Recursos naturais estratégicos como instrumento de poder econômico chinês: o caso dos elementos de terras raras

Abstract

In the last decades, China has simultaneously aligned its interests in domestic and international environments. At the outset, the dissertation discusses an object inserted in the great area of International Political Economy (IPE). It is intended to answer the following question: what is China's interest in gaining control over the Rare Earth Elements (RAE) productive chain? The hypothesis supported in the dissertation is that the monopoly of the productive chain of strategic natural resources of RAE influences Chinese economic power. It should be noted that such inputs are not land and are not rare. They are a set of 17 chemical elements which include scandium (Sc), yttrium (Y) and 15 elements of the lanthanide series - from lanthanum (La) to lutetium (Lu). Very similar to each other in terms of malleability and resistance, RAE are an important input in the global commercial production chain, with a predominance of missile control, defense and communication systems. Currently, China is in a privileged position in the sector, being the largest exporter of these elements. In advance, it should be pointed out that the definition of power used in this dissertation will be largely conditioned to the State's control over strategic natural resources, specifically on the RAE. The methodology used will be a case study, qualitative and inductive, working with the variables: monopoly power (by the domination of supply and demand), production power, industrial policy and commercial policy.