Sail across the sea

Chapter 476 This place doesn't contain minerals.

"Many Chinese people know that China is the world's home of rare earths, especially the ion adsorption type heavy rare earth deposits in the hilly areas of southern China, which are unique in the world to date."

However, few people know that in Japan, which is geographically close to us, there is another rich mine of heavy rare earth elements. This rich mine is hidden deep beneath Tokyo Bay, and its reserves even exceed the total known rare earth reserves in the world.

"This rare earth mine is neither a mine shaft nor an open-pit mine. The ore here is packaged in countless giant plastic drums. When needed, this ore can be dredged from the seabed and put into industrial production."

"What happened? The story begins in southern China..."

This was the article Luo Shenrong read. The first few paragraphs captivated him so much that he even forgot why he had read it in the first place.

Further down the page, the author tells a story about how the Japanese were farsighted and how the Chinese were short-sighted, a common trope in various enlightenment articles these days.

In the author's portrayal, local officials in several southern provinces are depicted as ugly and short-sighted, recklessly mining rare earth elements in pursuit of political achievements, resulting in countless green mountains and clear waters being submerged by waste mine tailings. The Japanese, however, possess a strong sense of crisis. Knowing that Japan is a resource-scarce country, they purchase mineral resources worldwide and store them under Tokyo Bay for unforeseen circumstances.

The Japanese officials in the story possess great political wisdom, while the Japanese businessmen are hardworking and resilient. The president, whose net worth is in the hundreds of billions of yen, only eats two rice balls for lunch and is reluctant to even spread soybean paste on them, yet he spends a lot of money to purchase minerals.

"The president stood on the shore of Tokyo Bay, the sea breeze ruffling his white hair. Every wrinkle on his face was etched with wisdom. He said affectionately to his subordinates: 'Do you know that what lies buried here is not minerals, but the destiny of Japan for the next five hundred years…'"

"Director Luo, what's wrong?"

Gao Fan noticed that Luo Shenrong, who was reading an article, looked a little off, so he asked him with concern.

"It's nothing, I just feel a little nauseous..."

Luo Shenrong threw down the magazine, took a few deep breaths, and then pointed at it, asking:
"Comrade Xiao Gao, who wrote this? It's just too... too... too much!"

"You mean to say it's shameless, right?" Gao Fan said it for him with a smile.

Luo Shenrong was speechless again. As the saying goes, if someone is shameless, you can't slap them in the face. The person who published the article said it was shameless; what else can you say?
After a pause, Luo Shenrong asked, "Did you only publish this one article? I feel that the meaning may still be too obscure, and not everyone may be able to understand it."

"Don't worry, within two weeks, at least 100 newspapers or magazines in China will publish similar articles, and I believe there will definitely be people who understand them," Gao Fan said confidently.

In a classroom at Renmin University, the teacher had just finished recounting a story he had come across before class, and was about to elaborate on the concept of an international perspective when the students began to stir.
"Teacher, is this story true, or did you make it up?"

"It should be true. I saw it in the newspaper a couple of days ago, and it's pretty much what the teacher said."

"The Japanese have a better eye for things than we do, let me tell you..."

"What are you talking about? According to this story, aren't we just being ripped off?" "Exactly! Mineral resources are non-renewable. Even countries without resources know to buy them and hide them at the bottom of the sea. We're just foolishly digging them up and selling them for nothing. It's such a waste!"

"Exactly! Chinese people are too short-sighted! Let me tell you..."

"By the way, have you heard that the government recently introduced a special rare earth resource tax, apparently to prevent the undervaluation of resources?"

"Absolutely right! In my opinion, the resource tax should be increased to a level that no one can afford."

“Wake up! Some scholars say that levying resource taxes violates tariff and trade rules, and that it is illegal for the country to do so.”

"Holy crap, who's so shameless?!"

"It seems to be a PhD student surnamed Qi from a certain department."

"Do you have his address? I'll send him razor blades..."

In this world, there are people who are quick-witted and people who are slow-witted, but even those who are slow-witted will immediately understand after being enlightened that there was such a big pit in this article!
As mentioned before, people in this era generally admire foreign things, but this admiration is accompanied by strong nationalistic sentiments. While people may criticize domestic affairs, their underlying motivation is still a desire for things to be done well domestically.

The situation with rare earth elements was largely unknown to most people. Qi Honghuang and others claimed that China violated WTO rules by arbitrarily raising prices using its resource monopoly, and this seemed to make some sense. They reasoned that foreign rules must be fair, and since the Chinese weren't following them, the fault must lie with China.

But after reading this article, everyone's thinking has changed. "You buy our stuff, store it at the bottom of the sea, and wait until we've mined all our resources before taking it out to use? Aren't you treating us like idiots?"

No rule can be followed like this; there's no reasoning involved.

Back then, without the internet, people could only discuss things privately and couldn't create a trending topic. But Gao Fan had Yuan Xiaoyan launch a saturation attack, publishing similar articles in newspapers and magazines at all levels, making it impossible to pretend not to see. This is the same tactic used to buy trending topics in later generations.

The whispers and murmurs of ordinary people are nothing to fear, but soon some influential figures also began to speak out or write articles criticizing the policies. Some of these criticisms were subtle, expressing a desire to discuss the policies, while others were more radical, vehemently questioning who was betraying our nation's destiny.

The editors-in-chief of newspapers and periodicals also sensed that the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. Some of them may have agreed with the views of Qi Honghuang and his ilk, but at this critical juncture, they knew that they could no longer mention international rules, otherwise they would be overwhelmed by public opinion.

The Ministry of Foreign Trade has once again been subjected to online harassment. This time, however, the attacks are directed at those questioning why the Ministry doesn't strictly control rare earth exports, and whether other resources have been secretly sold off by these bureaucrats who only care about foreign exchange. Aren't you afraid of being cheated out of your own country by colluding with foreign powers and stealing from your own people?

Helpless, the leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Trade had to come forward to clarify, stating in an interview with reporters that they would conduct an in-depth investigation into the situation of some foreign companies maliciously hoarding Chinese resource-based products, and would strengthen resource protection in future work.

(End of this chapter)