Day to day discussions on S/P, page-14643

I would hope that the Japanese understand the significance of lithium as they learnt a cruel lesson from rare earths. Once upon a time, a Chinese ship and a Japanese ship collided and both parties thought that they were in the right. The Japaneses said they were deliberately rammed. Neither party would apologise to the other so the Chinese stopped providing rare earths to the Japanese. No more high tech manufacturing for the Japanese until the apology was forthcoming. They were screwed and so apologised. They wont forget and I suspect will want to rely on themselves and no others. Their absence to date makes me wonder where they are lurking or if they will sit this one out.