KEITH BRADSHER2025年6月12日金力永磁稀土股份有限公司的主要磁铁制造基地位于中国赣州，该公司周三表示，已从中国政府拿到出口许可证，将恢复向美国、欧洲和东南亚出口非军事用途的磁铁。 Keith Bradsher/The New York TimesIn its high-stakes trade talks with the United States, China has been trying to strike a balance in how it wields its market clout. It controls the world’s supply of rare earth metals and magnets. And it has withheld supplies of the materials — crucial ingredients in everything from cars to fighter jets — as leverage.在中美这场关乎重大的贸易谈判中，中国一直试图在使用本国市场的影响力方面取得平衡。中国控制着全球稀土金属和磁铁的供应，并且将限制这些材料的供应作为谈判筹码。从汽车到战斗机，稀土是多种产品的关键原材料。At the same time, Beijing knows it must not overplay its hand by pushing Washington so hard that the United States feels compelled to make the long-term investments needed to break its dependence on China.与此同时，中国政府知道不能过犹不及，若向华盛顿施压力度过大，可能会迫使美国感到有必要进行长期投资，以摆脱对中国的依赖。This delicate dynamic was underlined in an apparent compromise the countries reached on Tuesday in London.两国周二在伦敦达成的框架协议看起来是妥协的产物，而这恰恰印证了这种微妙互动。Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said China’s negotiators had agreed to resume sending rare earths to American companies. The Chinese government did not confirm this.美国商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克说，中国的谈判代表已同意恢复向美国企业供应稀土。中国政府尚未证实这一消息。But on Wednesday afternoon, the JL Mag Rare-Earth Company, a leading magnet producer in Ganzhou, China, said in a public disclosure that it had been issued licenses by China’s Ministry of Commerce for sales of nonmilitary magnet exports to the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia.但周三下午，金力永磁科技股份有限公司一份公开声明中表示已获得了中国商务部颁发的向美国、欧洲和东南亚出口非军用磁铁的许可证。金力永磁是全球领先的稀土磁铁企业，位于中国赣州。China has a long history of using government policy to control markets, periodically flooding countries with very low-priced Chinese supplies. That has driven many of China’s overseas rare earth competitors out of business.中国在利用政府政策控制市场方面有着漫长的历史，间歇性地会向其他国家大量供应价格极低的中国稀土产品，导致许多海外稀土竞争对手破产。“China is a major rare earth country with the largest amount of resources and the largest exports,” said Xiao Yaqing, a Chinese industrial policy leader, in 2021, when he was minister of industry and information technology. He denied that China limited sales of rare earths: “Some countries say that we restrict exports — most of what you buy comes from China.”“中国是稀土大国，资源量最多，出口的也最多，”时任中国工业和信息化部部长的肖亚庆曾在2021年说。他否认中国限制稀土出口：“有的国家说中国限制出口，然而其买的稀土大部分都是从中国来的。”But by 2021, China already dominated the global market.但到2021年，中国已经主导了全球市场。Jim Hedrick, a former rare earths specialist at the United States Geological Survey who is now the president of U.S. Critical Materials, a rare earths company, said it would take five years for the United States to break its dependence on China, even if a sustained effort started right away.吉姆·赫德里克曾是美国地质调查局的稀土专家，现在是美国关键材料公司的总裁，这是一家稀土公司。他说，即使马上启动持续性的替代计划，美国也需要五年时间才能摆脱对中国的依赖。“China has had a 30-year head start in rare earth production,” he said.“中国在稀土生产上已有30年的先发优势，”他说。得克萨斯州沃斯堡MP Materials工厂用的稀土磁铁。稀土金属磁铁对汽车、海上风力涡轮机、无人机、导弹、战斗机，以及许多其他先进制成品的制造至关重要。Magnets made from rare earth metals are crucial for the manufacture of cars, offshore wind turbines, drones, missiles, fighter jets and many other advanced manufacturing products.用稀土金属制成的磁铁对汽车、海上风力涡轮机、无人机、导弹、战斗机，以及许多其他先进制成品的制造至关重要。It was not clear on Wednesday that an agreement by China to restart sending rare earths and magnets to the United States would prove effective in getting American industry the supply it needs.但周三达成的中方恢复对美出口稀土及磁材协议能否切实满足美国工业需求仍不明确。Magnet manufacturers need detailed international supply agreements and not just frameworks reached in principle, said Stanley Trout, a metallurgist at Metropolitan State University of Denver.磁铁制造商需要的是详细的国际供应协议，而不只是原则上达成的框架协议，丹佛大都会州立大学的冶金学家斯坦利·特劳特说。“We live and die by our specifications, which are detailed lists, so how does this agreement affect our ability to do business?” he said.“我们的生存完全靠规格标准，都有详细的清单，这个框架协议如何保障我们的实际业务运行？”他问道。Another potential choke point China holds over its supplies of rare earths and magnets is a two-month-old licensing protocol for the exports. Over the last few days, however, China has issued export licenses for automakers and their parts suppliers, rare earth industry leaders said.中国在稀土和磁体供应上的另一个潜在的制约手段是两个月前出台的出口许可证制度。不过据稀土行业的领导人表示，中国已在过去几天里向汽车制造商及其零部件供应商发放了出口许可证。Gasoline-powered cars and sport utility vehicles use as many as 100 small rare earth magnets for the electric motors in the brakes, steering and other systems. Electric cars require additional rare earth magnets for the electric motors that turn the wheels.汽油动力汽车和运动型多用途车的刹车、转向和其他系统的电动机需使用多达100块的小稀土磁铁。而电动汽车则需要更多的稀土磁铁来驱动车轮。But the licensing process has been cumbersome, industry leaders said, and it was unclear whether the agreement from London would resolve those difficulties. For example, Chinese producers of rare earths and magnets must submit documents specifying the end user of each shipment, and the end user is often required to provide further information on how it will use the shipment. The automakers, which are the end users, sometimes do not know exactly which supplier in their complex supply chains needs the rare earths.但中国的稀土出口许可证制度一直繁琐，行业领袖表示，目前尚不清楚在伦敦达成的框架协议能否解决这些困难。例如，中国的稀土和磁铁生产商必须提交文件说明每批发货的最终用户，而最终用户往往还需进一步说明具体用途。如果最终用户是汽车制造商，它们有时也难以厘清在其复杂的供应链中究竟哪个供应商需要稀土产品。Chinese companies took control of the global rare earth market in the 1990s. State-owned and illegal mines alike flooded world markets with low-priced supplies, which were mined and processed with almost no attempt to protect the environment.中国企业在20世纪90年代控制了全球稀土市场。国有和非法矿山让大量的低价供应涌入全球市场，那时的开采和加工方式几乎完全不考虑环保措施。International rare earth prices collapsed. The price of samarium, a rare earth essential for many military applications, fell more than 90 percent.这导致了国际市场上的稀土价格暴跌。对许多军事应用至关重要的稀土金属钐的价格下跌了90%以上。A Japanese-owned rare earth refinery in Malaysia that supplied Japan’s manufacturing sector closed in 1992. France shut its refinery in 1994, and the sole American mine and refinery, located at Mountain Pass, Calif., suspended operations in 1998.一家日本公司在马来西亚拥有的工厂曾为日本制造业提供精炼稀土产品，这家工厂已于1992年关闭。法国在1994年关闭了本国的精炼厂，美国仅有的一家位于加利福尼亚州芒廷帕斯的矿山和精炼厂也在1998年暂停运营。 In all three cases, pollution complaints from environmental activists led to what were initially supposed to be temporary closures for equipment improvements. But the facilities did not reopen because they could not compete profitably with China’s low-priced output.发生这三个情况的原因都是环保活动人士对污染的投诉，最初的结果是暂时关闭工厂，以进行设备更新。但由于无法与中国的低价产品竞争，这些工厂最终未能恢复生产。During a territorial dispute between China and Japan in 2010 over control of a cluster of uninhabited islands north of Taiwan, China imposed a two-month embargo on shipments of rare earth elements to Japan, causing widespread distress among Japanese manufacturers.2010年，中日两国围绕台湾以北的几个无人居住的岛屿控制权发生领土争端后，中国对日本实施了为期两个月的稀土元素禁运，给日本制造商造成了普遍的困扰。At the start of that embargo, China’s Ministry of Commerce called in representatives from the two dozen private and state-owned companies in China with licenses to export rare earths. The ministry ordered them to stop shipments directly to Japan and to avoid making extra shipments to other countries that might resell supplies to Japan.在禁运开始之初，中国商务部召集了20多家持有稀土出口许可证的国有和民营企业代表开会，命令他们停止直接向日本出口稀土，并避免向可能将稀土转售给日本的其他国家增加出口。That embargo prompted Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state, and members of Congress to call for sustained action by the West to reduce dependence on China. Investors and the U.S. government poured $1 billion into modernizing, expanding and reopening the American mine and refinery in Mountain Pass.那次禁运促使时任国务卿的希拉里·克林顿以及美国国会的议员们呼吁西方国家采取持续的行动，以减少对中国的依赖。投资者和美国政府投入了10亿美元，对位于芒廷帕斯的美国矿山和精炼厂进行了现代化改造和扩建，让工厂重新开工。Shortly before the mine reopened in 2014, China’s Ministry of Commerce agreed to an American request in a World Trade Organization case that the country dismantle its limits on rare earth exports. Meanwhile, over the previous four years, a separate arm of China’s government, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, had nationalized many of the country’s rare earth mines and refineries.该矿2014年重新开工前不久，中国商务部接受了世界贸易组织的裁定，要求中国取消对稀土出口的限制，仲裁案是美国提起的。与此同时，中国政府的另一个部门——工业和信息化部已在过去四年里将许多稀土矿和精炼厂收归国有。With the ministry of industry’s support, Chinese companies flooded global markets with rare earths. Prices collapsed again, forcing the Mountain Pass operation to suspend operations again in 2015.在工信部的支持下，中国企业向全球市场大量供应稀土。稀土价格再次暴跌，迫使芒廷帕斯矿于2015年再次暂停运营。The Mountain Pass mine reopened in 2018 under new ownership and management, but for the next few years shipped its ore to China for processing. Only since late last year has the refinery at the site resumed processing a little more than half of the material it produces. The United States still has almost no magnet manufacturing capacity.虽然芒廷帕斯矿已于2018年在新的所有者和管理层的领导下重启，但在接下来的几年里，该矿一直把矿石运到中国加工。直到去年年底，该矿配套的精炼厂才恢复加工能力，但只能处理略多于一半的矿石产量。美国目前仍然几乎没有磁铁的制造能力。David Pierson和Li You对本文有报道和研究贡献。Keith Bradsher是《纽约时报》北京分社社长，此前曾任上海分社社长、香港分社社长、底特律分社社长，以及华盛顿记者。他在新冠疫情期间常驻中国进行报道。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。获取更多RSS：https://feedx.net https://feedx.site