For subscribers
News analysis
With power move on rare earths, China plays both victim and bully
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
The move gives Beijing powerful leverage going into a meeting next week between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Lily Kuo and David Pierson
BEIJING – In Beijing’s version of the trade war, the United States is the bully and China is a victim, a rising power trying to protect the global economy while Washington unfairly hurls tariffs and technology bans its way.
That narrative is getting harder to square with the image of China that has emerged in recent days: that of an industrial juggernaut ready to use its chokehold over minerals crucial to modern manufacturing against any country, or company, that stands in its way.
