"China had recently brought in many new strict environmental...

"China had recently brought in many new strict environmental laws that would put the best of Aus and worldwide mining to the test its a old shell they are hammering to shed."

Very well put, something Western media & dreamboat promoters really do need to come clean on, they are not doing anybody any favours maintaining the fallacy, particularly the constant recycling of pics from the BBC's "dystopian lake" piece c2011.

China has been steadily cleaning up its RE industry from the amalgamations 2015/16 shutting down old, dirty plant, to Xi's "Clean Air, Clean Water" campaign from 2017, and particularly effective was the allocation of the new resource tax by value to local cadre given the responsibility to administer production quotas, finally resulting in most of the unregulated production being shut down. CNRE now boasts 100% closed loop production.

While spruikers in the West attempt to cling to some false sense of security the Chinese are moving on to new levels of automation & process efficiencies, the US only just now starting to move on basic trade manipulation NdPr/NdFeB, long, long way to play catch up RE.