After the WTO ruled against China in the rare earth case, it seems that Western countries such as the United States and Japan can once again obtain a large amount of cheap rare earth resources in China without taking any responsibility for environmental damage. For this reason, we don't have to worry too much. In order to protect our country's environment and resources, we can adopt a strategy of "using barbarians to control them" and let their dreams fall through.

The economic and trade friction between the United States and Japan, which has lasted for over half a century, has proven that it is almost impossible for China to win in the rare earth trade litigation issue. The United States used to dump their products everywhere under the banner of free trade. Later, the competitiveness of Japanese companies greatly increased, and cheap and high-quality products swept across the United States. Therefore, the United States lowered the banner of free trade and introduced new rules of fair trade, which required Japan to limit the quantity of exports to the United States. With the decline of American manufacturing, the United States has once again raised the banner of patents that have been sealed off for decades. Under the banner of protecting intellectual property rights, the huge compensation ultimately buried Minolta, which developed the world's first autofocus camera. Since the 1990s, the United States has been issuing questions every year, requiring Japan to make limited time modifications. In the final analysis, they can not only make rules, but also the final say how to use them. So, we can argue with reason, but don't imagine that we can still win the lawsuit.

However, losing the WTO lawsuit does not automatically give the green light for the cheap and large-scale outflow of rare earth resources in China. We don't have to worry about export quotas, we can fully learn from and adopt the protection methods of Western countries for strategic resources, and "use barbarians to control barbarians" to ensure our country's interests.

Before the 1980s, the United States had always been the world's largest rare earth country, accounting for over 50% of global production. But rare earths are not only very important strategic resources, but also non renewable resources. Therefore, the United States quickly adjusted its strategy and began to protect rare earth resources, basically stopping its domestic mining. In fact, there are many examples of Western countries protecting their own resources in this way, which are good references for formulating protection measures for China's strategic resources.

Rare earth mining has brought enormous environmental damage to our country, and we cannot let future generations bear such consequences. Those who profit from rare earth mining must take responsibility for improving the environment. Raising the rare earth resource tax is an effective measure. In 2011, China raised the rare earth resource tax tenfold to 60 yuan per ton. However, this tax revenue is still a drop in the bucket for the arduous environmental governance. In fact, such tax rates have long been digested by rare earth development enterprises and have not served the purpose of protecting rare earth resources. Therefore, we should start from the reality of environmental governance and significantly increase resource tax rates. In this way, it can promote the healthy development of the rare earth industry, and at the same time, foreign buyers can also bear corresponding responsibilities without adopting export quotas.

What Western countries crave is cheap resources, and they will definitely launch a collective attack on such measures. However, we can fully implement such measures in a dignified manner while improving relevant domestic regulations. In fact, this is also the most effective measure of "using barbarians to control barbarians". The formulation of the Rare Mineral Resources Protection Law, the establishment of a rare earth reserve system, and the improvement of the domestic legal system are also practices advocated by Western countries. In many international affairs, they often use domestic law as a shield to protect their vital interests. We can treat others in their own way, which can not only curb the damage to our country's environment, but also ensure that our precious rare earth resources will not be lost in large quantities at a low cost. Why not do it? If that's the case, then losing the WTO case is not necessarily an example of a bad thing turning into a good thing.