本帖最后由 innocency 于 2010-12-3 11:52 编辑
【原文标题】China Restarts Rare Earth Shipments to Japan
【中文标题】中国恢复对日稀土出口
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【来源地址】http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/business/global/20rare.html?ref=china
【译 者】innocency
【翻译方式】人工
【声 明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=283123&rpid=3998278&ordertype=0&page=1#pid3998278
【译 文】
香港——周五，中国恢复了对日重要矿产的出口。日本政府官员和一位业内高管称，这是近两月以来的第一次。
中国海关部门不仅正处理该矿物（被称为“稀土”）船运的书面文件，同时还允许码头工人把装有稀土的容器装上周五下午开往日本的船，日本官员和高管如是说道。
“一切都开始进行。”该稀土工业高管说。因为中国禁运带来的外交敏感经久不消，他坚持不透露自己的名字。北京从未公开宣布或者正式通知这次禁运。
但是另一家公司的管理人员说其公司的运输仍然被延迟，这说明不是所有的出口都已经解禁了。
尽管经过十一月末短暂的暂停出口后，中国允许恢复该矿物向美国和欧洲的运送，但向日本的输送仍然处于停滞状态——即使中国海关部门数个礼拜前已经开始接受船运的文书工作。
不过日本经济产业省周五说，在一个为期三天的调查中，有16至27家从中国进口稀土矿物的公司汇报，他们的购买能力有所增长。
路透社从日本发回报道称，日本经济产业省非铁金属课长村崎勉周五时宣布，周三中国海关批准后，部分稀土已经开始装船。
日本经济产业相大畠章宏表示，根据他上周末在横滨同张平会见时获得的保证，情况有所好转。张平是中国国家发展和改革委员会主任。
中国生产占全球95%的稀土，这些矿物的其中一半出口到日本。日本将这些稀土运用在高科技生产制造业。
稀土对于许多工业产品（含汽车、玻璃、石油冶炼、计算机、智能手机、风轮机和液晶超薄电视机）的生产至关重要。军队需要在导弹、声纳系统和坦克的测距仪中用到稀土。
北京海关总署的官员周五的时候拒绝接受关于稀土政策的电话采访，声称任何问题应当通过传真提出。但问题传真过去以后，他们并未回复。
中国恢复对日船运的决定，可能不仅仅是北京和东京之间关系回暖的标志。
中国有许多组装日本高科技元件（这些需要用到稀土）的代工厂。两位稀土工业高管说，有些雇佣了大量中国工人的代工厂，因为制造需要的混合稀土匮乏导致日本供应商减少供件，已经开始出现元件紧缺的情况。
电子产业尤其是相机制造业也受到影响，导致原材料的疯抢，甚至包括从欧洲企业的库存里购买成吨的混合稀土化合物然后空运至日本。
在未经宣布的对日禁运过程中，中国授权的32家稀土出口商拒绝增加向其他国家的运输，这使得日本交易商想间接获得稀土供应也变得很难。
而禁止运输的结果就是，现在部分稀土在中国境外的价格是其境内价格的十倍，中国政府开始采取严格措施防止由此导致的走私。
9月21日，中国海关官员突然停止接受对日运送的书面文件。两周前，日本扣押了一艘中国渔船，这艘中国渔船在一座日本长期占领但被中国宣誓主权的岛屿附近冲撞两艘日本海岸巡逻舰，这次严重冲突之后运送便停止了。
中国采取日本官方形容为“经济战争”的措施之后，日本迅速释放了中国船长。据报道，日本政府官员曾经说过日本企业的稀土存储可以坚持到三月底。但是有17种稀土成分广泛制成不可替代的化学物质，并且需要不同程度的纯度。中国的运送中断持续，使得确保每家日本企业都有充足的保证纯度的化学物质储备用于生产变得越发困难。
10月18日至28日，在奥巴马政府开始调查中国的绿色能源政策（包括限制稀土出口）是否违反国际自由贸易规则后，中国海关官员停止了对美国和欧洲的部分稀土运输。但是美国主要从中国和日本购买加工过的稀土材料，所以受到的影响很小。
运输的恢复可能不会持续很长时间。今年中国削减了40%的稀土出口定额，降到了三万零三百吨。产业高管估计今年的定额只剩三千至四千吨，也就是说运输可能在几周后再次中断，并且在2011年定额确定之前不再恢复。
直到2009年12月31日之前，中国政府都没有确定2010年的初始定额。但是政府暗示今年的定额会早些出台，让出口商可以有时间为一月初恢复运输做好物流安排。
三周前，中国和越南在河内最高级别官方会见的前一天，中国暂时恢复对稀土出口的文书处理。但是当那次会见进展的不顺利，中国港口的官员阻止了容器的实质装船，不论通关表格是否已完成。
【原 文】
HONG KONG — China resumed exports of crucial minerals to Japan on Friday for the first time in almost two months, Japanese government officials and an industry executive said.
Chinese customs agents were not only processing the paperwork for shipments of the minerals, known as rare earths, but were also allowing dock workers to load containers of rare earths on ships bound for Japan on Friday afternoon, the Japanese officials and the executive said.
“Everything is flowing,” said the rare earth industry executive, who insisted on anonymity because of lingering diplomatic sensitivity about the Chinese embargo, which Beijing had never announced or formally acknowledged.
But an official at another company said that delays persisted for its shipments, a difficulty that suggested not all export restrictions had been lifted.
Although China had allowed shipments of the minerals to resume to the United States and Europe after a brief suspension in late October, deliveries to Japan had remained suspended — even after Chinese custom agents had started processing the shipping paperwork a few weeks ago.
But Japan’s ministry of economy, trade and industry said Friday that 16 of 27 companies that imported rare earth minerals from China had reported in a survey over the last three days that their ability to buy them had improved.
Tsutomu Murasaki, director of the trade ministry’s nonferrous metals division, said Friday that some loading of ships with rare earths had begun, after China gave customs approval Wednesday, Reuters reported from Tokyo.
Akihiro Ohata, Japan’s trade minister, said that the improvement was consistent with assurances he had received during a meeting last weekend in Yokohama with Zhang Ping, the chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission.
China produces 95 percent of the world’s rare earths and half of its exports of these minerals go to Japan, which uses them in its high-tech manufacturing industries.
Rare earths are vital to the production of a wide range of industrial products, including automobiles, glass, oil refining, computers, smartphones, wind turbines and flat-screen televisions. The military needs them for missiles, sonar systems and the range finders of tanks.
Officials at the General Administration of Customs in Beijing declined to accept questions over the telephone on Friday about rare earth policy, saying that any questions would have to be faxed. When questions were faxed, officials did not respond.
China’s decision to resume shipments to Japan may be more than simply a sign of warming relations between Beijing and Tokyo.
Many factories in China assemble products that require high-tech components from Japan that use rare earths. Some of these factories, which employ large numbers of workers in China, have begun running low on components as Japanese suppliers ran short on some of the more obscure rare earths needed to manufacture them, two rare earth industry executives said.
Electronics industries have been affected, particularly camera manufacturers, leading to a desperate scramble for raw materials that has even included buying tons of obscure rare earth compounds from corporate stockpiles in Europe and airlifting them to Japan.
All 32 of the authorized rare earth exporters in China have refused to increase their shipments to other countries during the unannounced ban on shipments to Japan, making it difficult for Japanese traders to obtain supplies indirectly.
As a result of the blocked shipments, some rare earths now cost up to 10 times as much outside China as inside; the Chinese government has started a vigorous campaign to prevent this from leading to smuggling.
Chinese customs officials abruptly halted the processing of paperwork for shipments bound for Japan on Sept. 21. The shipments were halted during an acrimonious dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler that rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels two weeks earlier near islands long controlled by Japan but claimed by China.
Japan quickly released the captain after China engaged in what Japanese officials described as economic warfare. Government officials in Japan reportedly have said that Japanese companies had rare earth stockpiles that could last through March. But there are 17 different rare earth elements that in turn are processed into a wide range of chemicals that are hard to replace and are produced at different levels of purity. Making sure that every Japanese company had enough of every chemical compound of the correct purity for its manufacturing applications has become more difficult as the Chinese interruption in shipments has dragged on.
Chinese customs officials halted some shipments of raw rare earths to the United States and Europe from Oct. 18 to 28, after the Obama administration opened an investigation into whether China was violating international free trade rules with its green energy policies, including China’s restrictions on rare earth exports. But the United States in particular mostly buys processed rare earth materials from China and Japan, and was little affected.
The resumption of shipments may not last long. China has cut its rare earth export quotas by 40 percent this year, to 30,300 tons. Industry executives estimate that only 3,000 to 4,000 tons worth of quota remain to be exercised this year, which means that shipments could stop again in several weeks and not resume until quotas are issued for 2011.
The Chinese government did not issue initial 2010 quotas until Dec. 31, 2009, but it has hinted that it will act sooner this year so as to allow time for exporters to make logistical arrangements for shipments to resume in early January.
China briefly resumed the processing of customs paperwork for rare earth exports three weeks ago, a day before a meeting in Hanoi of top Chinese and Vietnamese officials. But when that meeting went poorly, Chinese port officials prevented containers from being actually loaded aboard vessels regardless of whether the customs forms had been completed. | 
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发表于 2010-12-3 13:33
