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At present, Tokyo needs about 4,500 tons to 5,000 tons of REs for production use in its two most common applications, high power magnets and auto exhaust catalysts. If these two commercial applications are taken into account, it consists of 26 per cent of the Japanese RE estimated national consumption in 2010. [17] Translated this into Japan’s RE products market, one-fifth of it is to be used as crucial “ingredients” for the country’s end products among Japanese carmakers and electronic giants. In the supply chain, there are also those Japanese conglomerates which dealt with the industry of high-power magnet making for eventual sales to business giants in both car and electrical sectors. Within this group of industrial players, Hitachi Metals owned as much as 45 per cent share of high-power magnet market, following closely by Shin Etsu Chemical at 40 per cent. [18] In addition to TDK, another Japanese producer, the three corporations monopolized the national magnet market with as much as 95 per cent in total share. The same goes to auto catalyst supply chain where Japan’s Daiichi Kigenso Kagaku Kogyo is the primary provider of important rare earth composites to be sold to companies producing catalytic converters for the country’s automakers. [19] Hence, the Japanese businesses have strong vested interests in the domestic RE’s supply market, intermediary applications and end product uses. Any deterioration in the RE’s supply in the forms of reduction of export quota and decreasing volume of shipments from China, is bound to affect the whole domestic business chain in Japan.

From the Japanese policymakers’ perspective, concerns are derived mainly from the domestic economic front. Mired in the “three lost decades” in which Japan’s economic growth has less than satisfactory level than its American and European counterparts and surpassed by the high-growth China as in 2011, [20] Tokyo policymakers are banking on the “traditional” pillars of automobile and electrical/machinery sectors to preserve jobs and businesses at the national economic security level as well as Japanese economic power status the world. Precisely for these two reasons, a stable RE supply for the two major industries is critically important for Japan to uphold its economic security and power interests.

In terms of economic security, the Japanese government has long feared of a “hollowing out” phenomenon of its two major industries to other parts of Asia, particularly China. Apart from the factors as the appreciation of yen and later, the devastating triple disasters in Japan in March 2011 that cost Japanese business operations as well as electronic apparatus and resources supply chain in the country, [21] the Japanese government also forced to divert their attention in solving the Chinese RE shortage problem in order to prevent further relocation of its industries overseas. The news in which the Japanese manufacturers with the likes of Shiwa Denko KK, Hoya Corporation, Asahi Glass and Hitachi Metals sought to move their RE-related intermediary/end pr本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。