James Kynge

And even more crucially, they're used in making weapons.

So without these rare earths,

it will be difficult for America to make the weapons it needs to defend itself.

And so that's why I think we're going to see this calmer, more stable, less adversarial U.S.

policy towards China.

And unless something big happens, my hunch is that this may set the tone for the next few years.

Because, of course, it will take, I would say, a minimum of five years before the U.S.

can wean itself off its dependence on China's rare earth minerals.

Do you think that call is a bit left of field?

Do you think it's a bit sort of out there?

Maybe there's more going on.

Maybe it's to do with Trump not wanting to jeopardize his planned visit to Beijing next April.

What's your sense?

I think they're absolutely delighted.

And I have been talking to Chinese, well, think tank people last week in London.

And I think they are really very pleased about this because the previous two national security strategies mentioned that the US wanted to oppose China's desire to, quote, shape a world

antithetical to US values and interests.

This version dropped that completely.

And as you mentioned earlier, it started to talk about economics a great deal more.

And so the key sentence in this one was that America wanted to be working to, quote, rebalance America's economic relationship with China.