China\u2019s exports of rare earth permanent magnets to Japan slightly rebounded in April after slumping the previous month, but Japanese firms warn they are facing \u201csevere\u201d shortages as a diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo grinds on.<\/p>\n
Shipments of permanent magnets from China to Japan rose by 2.5 per cent in April compared with the previous month, according to Chinese customs data released on Wednesday. But the modest rise only partly offset the 17.3 per cent plunge recorded in March.<\/p>\n
The slowdown has raised alarm among Japan\u2019s industrial giants<\/a>, as permanent magnets are essential components for a range of hi-tech products \u2013 from electric cars to advanced weaponry. China is the world\u2019s largest supplier of the magnets.<\/p>\n Japan ranked just ninth among buyers of Chinese permanent magnets last month, with Germany, South Korea and the United States making up the top three.<\/p>\n The data comes as Beijing and Tokyo continue a diplomatic feud that first erupted in November<\/a>, when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested that a hypothetical attack on Taiwan could constitute an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to Japan.In January, China banned exports of \u201cdual-use\u201d items<\/a> \u2013 or goods with potential military applications \u2013 to Japan. While the ban did not specifically name them, rare earth elements are sometimes classed as dual-use items, as are products such as drones and advanced semiconductors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s exports of rare earth permanent magnets to Japan slightly rebounded in April after slumping the previous month,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[198859,2102,72,114,969,113,5148,61,60,582,20168,198861,198860,25204,2073,115,3591],"class_list":["post-458514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-aisan-industry","tag-beijing","tag-business","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-european-union","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-nikkei-business","tag-nikkei-xtech","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-taiwan","tag-united-states","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}