business

according to media, china has a lot of rare earth metals 

and according to media usa and eu has few rare earth metals 

and if china restricts exports of rare earth metals 

then there are still rare earth metals in chinese electronics 

that are exported to other countries 

and those chinese electronics can be recycled 

so that rare earth metals are extracted from those chinese electronics 

and then those recycled rare earth metals 

can be sold to usa and eu 

and if china restricts exports of chinese electronics 

that contain chinese rare earth metals 

then those chinese electronics could be smuggled to other countries 

but smuggling is illegal 

and if chinese electronics that contain chinese rare earth metals 

are recycled in china to extract rare earth metals 

then it's ptobably difficult for china 

to keep track of those recycled metals 

recycling electronics in order to extract rare earth metals 

is probably easy 

since electronics basically contain plastics and metals 

and extracting metals from plastics is technologically simple