During that disorderly period, the development actually caused adverse effects on people's lives and other industries, such as agriculture. For instance, Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces possess the most abundant heavy rare earth resources in China. But due to the loose management system from central and local government, unlicensed mining became commonplace. Thus, resources were wasted significantly and the environment was damaged dramatically. From and economic point of view, it was also unwise to compete for export sales by continuously lowering prices, which only caused confusion and misunderstanding with foreign buyers. In addition, there was quite a lot of rare earths smuggling. None of these activities were beneficial for trading between countries. Therefore, the government systematically tried to reign in the export of REEs during President Jiang Zemin's time and have strategically governed the mining, production and exporting of REEs since President Hu Jingtao came to power.

Because China's REE industry experienced such painful developments in the past, the government has the responsibility to strictly administer the rare earth industry. One of the objectives is to create an orderly and harmonious trading system. I think in this respect, China's scientific development approach does not have any country boundaries, and makes sense in a global context.

What specific laws or regulations have been formulated and implemented to regulate the REE industry in China?

The regulation that we can refer to here is collectively referred to as the 'Rare Earth Industry Development Plan', which has been open to the public. There is also a 'Mineral Resources Law', which is still under revision. Both of them are guidelines for the industry at present. I would like to emphasise that Chinese policies on rare earths are intended to benefit not only the Chinese but the peoples of all other countries in the world.