[alephnerd]

> Japan broke their habit of buying rare earths from China

Nope. They are still dependent on transshipment via Thailand or processing in 3rd countries like India or Vietnam.

Heck, Toyota's India JV has been halted [0] from exporting processed rare earths to Japan from India right now because China has blockaded Indian access [1] to rare earths which China promised to remove recently but still hasn't [2], which lead to India blocking it's export of REEs.

And people wonder why countries have continued to engage with the US despite Trump.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-moves-conserve-its...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitig...

[2] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20250916VL202/tata-group-rar...

[MichaelZuo]

Toyota intentionally tried to use India as a shield and drag it into intrigues with China over rare earths?

That’s pretty big news if true.

[alephnerd]

India wasn't dragged into intrigue by Japan. India was blockaded by China BECAUSE Japan (and South Korea) are working on building an ExChina supply chain for REE processing within India, and becuase Taiwan has begun moving it's dual use ESM chain to India [0][1]. A lot of India-Taiwan military collaboration is occuring at IIT Ropar [2], which has become a de facto hub for Indian defense tech [3] (most of their "AI" research is tracking and C-UAS applications). Essentially, India is viewed by China as a potential competitor that needs to be nipped in the bud [5].

The Japanese government, Toyota, and the Indian government began a REE joint venture back in 2009 called Toyotsu Rare Earths India Ltd [4] that dramatically expanded after China started a trade war with Japan over the Senkaku Diaoyu islands in 2012.

> That’s pretty big news if true

It has been in Japan and India for months now. This is why the Indian government began a massive processing campaign over the past 1-2 years with Japanese and Korean involvement, along with a push for EESM mass production.

[0] - https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=4196

[1] - https://cuashub.com/en/content/a-geopolitical-game-of-drones...

[2] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/indo-taiwan/

[3] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/coe-sards

[4] - https://trei.co.in/

[5] - https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cfer-202...

[MichaelZuo]

If China was fine with rare earths ultimately making its way to Japan, why would Toyota HQ need to use an Indian JV as a proxy?

There has to be some reason to use such a roundabout method and get the Indian board members signatures on the record on whatever they sent to Beijing to get it approved in the first place.

[alephnerd]

> Toyota HQ need to use an Indian JV as a proxy

Japan began moving extraction and processing to India. Japan conducts transshipment via Thailand and Vietnam (though Vietnam is now graduating into processing as well).

TREI is completely ExChina.

> China was fine with rare earths ultimately making its way to Japan

The worry has been if China and Japan are ever in a diplomatic tussle again like in 2010-12, then the entire flow of REEs from China could be shut down, but the Chinese government still wants to let some amount of flow to happen in order to ensure that the incentive to build an entirely ExChina supply chain does not take hold.

[MichaelZuo]

So it clearly seems like dragging them into intrigues they otherwise could have simply avoided?

(By genuinely using the materials in India which Indian JVs typically do)

[alephnerd]

> clearly seems like dragging them into intrigues they otherwise could have simply avoided

India and China have been at logger heads since the 1960s. The same moment India and Japan started the joint JV, India and China had a naval standoff because India's ONGC began developing Vietnam's claim in the South China Sea [0] and the PLA began normalizing encroachment [1] in Ladakh and Arunachal.

China has weaponized export controls against India for years now, from requiring Foxconn pull back Chinese employees working on equipment transfers to India [2] to barring magnet exports for India's EV industry [3] to barring Chinese EV firms and suppliers from moving to India and Vietnam [4].

China is trying to do to India what America should have done to China in the 2000s and 2010s. Even if the US did not figure in conversations, the same weaponization against India by China would have happened.

> By genuinely using the materials in India which Indian JVs typically do

Japanese and Korean companies have been using IREL and transferring IP to Indian SOEs for almost 15 years now as well.

[0] - https://thediplomat.com/2011/09/india-china-navies-face-off/

[1] - https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/08/impasse-at-th...

[2] - https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/02/foxconn-tells-hundreds-of-...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-magnet-curbs-risk...

[4] - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/business/china-electric-v...

[renewiltord]

Did my wife drag me into marriage or did I drag her into marriage? Perhaps we will never know who drags whom. Certainly one must have dragged the other.