HONG KONG — China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, threeindustry officials said this week.

The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further intensify already rising trade and currency tensions with the West.Until recently, China typically sought quick and quiet accommodations on trade issues. But the interruption in rare earth supplies is the latest sign from Beijing that Chinese leaders are willing to use their growing economic muscle.

“The embargo is expanding” beyond Japan, said one of the three rare earth industry officials, all of whom insisted on anonymity for fear of business retaliation by Chinese authorities.

They said Chinese customs officials imposed the broader restrictions on Monday morning, hours after a top Chinese official summoned international news media Sunday night to denounce United States trade actions.

China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements, which have broad commercial and military applications, and are vital to the manufacture of products as diverse as cellphones, large wind turbines and guided missiles. Any curtailment of Chinese supplies of rare earthsis likely to be greeted with alarm in Western capitals, particularly because Western companies are believed to keep much smaller stock piles of rare earths than Japanese companies.

curtail v. to limit sth or make it last for a shorter time    限制；縮短；減縮

China experts said on Tuesday that Beijing’s assertive stance on rare earths might also signal the ascendance of economic nationalists,noting that the Central Committee of the Communist Party convened overthe weekend.

ascendance  n. 優越;權勢;主權

A few rare earth shipments to the West have been delayed by customs officials in recent weeks, said industry officials in China, Japan andthe United States. But new restrictions on exports appear to have been imposed on Monday morning.

Industry executives said there had been no signal from Beijing of howlong rare earth shipments intended for the West would be held byChinese customs officials. A few shipments are still being allowed outof the country for reasons that remain unclear: a fourth rare earth industry official said on Wednesday that one of the 32 authorized rareearth exporters in China had been allowed to export one container ofrare earths to the West on Tuesday and hoped to be allowed to ship another on Thursday.

China’s official stance remained unclear on Wednesday. In an apparent reference to a report on Tuesday in the official China Daily newspaper,the commerce ministry said the report, predicting a decline of up to 30 percent in rare earth export quotas next year, was “totally groundless and purely false,” and added that no decision had been made yet onfuture quotas.

Without mentioning whether customs officials were interfering with statements to the West this week, the statement also said that, “China will continue to export rare earth to the world, and at the same time,in order to conserve exhaustible resources and maintain sustainable development, China will also continue imposing relevant restrictions onthe mining, manufacture and export of rare earths.”

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday that an unidentified diplomatic source in Beijing had said that rare earth shipments to theUnited States and Europe were being held up by customs officials fortighter inspections, one of the explanations that customs officialshave also given in blocking shipments to Japan for the past month. But John Clancy, the trade spokesman for the European Commission, said in a statement on Wednesday that, “at this time, we cannot confirm claims made by European industry officials in media reports of China blocking rare-earth shipments to the” European Union.

The signals of a tougher Chinese trade stance come after American trade officials announced on Friday that they would investigate whether China was violating World Trade Organization rules by subsidizing its clean energy exports and limiting clean energy imports. The inquiry includes whether China’s steady reductions in rare earth export quotas since 2005, along with steep export taxes on rareearths, are illegal attempts to force multinational companies to produce more of their high-technology goods in China.

Despite a widely confirmed suspension of rare earth shipments from China to Japan, now nearly a month old, Beijing has continued to denythat any embargo exists.

Industry executives and analysts have interpreted that official denial as a way to wield an undeclared trade weapon without creating a policy trail that could make it easier for other countries to bring a case against China at the World Trade Organization.

So far, China seems to be taking a similar approach in expanding the embargo to the West.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, saidon Tuesday that the Chinese government was putting new restrictions onthe mining, processing and export of rare earths to protect the environment. But he said that China was not violating any W.T.O. rulesin doing so and that it was not imposing an embargo or trying to use rare earths as a bargaining chip.

“With stricter export mechanism gradually in place, outbound shipments to other countries might understandably begin to feel the effect,” Mr.Wang said in an e-mail. “But I don’t see any link between China’s reasonable rare earth export control policy and the irrational U.S.decision of protectionist nature to investigate China’s clean energy industries.”

Nefeterius Akeli McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United States Trade Representative in Washington, said that American trade officials were looking into the matter, after a report of the Chinese customs restrictions was published on Tuesday afternoon on the Web siteof The New York Times.

“We’ve seen the news report and are seeking more information in keeping with our recent announcement of an investigation into whether China’s actions and policies are consistent with W.T.O. rules.”

Jeremie Waterman, the China director of the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that he was still checking government and industry sources to learn the extent of a suspension of Chinese rare earth shipments. “If it’s true, it’s disturbing news to say the least,” he said.

Mr. Waterman said that rare earths were so important to advanced manufacturing that restrictions on their trade might need to be put on the agenda of the Group of 20 meeting of heads of state, scheduled next month in Seoul, South Korea.

The Chinese government office that oversees rare earth policy, which operated with considerable independence for many years, was moved early last year into the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.  That ministry, formed only two years ago to draft plans for global leadership in many industries, has emerged as a bastion of economic nationalism.

    bastion n. 1. a group of people or a system that protects a way of life or a
          　　　    belief when it seems that it may disappear 堡壘；捍衞者 formal
　　                 a bastion of male privilege 大男子主義的堡壘
        　　         a bastion of freedom 捍衞自由的堡壘
              　　2. a place that military forces are defending 堡壘；防禦工事

Congress is considering legislation to provide loan guarantees for there-establishment of rare earth mining and manufacturing in the United States. But new mines are likely to take three to five years to reach full production, according to industry executives, although existing uranium mines may be able to move faster by reprocessing previously mined material, which often contains rare earths.

China reduced in July its export quota for rare earths for the second half of the year by 72 percent. Exporters had only six weeks’ of quotas left when China imposed its unannounced embargo on shipments to Japan.

Last month a Chinese trawler operating in Japanese-controlled waterscollided with two vessels of Japan’s Coast Guard. Japan detained thetrawler’s captain; China responded by cutting off Japan’s access tocrucial raw materials.

And there was nowhere else to turn: China accounts for 97 percent ofthe world’s supply of rare earths, minerals that play an essential rolein many high-technology products, including military equipment. Sureenough, Japan soon let the captain go.

I don’t know about you, but I find this story deeply disturbing, bothfor what it says about China and what it says about us. On one side,the affair highlights the fecklessness of U.S. policy makers, who didnothing while an unreliable regime acquired a stranglehold on keymaterials. On the other side, the incident shows a Chinese governmentthat is dangerously trigger-happy, willing to wage economic warfare onthe slightest provocation.

Some background: The rare earths are elements whose unique propertiesplay a crucial role in applications ranging from hybrid motors to fiberoptics. Until the mid-1980s the United States dominated production, butthen China moved in.

“There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China,”declared Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economictransformation, in 1992. Indeed, China has about a third of the world’srare earth deposits. This relative abundance, combined with lowextraction and processing costs — reflecting both low wages and weakenvironmental standards — allowed China’s producers to undercut theU.S. industry.

You really have to wonder why nobody raised an alarm while this washappening, if only on national security grounds. But policy makerssimply stood by as the U.S. rare earth industry shut down. In at leastone case, in 2003 — a time when, if you believed the Bushadministration, considerations of national security governed everyaspect of U.S. policy — the Chinese literally packed up all theequipment in a U.S. production facility and shipped it to China.

The result was a monopoly position exceeding the wildest dreams ofMiddle Eastern oil-fueled tyrants. And even before the trawlerincident, China showed itself willing to exploit that monopoly to thefullest. The United Steelworkers recently filed a complaint againstChinese trade practices, stepping in where U.S. businesses fear totread because they fear Chinese retaliation. The union put China’simposition of export restrictions and taxes on rare earths —restrictions that give Chinese production in a number of industries animportant competitive advantage — at the top of the list.

Then came the trawler event. Chinese restrictions on rare earth exportswere already in violation of agreements China made before joining theWorld Trade Organization. But the embargo on rare earth exports toJapan was an even more blatant violation of international trade law.

Oh, and Chinese officials have not improved matters by insulting ourintelligence, claiming that there was no official embargo. All ofChina’s rare earth exporters, they say — some of them foreign-owned —simultaneously decided to halt shipments because of their personalfeelings toward Japan. Right.

So what are the lessons of the rare earth fracas?

First, and most obviously, the world needs to develop non-Chinesesources of these materials. There are extensive rare earth deposits inthe United States and elsewhere. However, developing these deposits andthe facilities to process the raw materials will take both time andfinancial support. So will a prominent alternative: “urban mining,” a k a recycling of rare earths and other materials from used electronic devices.

Second, China’s response to the trawler incident is, I’m sorry to say,further evidence that the world’s newest economic superpower isn’tprepared to assume the responsibilities that go with that status.

Major economic powers, realizing that they have an important stake inthe international system, are normally very hesitant about resorting toeconomic warfare, even in the face of severe provocation — witness theway U.S. policy makers have agonized and temporized over what to doabout China’s grossly protectionist exchange-rate policy. China,however, showed no hesitation at all about using its trade muscle toget its way in a political dispute, in clear — if denied — violation ofinternational trade law.

Couple the rare earth story with China’s behavior on other fronts — thestate subsidies that help firms gain key contracts, the pressure onforeign companies to move production to China and, above all, thatexchange-rate policy — and what you have is a portrait of a rogueeconomic superpower, unwilling to play by the rules. And the questionis what the rest of us are going to do about it.