Yes, overall, market forces would make exploitation of resources outside china viable.

Anybody starting such a venture does so knowing that China can flood the market anytime by varying their quota arbitrarily.

So, production outside china will need a lot of shelter from Chinese manipulation, presumably in the form of government supplementation in the event that such occurs.

If China wants to play games, that's fine. The cost of starting a rare-earth industry independent of china will make it necessary to use such an industry preferentially, even if china changes it's quotas, just to pay off the amortised costs.

Brinksmanship, what fun.

Rusty

We used to pull quite a bit of the stuff out of some fairly useless sand hills on Fraser, & Stradbroke islands, & some bay way up north, who's name escapes me right now.

The last of it will finish soon, stuffed by our greenie mates.

Why is it that they can't stand to see anyone do anything productive?

If any one is silly enough to want to mine any rare earth in Oz, they had better be prepared to spend a lot of time & money getting through the crap before they can start.