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e demand for the REs was met with higher volume of imports of the minerals from Beijing from 29,040 tons against 34,007 tons in 2006 and close to 32,390 tons as opposed to near 34,312 tons in 2007, such phenomenon began to change for the worst since 2008. Starting from that year, the Chinese RE supply contracted sharply from 29,275 tons in 2008 to 15,378 tons in 2011. Despite Tokyo’s relatively decreasing demands from 32,064 tons to 21,080 tons for the same period, the volumes of RE imports to Japan still trailed behind the volumes of the minerals needed by the industrial players in the country. For a country like Japan that derived close to 90 per cent of its RE supply from China, [13] such a trend is certainly an alarming development.

 

TonnesGraph 1. Japan’s RE Demand & Imports from China, 2006-2010

 

Year

 

Source: Japan’s Ministry of Finance; The Japan Times, January 26, 2011; Japan’s Society

 

of Newer Metals; and Rare Metal Blog, June 4, 2012.

 

Internal Factor as Intervening Variable: Japanese Government’s Economic Security and Power Risk Perceptions of China’s RE Policy

 

The economic value of RE minerals is demonstrated through its indispensability for the manufacturing of high-tech end products spanning across different industries around the world. For instance, the development of hard disk platters in personal computers requires REs in different physical forms such as cerium oxides as well as dysprosium, neodymium metals and samarium metals. The automobile industries, meanwhile, consume high amount of cerium carbonate in the production of the 3-way catalyst used in car engines. That said, most oil industry players also demand both lanthanum and cerium oxides for the production of FCC catalysts which are vital elements in oil refinery plants. [14]

 

In the case of Japan, the country has been largely dependent on the two manufacturing sectors, namely automobile/transport and electrical/machinery, for its trade output. In the figures from Japan Statistical Yearbook 2013, both sectors contributed large segment of the total value of export commodities in 2011: transport equipments (inclusive of motor vehicles) at 14,033 billion yen (21.41 per cent) while electric machineries at 11,600 billion yen (17.70 per cent. Together, both accounted close to 40 per cent of the country’s overall commodity export value in that year alone. [15] In this sense, both the automobile/transport and electric/machinery industries made up the two main pillars of Japan’s export-based external economy. In terms of RE consumption, such scenario would also mean that Japan required massive RE consumption for these two industries that depended so much on the stability of the precious minerals’ shipments for its manufacturing goods. This also explains the reason Japan b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。