CATIE EDMONDSON2026年7月2日粗碎机中加工好的钨矿石被发传送到传送带上，随后被送往加工厂内的储藏库或研磨机。 The front line of America’s scramble for critical minerals lies miles beneath the surface in the cavernous tunnels of Sangdong, South Korea, where miners blast glittering seams of tungsten from craggy rock.美国争夺关键矿产的前线位于韩国上东地下的巨大坑道内，那里的矿工们从嶙峋岩石中炸出闪闪发光的钨矿脉。With the highest melting point of any metal and a hardness close to that of a diamond, tungsten is essential to manufacturing semiconductors, construction and oil-drilling equipment, and the missiles and armored vehicles used in modern warfare.钨是所有金属中熔点最高、硬度接近钻石的金属，对于制造半导体、建筑和石油钻探设备以及现代战争中使用的导弹和装甲车辆至关重要。Like many minerals critical to the technologies the world depends on, tungsten is overwhelmingly controlled by China, which produces roughly 85 percent of the global supply. The consequences of that dominance became clear last year when Beijing imposed strict export controls, leading to shortages and sending prices soaring as military demand surged.与全球赖以生存的技术所必需的许多矿产一样，钨绝大多数由中国控制，中国产出了全球约85%的供应量。这种主导地位的后果在去年变得清晰起来，当时北京实施了严格的出口管制，导致供应短缺，并随着军事需求的激增推动价格飙升。At the same time, China has sought to tighten its grip on the market, acquiring the mining rights to the world’s largest open-pit tungsten mine in Kazakhstan. And Chinese buyers are scouring the globe for scrap tungsten.与此同时，中国寻求巩固其市场控制，获得了哈萨克斯坦的全球最大露天钨矿的开采权。中国的买家还在全球范围内搜寻废钨。上东矿山的加工厂。“What China is trying to do is not just dominate one piece of the supply chain,” said Chris Berry, an independent metals analyst based in Washington. “They want to dominate the entire tungsten supply chain.”驻华盛顿的独立金属分析师克里斯·贝里表示：“中国试图做的不单单是主导供应链中的某一个环节。他们想要主导整个钨供应链。”Mr. Berry said China was interested in controlling the mining and import of the raw material as well as the production and export of high-value tungsten materials.贝里表示，中国感兴趣的不只是控制原材料的开采和进口，还有高价值钨材料的生产和出口。In an effort to catch up, the U.S. government has joined the global race for tungsten. Late last year, the White House helped an American company secure a mining deal with Kazakhstan to develop a large deposit there, hundreds of miles from the Chinese-owned mine. The Defense Department, meanwhile, is preparing to enforce a ban next year prohibiting contractors from using Chinese tungsten and has been searching for suppliers to help stockpile the mineral.为了迎头赶上，美国政府加入了这场全球钨资源的争夺。去年年底，白宫协助一家美国公司与哈萨克斯坦达成了一项采矿协议，以开发当地的一处大型矿床，该矿床距离中资拥有的那座矿山数百英里。与此同时，国防部正准备在明年执行一项禁令，禁止承包商使用中国钨，并一直在寻找供应商以便增加该矿产的战略储备。That is why all eyes are now on this mine in South Korea’s mountainous eastern region, operated by Almonty Industries, a Montana-based company whose recent initial public offering raised $770 million. Already in production, the tungsten mine is widely viewed as the one best positioned, as Mr. Berry said, “to put a dent in China’s dominance of the supply chain.”这就是为什么所有的目光现在都聚焦在韩国东部山区这座由阿尔蒙蒂工业公司运营的矿山上，这家总部位于蒙大拿州的公司最近通过首次公开募股筹集了7.7亿美元。正如贝里所说，这座已经投产的钨矿被广泛视为最有可能“打破中国在供应链中主导地位”的矿山。矿工们聚集在被称为阿方索的坑道入口前，这里是两条采矿主干道之一。一张显示上东庞大矿道网络的地图，其运营商阿尔蒙蒂工业公司估计这些矿道需要45年才能开采完毕。About 58 million tons of tungsten lies within galleries stretching more than two miles underground. Lewis Black, Almonty’s chief executive, estimates that it will take 45 years to mine the deposit, with the potential of supplying roughly 40 percent of global tungsten demand outside China. Last year, Almonty also secured the mining rights to another tungsten deposit in Montana.约5800万吨的钨深藏在延伸至地下超过三公里的坑道内。阿尔蒙蒂公司首席执行官刘易斯·布莱克估计，开采该矿床将需要45年时间，可能可以满足中国以外全球钨需求的约40%。去年，阿尔蒙蒂公司还获得了蒙大拿州另一处钨矿床的开采权。There is already a flurry of activity at the South Korean site. First comes the blast of dynamite. Then gray boulders of ore are loaded onto dump trucks that wind their way back to the surface. There, the rock is broken down until it becomes the fine powder manufacturers are now scrambling to procure.韩国的这个矿区现在已经是一片繁忙景象。首先是炸药的轰鸣声，随后成堆的灰色矿石被装上倾卸卡车，蜿蜒驶回地表。在那里，岩石被粉碎，直到变成制造商们现在正争相采购的细粉。The competition for tungsten now extends far beyond mines and refineries.针对钨资源的竞争现在早已远远超出了矿山和精炼厂的范畴。Nick Stevens, the owner of JC Metals, a scrap recycler in New Jersey, said he received a call from Chinese buyers in April offering to pay nearly 30 percent above market prices for all the scrap tungsten he had on hand.新泽西州废旧金属回收商JC金属公司的所有者尼克·史蒂文斯表示，他在4月接到了中国买家的电话，对方表示愿意出高出市场价近30%的价格，收购他手上所有的废钨。一名工人正用紫外线灯照射炸开的洞穴岩壁，以辨别钨矿石。在紫外线灯的照射下，钨矿石会发出蓝光，这种现象被称为荧光反应。Their message, he recalled, was: “Whatever you have, I’ll take it.”他回忆道，对方传达的信息是：“不管你有什么，我全都要。”Mr. Stevens said he had refused to sell because he believed in strengthening the U.S. tungsten supply chain. But some of his peers, he said, have since taken advantage of the higher prices and sold to Chinese companies.史蒂文斯表示，他拒绝了出售，因为他坚信应当加强美国的钨供应链。但他表示，他的一些同行此后抓住了这一更高价格的机会，将废钨卖给了中国公司。For all the talk of reducing dependence on China, the world’s tungsten supply chains remain deeply entangled.尽管人们一直在谈论减少对中国的依赖，但全球的钨供应链依然深度交织。Mr. Black illustrated the point during a recent interview by reaching for one of tungsten’s most consequential uses — a .50-caliber armor-piercing round made from the metal. Much of the tungsten used in the ammunition sent to Ukraine, he said, still originates from the very countries it is fighting against.最近接受采访时，布莱克就提到了这一点。他拿起一颗由这种金属制成的.50口径穿甲弹——这是钨最重要的一项用途，他说，送往乌克兰的弹药中所使用的大部分钨依然源自其正在与之战斗的国家。“That is the absurdity of the situation,” he said.他说：“现实就是这么荒诞。”在最近的一次探访中，工人们在仔细探测坑道的其中一面岩壁。矿工们正在操作深孔钻机，以探查旧的矿山坑道和积水区。A Mine Reborn矿山的重生This is not the first time that the United States, suddenly cut off from Chinese tungsten and in desperate need of the material, has turned to the mine in Sangdong.这不是美国第一次在突然被切断中国钨供应且迫切需要该材料时，将目光投向上东的这座矿山。After North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, Washington feared that war with the Soviet Union could be imminent and began stockpiling critical minerals. The United States had come to rely on cheap Chinese tungsten exports, but amid the Chinese civil war, Beijing halted shipments to countries outside the Communist bloc.1950年朝鲜战争侵入韩国后，华盛顿担心与苏联的战争可能一触即发，开始囤积关键矿产。美国此前一直依赖廉价的中国钨出口，但在中国内战期间，北京停止了向共产主义阵营以外国家的发货。The United States dispatched an American geologist to Sangdong to determine whether the mine could be a viable alternative, instructing him to deliver a survey report directly to Dean Acheson, the secretary of state, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, according to Jaeyoung Ha, a postdoctoral fellow at Tsinghua University.清华大学博士后研究员河载荣（音）表示，美国当时派遣了一名地质学家前往上东，以确定该矿山是否是一个可行的替代方案，并指示他直接向国务卿迪安·艾奇逊和道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟将军提交一份勘测报告。1951年前往上东的美国地质学家。The U.S. government signed an agreement with South Korea allowing Americans to manage the mine and buy its output. When the deal expired in 1954, after an armistice had ended the fighting in the Korean War, the mine was returned to South Korean control.美国政府与韩国签署了一项协议，允许美国人管理该矿山并购买其产出。1954年，在停战协定结束了朝鲜战争的战斗后，该协议到期，矿山重新交还给韩国控制。That push-and-pull of demand, shaped by global conflicts and the availability of cheap Chinese exports, has defined the tungsten market for decades.数十年来，受全球冲突和中国廉价钨供应的影响，钨市场一直受到需求拉动的影响。In the mine’s heyday, it accounted for 70 percent of South Korea’s economic output. But by the 1990s, a flood of cheap Chinese concentrates had again swamped the market, forcing several mines, including Sangdong, to close.在其鼎盛时期，这座矿山曾占到韩国经济产出的70%。但到了1990年代，大量廉价的中国精矿再次席卷市场，迫使包括上东在内的数家矿山关闭。早在1940年代，美军就对位于上东的这座矿山产生了兴趣，该矿山此前曾由一家日本公司所有。 National ArchivesWhen Mr. Ha saw tungsten prices start to spike after China imposed export restrictions, he thought reopening the mine would become “inevitable.”当河载荣看到中国实施出口限制后钨价开始飙升时，他认为重新开放该矿山将“势在必行”。“Chinese tungsten had been the main competitor with the Sangdong tungsten since its beginning,” he said.他说：“自始至终，中国钨一直是上东钨的主要竞争对手。”In the years after the mine closed, the nearby village steadily shrank. Storefronts along once busy streets were abandoned. Roofs caved in, doors were boarded up and mail carriers stuffed fliers into the letter boxes of stores with broken windows. As recently as 2023, Mr. Ha recalled, he saw signs posted by villagers urging companies to reopen the mine.在矿山关闭后的几年里，附近的村庄不断萎缩。曾经热闹的街道两旁的店面被废弃。屋顶坍塌，大门被木板封死，邮递员把传单塞进窗户破损的店铺信箱里。河载荣回忆道，就在2023年，他还看到村民们张贴的标语，敦促企业重新开放矿山。“I don’t want to see this town die” was the sentiment he heard, he said.他感觉人们的心声是“我不希望看到这个小镇消亡”，他说。一辆车正将钨矿石运出矿山。在加工厂内，经粉碎的钨矿石被送往研磨机，进一步研磨成更细的颗粒。Inside the Mine矿山内部On a recent Tuesday, trucks carrying boulders of ore trundled up a hill at the mine and deposited the boulders onto heaping stockpiles.在最近的一个周二，满载大块矿石的卡车驶上矿区的一座山丘，将矿石倾卸到堆积如山的矿石堆上。Below ground, miners in steel-toe rubber boots and hard hats drilled through rock and toted away the remnants. Some were extracting and examining another heat-resistant metal found in the mine, molybdenum. Others were breaking through walls to reconnect older passages from the mine’s early days, which are now used to ventilate the underground network.在地下，身穿钢头橡胶靴、头戴安全帽的矿工们正用钻机凿穿岩石并运走废料。一些人正在提取并检查在矿山中发现的另一种耐热金属——钼。另一些人则在凿穿石壁，以重新连接矿山早期的老矿道，这些通道现在被用于地下网络的通风。In the darkness, tungsten ore glitters beneath an ultraviolet lamp, shimmering from gray slabs of rock that will eventually be blasted apart.在黑暗中，紫外线灯照射下的钨矿石在灰色岩块中闪闪发光，这些岩块最终将被炸开。Once extracted from the galleries, the ore is either added to stockpiles or sent directly for processing, a multistep process that grinds the rock into ever-smaller pieces.矿石一旦从坑道中开采出来，要么被加入到矿石堆中，要么直接送去加工，那是一个将岩石研磨成越来越小碎块的多步骤过程。A mountain of ore is held back by thick black metal chains until it is ready to be crushed into fist-size pieces or smaller. The pile is then released, tumbling down a ramp where the pieces are sifted and sorted by size.一座矿石大山被粗重的黑色铁链挡住，直到它们准备好被粉碎成拳头大小或更小的碎块。随后，矿石堆被释放，顺着斜坡滚落，在那里按尺寸对矿石进行筛选和分类。钨矿石堆场外的一辆卡车。这些矿石会根据每块岩石中钨的含量被分类堆放。钨矿石在粉碎机中被破碎成更小的碎块。 这些钨矿石稍后将被粉碎并研磨成细粉。 The rock is carried by a conveyor belt into a cavernous room filled with towering silver-and-yellow machinery, where it is milled into even finer particles. Finally, it is mixed with chemicals in large vats, allowing workers to separate the tungsten from other metals and sediments.矿石被传送带输送到一个整齐摆放着高耸的银黄色机械的巨大房间里，在那里被研磨成更细的颗粒。最后，它们在巨大的桶槽中与化学品混合，使工人们能够将钨与其他金属和沉积物分离开来。The final product is tungsten concentrate, a gray powder that is bagged and shipped to Almonty’s clients, chief among them a Pennsylvania company that makes “components across thousands of different products across hundreds of sectors,” Mr. Black said, including armor-piercing munitions.布莱克表示，最终的产品是钨精矿——一种灰色的粉末，它们被装袋并运送给阿尔蒙蒂公司的客户，其中最主要的是一家宾夕法尼亚州的公司，该公司制造的“部件跨越数百个领域的数千种不同产品”，包括穿甲弹药。“It takes years of investment, permitting and technical work to bring a mine into production,” he said. “You can’t race to the finish line in a democracy; you’ve got to walk.”“一座矿山投入生产需要多年的投资、许可和技术工作，”他说。“在民主国家，你不能跑着去终点，你只能走着去。”上东的繁荣长期以来与该矿山的效益紧密相连。多年来，当地居民一直期盼着能有公司将它重新投产。摄影：Tina HsuCatie Edmondson为时报报道国会。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。