Mining’s Makeover

A rare earth ingot, photographed in China in 2013.
*Credit: Sim Chi Yin via Magnum*

On an early September morning 10 years ago, the Chinese fishing trawler Minjinyun 5179 collided with a Japanese Coast Guard patrol boat in the East China Sea. The trawler had been fishing near disputed territory controlled by Japan known as the Senkaku islands, or Diaoyu in Chinese. Beijing had been increasingly hawkish towards numerous contested territories, but a long-standing animosity between the two countries made the Senkakus a particularly fiery flashpoint. The Japanese Coast Gua

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