China's rare earth power

We talk a lot about the power China could exercise over our policies thanks to the massive amounts of U.S. debt that nation holds. But there's another, less publicized, power that China holds, and one it's more likely to exercise, as Japan found out in a dispute with the Middle Kingdom last week. China controls some 98 percent of the world's rare earth minerals--which are essential to just about every gadget that makes our modern economy go, from cell phones to wind turbines. It would be wise for us to start digging for those minerals ourselves unless we want to be as beholden to China in the emerging new economy as we are to the Middle East for oil.