china daily, page-48

There is no suprise that Chinese and ASX peer groups don't follow each other -- China is a 'wild west' of speculators and subject to very different underlying dynamics/fundamentals than the market here (e.g. the PRC government's previous propensity to directly prevent any form of market crash - and no I do not think that is the same as QE). The article you posted references the concern about speculators running the price of NdPR higher with the assumption being Chinese RE companies followed suit. The rise of Lynas is "reactionary" to those rising prices mixed with widespread acknowledgement of a significant rise in demand and frontrunning that supply/demand curve - not to mention Lynas being the only significant supplier outside of China.

Regarding the Chinese government possibly wanting lower prices while producers may want higher prices -- I would offer that the differentiation between these two entities would probably be murky at best. Moreover - what proof would you need that the government wants higher prices -- them to say "we would like to have a profitable RE sector now?" RE companies were losing money in China at the lower prices (which were due to changed market dynamics resulting from the previous bubble rather the government just forcing them lower as you seemed to imply in earlier posts). There should be no doubt that the government would want sponsored industries to be profitable - it is just that in a command economy as large as China's they can afford to run them at a loss to suit competing priorties - but this can't continue ad infinitum.