China mulls bolstering control of rare earths as national strategy

China has unveiled a draft bill designed to strengthen control of rare earths, vital to the production of high-tech goods such as hybrid cars and mobile phones, officials said Saturday.The draft bill, released to the public on Friday, said the Chinese government will manage the process from mining to exports of rare earths as a national strategy, as tensions with the United States have been escalating over state-of-the-art technologies.The United States and other major economies, including European countries and Japan, depend on rare earth imports from China, the world's dominant supplier o…READ FULL ARTICLE