WEDNESDAY, August 7, 2019 chinadaily.com.cn RMB ¥

things that touch people’s lives

every day. Who can forget the

combination of hydrogen and

oxygen for water, or H2O?

Rare earths are a category of 17

metallic elements in the periodic

table that have desirable proper-

ties, such as electrical conductivity

and magnetism. The metals are

used in a wide variety of applica-

tions, including cellphone batter-

ies, computers, wind turbines,

televisions, fiber optics and missil-

es. One of the 17 is even used as an

expensive bright blue oil paint pig-

ment.

China aims to upgrade its

industries to get a piece of the

commercial action in such fin-

ished products. Whereas the

country has been mainly a miner

and shipper of rare earths in the

past, it now seeks to become a top

refiner and manufacturer.

“Rare earths are a key strategic

nonrenewable resource,” said

Pang Zaisheng, vice-general

manager of Ganzhou Fortune

Electronic Co, which is focusing

on high-end magnetic materials

and applications in Ganzhou,

Jiangxi province.

“With its abundant rare earth

resources, China has advantages

for separation and purification.

But compared with countries like

Japan, there’s still a gap in terms

of high-quality applications.”

Jiangxi possesses vast rare

earth resources, with its heavy

rare earth elements, the most val-

uable kind, accounting for 80 per-

cent of the nation’s total stock.

See Rare earth, page 2

Top: Rare earth oxides. (Clockwise from top center) praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum,

neodymium, samarium, gadolinium.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

By OUYANG SHIJIA

[email protected]

C

hina is sitting atop the

biggest trove of strategic

rare earth elements on

the planet — 40 million metric

tons, more than a third of the

estimated global total.

Remember that periodic table

from chemistry class? It’s the tab-

ular grid showing the 118 known

elements, the building blocks of

all matter. The cryptic one- and

two-character codes stand for

NATION’S EDGE

RARE EARTH

X

Country looks inward for high-tech materials

HK people urged to unite

to shut off violence, chaos

By ZHANG YI in Beijing

and CHEN ZIMO in Hong Kong

The situation in the Hong Kong

Special Administrative Region has

reached a severe point that draws

concern over Hong Kong’s future,

said Yang Guang, a spokesman for

the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs

Office of the State Council.

Yang, speaking on Tuesday, called

on Hong Kong people to unite in

order to halt the violence and chaos

and bring back order.

“The fate of Hong Kong will be

decided by all Chinese people,

including Hong Kong compatri-

ots,” said the spokesman for the

country’s top Hong Kong affairs

authority in a news conference in

Beijing.

“The radical protests that have

continued for nearly two months

are extremely serious in nature and

have had very bad consequences.

They have severely affected Hong

Kong’s prosperity and stability,

pushing it into a dangerous abyss,”

Yang said.

During the protests, 461 people

have been injured, including 139

police officers. A strike staged by

protesters on Monday resulted in

some 250 flights being canceled and

service on eight subway lines being

suspended for more than five hours,

he said.

Last month, protesters smeared

paint on China’s national emblem.

On Saturday, they removed the

national flag from a flagpole and

threw it into the harbor, an action

they repeated on Monday. The

flags have been recovered and

raised.

“This is the crucial moment for

us to stand firm and guard our

beautiful homeland,” said Yang,

calling on Hong Kong residents to

think calmly about who will suffer

if the situation turns irremediable.

Yang also urged the HKSAR gov-

ernment, judicial organs and Hong

Kong police to safeguard the rule

of law and never go soft on law-

breaking violence.

“With no punishment for break-

ing the law, there would be no

integrity of the law; without

respect for the integrity of the law,

the legal system would be nothing,”

he said.

See HK, page 3

PBOC: China

not a ‘currency

manipulator’

Central bank criticizes the label as ‘arbitrary’,

inconsistent with US Treasury’s own criteria

By CHEN JIA in Beijing and

BELINDA ROBINSON in New York

China did not and will not use

exchange rates as a measure to cope

with trade disputes, and the United

States labeling the country as a

“currency manipulator” is incon-

sistent with the quantitative criteria

set by the US Treasury itself, the

central bank said on Tuesday.

“The US labeling is an arbitrary

unilateral and protectionist prac-

tice, which seriously damages

international rules and will signifi-

cantly impact the global economy

and financial markets,” the People’s

Bank of China said in a statement,

expressing deep regret over the US

Treasury’s decision.

The PBOC, the central bank,

made the remark following Wash-

ington’s decision on Monday to label

Beijing a currency manipulator.

US officials said they will engage

with the International Monetary

Fund to eliminate China’s “unfair

competitive advantage”, the US Trea-

sury said in a statement.

The yuan weakened beyond 7 per

US dollar on Monday for the first

time since May 2008. The onshore

traded yuan had dropped 1.33 per-

cent to 7.0352 per dollar at close.

Xi calls for

villagers to

achieve rural

vitalization

the Soviet Union in 1987, which

banned land-based missiles with

a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

Following the withdrawal, US

Defense Secretary Mark Esper

said over the weekend that he

wanted to deploy midrange con-

ventional missiles in the Asia-Pa-

cific within months.

Hua warned that international

and regional security will be

severely undermined if the US

insists on the deployment.

“For a long time, the US has

been grossly interfering in the

affairs of regional countries in the

Asia-Pacific,” she said.

“Politically, it has tried to drive a

wedge between them by promot-

ing a so-called Indo-Pacific strate-

gy. It has adopted a selfish, beggar-

thy-neighbor approach in

economic affairs while making

military deployment and strength-

ening military allies in the region.”

The US has been shifting blame

by using China as an excuse on

issues including the INF Treaty

and hyping up the so-called China

missile threat in disregard of the

facts, Hua said.

“Despite strong international

opposition, the US chose to with-

draw from the INF Treaty. Now it

is hastily seeking to deploy inter-

mediate-range missiles in Asia.

This, in fact, reveals the real inten-

tion of the US withdrawal from

the treaty,” she added.

Experts also worried that such a

move would threaten the peaceful

development of and break the bal-

ance in the area.

Fan Jishe, an arms control

expert at the Chinese Academy of

Social Sciences’ Institute of Amer-

ican Studies, said the security con-

cerns of Asia-Pacific countries

may supersede other concerns

once the US starts to deploy new

missiles, undermining the peace

and stability in the region.

Asia-Pacific countries have

attached great importance to

economic cooperation for a long

time, Fan said. “However, the US

See Missiles, page 4

A trader reacts at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday as stocks

plunged amid investors’ worries, including worsening trade relations

between China and the United States. RICHARD DREW / AP

On Tuesday, the onshore rate of the

yuan reached 7.0699 per dollar in

intraday trading, a 0.49 percent drop,

before closing at 7.0321 per dollar.

The renminbi’s depreciation

since the beginning of August has

been driven and determined by

market forces and reflects shifts in

market dynamics and volatilities in

global foreign exchange markets

amid global economic develop-

ments and escalating trade fric-

tions, according to the central bank.

The renminbi exchange rate

regime is a managed floating one

based on market supply and

demand and with reference to a

basket of currencies, the PBOC said.

The US Treasury uses three crite-

ria to apply the designation: having

large trade surpluses with the US,

having a large current account sur-

plus exceeding 3 percent of GDP and

actively intervening in the currency

markets. China does not meet those

three criteria, and the US said on

See Renminbi, page 3

Inside

• Editorial, page 8 • Comment, page 9


• See more, page 12

Officers of various police forces drill in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Tuesday. The drills were to

help ensure public security for the upcoming 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic

of China. Some 12,000 officers practiced skills and used hardware such as 50 armored vehicles.

WU ZIXIN / SZNEWS.COM See story, page 5

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A member of the

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: CN11-

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© 2019 China Daily

All Rights Reserved

Vol.39 — No.

 12248

By XU WEI in Beijing
and HU MEIDONG in Fuzhou

President Xi Jinping has encour-
aged residents of a mountainous
township in Fujian province to con-
tinue their unrelenting efforts to
consolidate poverty reduction out-
comes and achieve rural vitalization.
Xi, who also is general secretary
of the Communist Party of China
Central Committee and chairman
of the Central Military Commis-
sion, made the remark in a letter
replying to residents of the town-
ship of Xiadang, in the province’s
Shouning county.
In a letter to Xi, the villagers
wrote they had shaken off poverty
and expressed their gratitude to the
CPC Central Committee and the
general secretary.
Xi’s letter, published on Tues-
day, recalled the three arduous
journeys he made to the township,
saying he still has vivid memories
of the area.

Xi worked in Fujian between
1985 and 2002. He made his first
trip to the township to learn about
poverty alleviation and provide
instructions on the work on July
19, 1989, when he was Party secre-
tary of Ningde. The township was
once among the most remote and
poorest areas in Ningde.
It took him a three-hour car ride
and a two-hour walk in scorching
summer heat to reach the town-
ship, which had no paved roads at
the time, according to Xinhua
News Agency. He made another
two trips to township, later that
year and in 1996.
Xi expressed his delight after
learning that the township had
shaken off poverty, and he offered
hearty congratulations to villagers.
After 30 years of unremitting
efforts, Xiadang has shifted from
being almost inaccessible to
being easily reached and has been
transformed inside and out, with
residents having an increasing
sense of gains and happiness, Xi
said.
It has been a vivid example of the
truth of such sayings as, “A slow
sparrow should make an early
start” and “Little strokes fell great
oaks”, he said.
Xi said he hopes the villagers
will forge ahead with a persistent
spirit, enhance their confidence
and make sustained and arduous
efforts to consolidate the outcomes
of poverty reduction.
He also encouraged them to
explore a path of rural vitalization
with the characteristics of eastern
Fujian during the process.
The letter to Xi was written by six
Party members on behalf of all vil-
lagers in the township.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at
[email protected]

CHINA DAILY

Fujian

Shouning

Possible missile deployment raising

concerns in Asia-Pacific, Beijing says

By LIU XUAN and

WANG QINGYUN

The United States’ intention to

deploy new missiles in the Asia-

Pacific region has raised concerns,

and China will take countermeas-

ures if necessary, the Foreign Min-

istry and experts said.

Hua Chunying, a

spokeswoman for

the Foreign Minis-

try, said China will

not “sit idly by” and

watch its interests

being compromised if the US

deploys intermediate-range mis-

siles in the region.

She said China “will not allow

any country to stir up trouble on

our doorstep” and “will take all

necessary measures to safeguard

national security interests” in a

statement published on the min-

istry’s website late on Monday.

The comments came days after

the US unilaterally withdrew

from the Intermediate-Range

Nuclear Forces Treaty signed with

Inside

Editorial,

page 8

Nomadic honor

Racers keep equine traditions alive

in Inner Mongolia 70 YEARS ON, PAGE 7

Finding right match

Qixi Festival stories show that

online services help lovelorn

YOUTH, PAGE 18

Shanghai’s STAR

Market heralded as

global game changer

BUSINESS, PAGE 13

 

or

ive

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