This January, at a press conference 1,700 feet underground in Sweden’s Lapland region, one of Europe’s most pressing policy goals seemed to finally be within reach. State-owned miner LKAB was announcing a major discovery in its Kiruna mine: one of the largest deposits of rare earth elements in Europe.
Illustration by Nate Kitch
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The Japan Model
“This is really an important day for Sweden and for the whole of the European Union,” said Ebba Busch, Sweden’s minister for energy, business and industry, while donning a blue hard hat. “It is a significant happening which can play a key role in securing a green transition within the EU.”
Along with other critical minerals, such as lithium and cobalt, the 17 rare earth elements (REEs) are essential for the green and digital trans
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On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Wang Wentao, the Chinese Commerce Minister, in Washington. It marked the first cabinet-level meeting in Washington between the U.S. and China during the Biden administration, and it was a signal of the Commerce Department’s increasingly central role in the current U.S.-China relationship. Usually, the Commerce Department is far from the center of anything, but as Katrina Northrop reports, the department is uniquely suited to address the China challenge.
The lawyer and author talks about the attack on a train in the 1920s which created an international incident, the rise of the Communist Party and the conditions for foreign media in China today.
