This is John Batchel, a conversation with colleague Judy Dempsey of the Carnegie Endowment

International Peace about rare earths.

We're told that China has the rare earths, that it is getting what it wants because it withholds

them from the United States, from Japan, from the world, embargoing its own rare earths.

Are they rare?

Judy addresses the issue that she discussed 10 years ago.

They're not rare. They're everywhere.

It is a puzzle how it is that these troubled countries today ignored the potential of an embargo by the People's Republic of China,

which has never indicated it wanted to play by the WTO rules.

Here's Judy Dempsey to talk about back then,

and right now, the embargo, rare earthers, not rare, commoners.

More of this tonight.

Procrastinations is a great word.

I won't tell you the word in German.

Okay.

But it's very interesting what you say.

This would take just 30 seconds.

Ten years ago, I met at a very big conference organized by the German Economics Association.

And we were discussing exactly this issue of rare earth.

And I said, what are we going to do about it?

Well, we'll have to come to an agreement with China.

This is as a time when Germany and China were very close,

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