Rare Earth Frontiers

Front matter

RARE EARTH

FRONTIERS

RARE EARTH FRONTIERS

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments

Introduction: Welcome to the Rare Earth Frontier 1. What Are Rare Earth Elements?

2. Placing China in the World History of Discovery, Production, and Use

Index

243 251 265 309

Illustrations

Figure 1. Global rare earth oxide production 2 Figure 2. Research sites examined in the present work, 2010-2015 2

Figure 3. Price index for selected rare earth oxides compared to copper and gold, 2003-2013 3

Figure 4. Various frequently referenced periodic tables with highlighted rare earth elements 42-43

Figure 5. Map of global rare earth deposits identified by the United States Geological Survey, 2015 64

Figure 6. Location of Baotou in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China 68

Figure 7. Location of Baotou City and Bayan Obo Mining District within Baotou Municipality 69

Figure 8. Photo from an Inner Mongolia Daily front page article on women’s committee progress, June 12,1952 89

Figure 9. An editorial comic on the back page of the Inner Mongolia Daily, March 5, 1952 90

Figure 10. Photos from a special to the Inner Mongolia Daily, titled “Young Women Build Socialism!,” June 12, 1953 91

Figure 11. A life-size diorama at the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Museum in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia 94

Figure 12. Satellite image of industrial geography of Baotou City and vicinity 116 Figure 13. Rare earth export quotas in tonnes, 2000-2014 131 Figure 14. Location of Araxá and Cabeça do Cachorro 167

Figure 15. Detailed map of land demarcation and principle ethnicities in Cabeca do Cachorro 171

Figure 16. Adaptation of two slides showing mineral deposits, key mineral reserves, and indigenous territories 174-175

Figure 17. Location of lunar KREEP, lunar landing sites, and deeded plots 203

Acknowledgments

The creative and often surprising ways that people get involved in a project of this scope would, I suspect, be worthy of its own novel, but with these few words I wish to acknowledge those principal characters without whose support this book would not be.

To Michael Watts, Nathan Sayre, Harley Shaiken, Paola Bacchetta, Richard Walker, and You-tien Hsing at the University of California, Berkeley, and to Kenneth Pomeranz, at the University of Chicago. Thank you for your kind mentorship.

To those who hosted me at various research institutions throughout the duration of this project, a special thank you to Alexandre Barbosa at the University of Sao Paulo Institute of Brazil Studies; to Wu Baiyi at the China Academy of Social Science Institute of Latin American Studies; to Liu Weidong at China Academy of Science Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research; to Bi Aonan at the China Academy of Social Science Research Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography; to Yang Tengyuan at the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region University; to Ingo Richter, Sabine Berking, and Stefanie Schafer of the Irmgard Coninx Stiftung at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. Without the ‘home away from home’ that you provided, this work could not have been accomplished.

For funding, it has been an honor to have this research supported by the East Asian Career Development Professorship Award at Boston University, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the University of California, Berkeley Department of Geography, and the Irmgard Coninx Stiftung in Berlin.

To those who provided the critical administrative support to keep this enterprise running, thank you to Elaine Bidianos, Christian Estrella, and Noorjehan Khan at Boston University, and thank you to Marjorie Ensor and Natalia Vonnegut at University of California, Berkeley.

To my excellent research assistants, thank you to Tara Moore at Boston University and Wang Xingchen in Inner Mongolia and Beijing for helping me track down all manner of archival sources. For typing support while I recovered from an injury to both of my arms, thanks to Jenna Hornbuckle and Nick Scheepers. For excellent graphic design work, thank you to Molly Roy. For all manner of technical support, thank you to Nick Bojda.

xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To those whose love and hospitality provided a warm respite amid the more intense periods of fieldwork, thank you. To Ward Lynds and Zhang Yazhou, my dear friends of fifteen years in Changchun. To Brendan and Angela Acord in Beijing, my beloved bon vivants. To Jeffrey Warner, Yang Weina, and Zhao Qiuwan in Shanghai. To Gustavo Oliveira in Brasilia, and to my dear Brazilian family, whom I had the good fortune of encountering in both Brazil and China. our long conversations, celebrations, and laughter sustain me. Renato, Dulcinea, Daniela, Guilherme, Kika, Manuela, Anahi, and most of all, José Renato Peneluppi Jr. To my intellectual godparents, mentors, and dear friends, Joshua Muldavin and Monica Varsanyi. Thank you for lighting my way and sharing so much of your lives with me, from Beijing to New York City.

To my family, thank you for your love, encouragement, and zest for adventure. As long as I can remember, you've told me to go far, be brave, have fun, and do the right thing. I will always do my best to make you proud.

To my dear spouse, life partner, and best friend, Nick Bojda. Thank you for every single conversation, for circling the globe with me, and for not only enduring long absences but cheering me through them. Your love and support mean the world to me.

Portions of chapters 1 and 2 appeared in earlier form in “Historical Geography of Rare Earth Elements. From Discovery to the Atomic Age,” The Extractive Industries and Society 2, no. 3 (2015): 572-80. Portions of chapters 1 and 3 are reprinted from “The Environment-Security Nexus in Contemporary Rare Earth Politics,” in The Political Economy of Rare Earth Elements. Rising Powers and Technological Change, edited by Ryan David Kiggins (New York: Macmillan, 2015), 133-55. Thank you for supporting my scholarly work.

Finally, I am immensely grateful for the support provided by my editor, Jim Lance, and the publishing team at Cornell University Press. Thank you for your stewardship over this project.

All translations in the text are my own, as are any remaining errors or shortcomings. Except where indicated in the text, this book uses metric measurements. Large volumes are measured in tonnes, the singular of which is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. These are not to be confused with the American ton, which is a unit of mass equal to 907.2 kilograms, or 2,000 pounds.

RARE EARTH FRONTIERS