, China banned the export of another critical mineral, antimony, that is crucial to various manufacturing processes. Its price more than doubled amid a wave of panic buying and a search for alternative suppliers.

The fear is that the same can happen to the rare earths market, which would severely disrupt various industries from electric vehicles to defence.

"Everything you can switch on or off likely runs on rare earths," Thomas Kruemmer, director of Ginger International Trade and Investment, told the BBC previously.

"The impact on the US defence industry will be substantial."