分析: 稀土大战为何未打响

This week, a trade war that was supposed to tear the world of high-tech manufacturing apart ended peacefully, quietly and with few casualties.

本周，本以为将撕裂高科技制造业的一场贸易战以和平方式静悄悄地结束，几乎没有造成任何伤亡。

China announced plans that would comply with a World Trade Organisation decision from last year by removing export quotas and other restrictions on rare earth elements, the minerals used widely in the manufacture of electronics, computers and cars. It was another success for the US, which has not only chalked up impressive wins against China in the WTO’s dispute settlement process but also (by no means a given) often succeeded in getting Beijing to implement the decisions.

中国宣布相关计划，将遵守世贸组织(WTO)去年做出的一项裁定，取消对稀土的出口配额以及其他限制。稀土被广泛地应用于电子产品、计算机和汽车的制造中。这是美国取得的又一场胜利。美国不但根据世贸组织的争议解决机制起诉中国，多次取得令人印象深刻的胜诉，而且（这绝非必然）经常成功地确保中方执行裁定。

So, a big victory for global governance? Sort of. In reality, it was the free market as much as trade rules that did for China’s attempt to corner global commerce in rare earths. Moreover, in a rather choice irony, Chinese companies employed the very tricks that they use to sidestep trade restrictions by other governments to sabotage the export quotas set by their own.

那么，这是全球治理的一场重大胜利吗？或多或少可以这么说。在现实中，自由市场和贸易规则在挫败中国主宰全球稀土交易的企图方面起到了同等重要的作用。另外，具有相当大讽刺意味的是，中国企业使用了一些手段破坏本国政府设定的出口配额，而这些手段本来是它们用来绕过其他国家政府推出的贸易限制的。

By 2010, China produced 97 per cent of the world’s basic rare earth oxide production and much of the processing business. In its submission to the WTO, Beijing laughably argued that a complex system of export restrictions it had placed on its rare earth companies since the mid-2000s was aimed at protecting the environment by controlling mining. In reality, as the WTO dispute panel swiftly twigged, it was an attempt to give its domestic electronics and other manufacturing industries a competitive advantage by ensuring a cheap captive supply of raw materials.

截至2010年，中国的基础稀土氧化物产量占到世界产量的97%，其稀土加工量占世界总量的比重也很高。在呈递给世贸组织的文件中，中国政府可笑地声称，其自2005年左右以来对本国稀土企业实施的一套复杂的出口限制制度，是为了通过控制采矿来保护环境。实际上，正如世贸组织争议解决委员会很快认定的那样，中国的做法无非是为了保证国内的电子等制造产业获得廉价、垄断的原材料供应，从而赋予其竞争优势。

This is a familiar pattern among commodity-producing emerging markets trying to develop their own manufacturing industry. When first Ukraine and then Russia joined the WTO in 2008 and 2012 respectively, for example, the EU insisted they make binding pledges not to restrict raw material exports, particularly metals.

在努力发展本国制造业的生产大宗商品的新兴市场经济体中，这一做法很常见。比如，当乌克兰和俄罗斯先后于2008年和2012年加入世贸组织时，欧盟(EU)坚持要求这两国做出具有约束性的承诺，不能限制原材料、尤其是金属的出口。

China’s policy seemed to have some success. The rocketing price of the minerals in the late 2000s disadvantaged users across the world. As Eugene Gholz at the University of Texas says, some Japanese manufacturers that use rare earths as an input did relocate to China to take advantage of cheap and reliable supply. And just to provide the non-specialist media with a nice story, in 2010 China reportedly used the threat of more export restrictions to force Japan into returning a Chinese fishing-boat captain it had arrested sailing worryingly close to disputed islands in the South China Sea.

中国的政策似乎取得了一定的成功。在本世纪最初10年后期，稀土价格的直线上升使全世界的用户陷于不利地位。正如德克萨斯大学(University of Texas)经济学家尤金•霍尔茨(Eugene Gholz)所说，一些使用稀土作为原料的日本生产商确实搬迁到了中国，以利用廉价、可靠的供应。2010年，据称中国以出台更多出口限制相威胁，迫使日本政府交还了其逮捕的一名航行至非常接近东中国海争议岛屿的中国渔船船长。这为非专业的媒体提供了极佳的报道题材。

Accordingly, the state-capitalism-here-we-come crowd concluded that the Chinese were, once again, proving themselves strategic geniuses.

于是，那些支持“国家资本主义，我们来了”的人得出结论称，中国人再次证明了自己的战略天赋。

But, to adapt a saying in the oil markets, the best cure for high rare earth prices is high rare earth prices. Production in Australia, Japan and Malaysia was expanded; other sources of rare earths were exploited; manufacturers rapidly found ways to economise or substitute, as it were, a less rare rare earth for a rarer one. Happily, the US government, rather than resort to retaliatory trade restrictions of its own, found a way to help this process along by funding research into diversification. The global price of the minerals fell and economic Armageddon was avoided.

但是，套用石油市场的一个说法，治愈稀土高价的最佳药方就是稀土高价本身。澳大利亚、日本和马来西亚扩大了稀土生产能力；其他一些稀土来源得到了利用；生产商很快找到了节约或替代稀土的办法，也就是以不那么稀有的稀土代替更为稀有的稀土。幸运的是，美国政府没有采取报复性贸易限制，而是通过资助多样化研究，设法帮助降低了稀土的稀有程度。全球稀土价格开始下降，世界经济末日由此得以避免。