The United States has the largest germanium production, but it imports from China due to protective policies
As we all know, China has once again taken steps to counter export restrictions on gallium and germanium metals and related items, so any product involving gallium and germanium must apply for a license from China's Ministry of Commerce if it wants to sell abroad.
Because gallium and germanium are widely used in solar panels, lasers, night vision goggles, computer chips, and now in the electric vehicle industry, many see the move as retaliation for the U.S. chip ban.
Of course, there are many people who say that the so-called countermeasures are not necessarily suitable, and the main purpose is actually to protect resources, because whether it is gallium or germanium, they are strategic materials, it is not easy to mine, and the reserves are not high, so for long-term development, it should be protected.
As for whether this is a countermeasure or a resource conservation, we can only really understand it after analysis.
China's gallium metal reserves rank first in the world, accounting for 80% to 85% of the world's total reserves, ranking first in the world's production, and China's gallium exports also rank first in the world.
The United States has been importing gallium products from China, so we can see that restricting the export of gallium has a huge impact on the semiconductor industry in the United States.
The situation with germanium metal is slightly different: China has the second largest reserves of germanium metal in the world, while the United States ranks first in the world. But here's the problem: the United States, which protected germanium as a defense reserve in 1984, has all but stopped mining in recent years.
All the germanium metal products used in the United States for many years are imported from abroad, and China is the main importer.
Why doesn't the United States mine germanium products?On the one hand, the United States wants to protect these resources and exploit them in the future when they cannot be imported, just as the United States does not mine its own rare earths.
In addition, germanium resources mainly come from the mining of lead-zinc ore and lignite, the reason why China's germanium production is so high is because China is the world's largest aluminum producer, but also a large lignite country, germanium mining is just by the way, so the cumulative amount of germanium in the world in the past ten years, 685% is germanium.
But for the United States, to extract germanium, it also needs to extract aluminum, lignite, etc., and the United States does not need to extract much aluminum, lignite, etc., to extract germanium and other minerals, so most of the cost, if a separate production line is built, it is also a very big waste, and the gains outweigh the losses, which is why it is imported from China.
Therefore, there are many reasons to restrict the export of gallium and germanium, and countermeasures are only one of them, as is the protection of resources.
Seriously, sometimes we have to learn from the United States, there are some scarce resources, don't mine them first, but protect them, for example, the United States is like this for germanium and rare earths, which they obviously have, but they don't mine them, and import them from abroad first.
In addition, to be honest, the United States found that China's opponent was really unlucky for eight generations, and the United States also had a way to deal with China's semiconductors, and China also had a way to hit many industries in the United States, such as silicon volts in the past, gallium and germanium this time, etc., and was not afraid of the United States.