Mally,I agree with your take..China 'can't do all the heavy...

Mally,
I agree with your take..China 'can't do all the heavy lifting.'
The story is being framed as a tit for tat trade war but what if, just like the U.S., they are saying truly that we need this product for our own national purposes.
They are asserting that they just can't stand-by and watch the ever increasing outflow of a resource without any checks in place.
This sounds like a reasonable move to me.
The suggestion that it so suddenly unexpected sounds like a cop out to me. A bit of a thumb sucking and hair twirling moment.
Juju.
I would add that natural flake graphite has its own set of sub products that synthetic can't satisfy. Chief amoung these is expanded graphite. So China needs to manage natural flake outflows.