lawless rare earths area

did you know there existed such wondrous places, these "lawless rare earths" areas?  the wild wild rare earths area.  bit wordy. they're in northern Guangdong.  wild wild guangdong. uh. wild wild rare earth west. that's not bad.

anyway, beloved ol' nyt is happily ladlin' up another woe are the prospers of china story.  they be damned for their monopoly o' those luscious rare earths, those marvelous elements of the modern must have age, by bands of rapacious buccaneers, mining their own rare earth loot in wild wild guandong, absconding with thence toward vietnam, where japanese business yops hover, scooping up the contraband, banging it off to nippon, thereby subverting china's embargo of rare earths to japan.

that won't do.

What is new are efforts by China’s national and provincial governments to crack down on the illegal mines, to which local authorities have long turned a blind eye. The efforts coincide with a decision by Beijing to reduce legal exports as well, including an announcement by China’s commerce ministry on Tuesday that export quotas for all rare earth metals will be 35 percent lower in the early months of next year than in the first half of this year.

the problem? CHIGOV only has control of half of it.

Rogue operations in southern China produce an estimated half of the world’s supply of heavy rare earths, which are the most valuable kinds of rare earth metals.
...
China mines 99 percent of the global supply of heavy rare earths, with legal, state-owned mines mainly accounting for the rest of China’s output. That means the Chinese government’s only effective competitors in producing these valuable commodities are the crime rings within the country’s borders.

just how competitive are these rare earth rivals?

Someone abducted the general manager of Pacific Ores, Constant Li. The kidnappers brought Mr. Li to Mr. Crawley’s Hong Kong office one night, bound him to a chair with duct tape, gagged and blindfolded him and ripped open his throat with box cutters.

lawless rare earths area.