If you’ve been following the slow-motion strategic panic over critical minerals, you know that Japan, Australia, the US, Canada, Europe and others are busy talking about China’s dominance both of rare earth mining and refining and of the production of rare earth magnets. Those countries are even starting to do something about it.
What has been left out of reports on the subject, until recently, is how and with whose equipment rare earth magnets are made. Then, on May 1, Nikkei Asia reported that “Ulvac will soon move production of equipment that makes rare-earth magnets back to Japan from China.”
