Seeking Alpha: China's Rare Earth Policy Will Ultimately Fail (And What That Means For Metal Miners)

Let's not mince words – China's policy of choking off the world's access to rare earth metals will ultimately fail.

Although China has clearly created a tizzy in the markets because of its policy to slowly strangle its export quotas of rare earth metals, it would be more surprising if this move does not go down in the books alongside the Hunt brothers' attempt to corner the silver market and other market-cornering maneuvers. Maybe this is really not all that unexpected; after all, China is not necessarily up to date on all of the details about how free markets operate.

The Problem
As has been reported many times in many places, China happens to sit on top of a very large percentage of the world's rare earth elements. Actually, that's not really the story. China reportedly holds about 37% of the world's reserves but is responsible for about 97% of the world's supply because the central government kept supporting rare earth producers at a time when Western mining companies shut down their rare earth operations because of low prices.

Please click this link for the full piece:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/256890-china-s-rare-earth-policy-will-ultimately-fail-and-that-means-for-metal-miners?source=mc_all