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中稀土業調整配方 規避出口管制

Medium Rare Earth Industry Adjusts Formulas to Evade Export Controls

Liberty Times Net | Local Language | News | Dec. 4, 2025 | Regulation

Chinese rare earth companies are employing various strategies to circumvent Beijing’s export controls and maintain sales to Western customers. These workarounds include adjusting magnet formulas to avoid using restricted rare earth elements and embedding strong magnets within motors before export. While these changes sometimes result in magnets with different performance characteristics, they are currently legal measures to bypass export restrictions.

The export controls, implemented by China in April, require permits for magnets containing heavy rare earth elements like dysprosium and terbium, which are important for high-temperature applications in products such as car engines, robots, and industrial machinery. Since obtaining permits can take weeks or months, companies have developed magnets without these heavy rare earths, using methods such as grinding the materials finely to increase heat resistance, suitable for household appliances but less so for high-heat machinery.

Several Chinese rare earth companies, including Zhaobao Magnetic, Permanent Magnet, Hanhai New Materials, and X-Mag, are actively developing new heat-resistant magnets that do not require export permits and are committed to innovating high-performance magnet products free of controlled elements. Additionally, although export restrictions apply to magnets, they do not cover their applications, allowing companies to collaborate with domestic parts manufacturers to export motors and other components with embedded magnets.

Attempts to substitute terbium and dysprosium with holmium in magnets to improve heat resistance ended after China included holmium in its export controls in October. However, following the Trump-Xi meeting, China delayed the enforcement of holmium export controls by one year. Foreign customers remain cautious, increasingly seeking rare earth sources outside China amid these evolving export regulations.

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