A recent episode of 60 minutes caught my attention, I love a good interview or journalism piece. Global industry is fascinating to me especially when I can apply my studies or theory to it, so this episode grabbed my attention especially in regards to the story of Chinas rare earths industry. First what is Rare Earths ?? And second, what is China‘s Rare Earths industry specifically? Basically, its the rare earth minerals or metals, the elements that are found on the very bottom of the Periodic Table. Despite the name rare earths they are not rare but unusual metals found in just about every home, in fact your probably carrying one around right now ex. cell phones, energy efficient cars and home appliances, touch screen devices, thermostats the list ones on. Thank the tiny magnets made of these elements to power the vibrate feature on your smart phone. What makes them “rare” is the small quantities they are found in and in the process and refinement process. The elements were originally found in abundance in the US Mojave desert in a mine owned by a corporation called Molycorp. However, an unforeseen problem led to the Chinese controlling 80% of the mining, refining, and processing of these rare Earths. Why and how did this come to be?? First the backstory...
“...getting the rare earths out of that rock is nasty business requiring toxic acids and lots of water. In fact, the mine was shut down by the state of California in 1998 after radioactive water seeped into the surrounding Mojave Desert from an underground pipe. The mine lay dormant for a decade, giving China an opportunity.
Dan McGroarty: The Chinese made a very conscious decision to enter that industry.
Dan McGroarty was special assistant to President George Herbert Walker Bush and has advised the U.S. government on critical materials. When the Molycorp mine closed, he says China was already well on its way to becoming the king of rare earths.
Dan McGroarty: There's a point at which the lines cross. The United States production declines. Chinese production's ramping up. Those lines cross somewhere around 1986. Lesley Stahl: So how did they pull it off? What were the factors that allowed them to basically take this away from us?
Dan McGroarty: Well, the advantage of lower labor costs, would be a place to start. Also, environmentally, very, almost no environmental constraints around mining--safety considerations for the miners doing mining, in huge contrast to the United States. So, that translates directly into lower pricing. And lower pricing can push other people out of the market.”... 60 Minutes
So, what does this have to do with Chinese Metaphysics?? China is famously known for incorporating Feng Shui into architecture as well as using more superstitious forms of Chinese metaphysics not associated with traditional practices, which include item placement and so-called Feng Shui color schemes. But according to an article in the New York Times , “Liu Zhijun, the former railway minister. While building the world’s largest high-speed rail network, Mr. Liu reportedly consulted a Feng Shui master who chose auspicious dates for breaking ground on major construction projects.“ Date and time selection is a very common practice to implement Feng Shui. This is based on the Chinese calendar called a Tong Shu, to ensure success when performing renovations, ground breaking or doing Feng Shui activations. If you don’t have the date down and start renovations you may run into unforeseen problems or inadvertently trigger off negative energies in other areas of your life including health problems, domestic arguments, even the possibility of losing times while traveling. All this would depend on the different factors and which sector of your house is renovated. If you implement Feng Shui corrections to a home on the wrong day the Feng Shui may have little to no effect. So date and time selection is in fact very important to use in conjuction with Feng Shui and can also be used for marriage dates, moving into a new home or business or even auspicious times for c-sections! Think in lines of the Old Farmers Almanac. But with “lucky” dates.
Hong Kong famously builds Feng Shui buildings around their environment to allow the Chi or energy flow from the surrounding mountains. Corporations are known to fight each other when a new building is put up that doesn’t follow Feng Shui principles and blocks the energy flow to the surrounding buildings or build a building with negative features. When new developments are put up they will allocate funds to the citizen so they can fix the feng shui of their homes. For an authentic lesson in Landform which is locating a building certain directions depending on the surrounding environmental features, to be able to tap into the best energy, you’d do best to visit some of the many temples China has to offer. Feng Shui and Chinese metaphysics was originally only practiced by spiritual masters and originally used to burial purposes. When temples were built feng shui practitioners were brought to select the land to tap into the environment in the mountains and surrounding water and built on what are known as meridian spots. From there it evolved into being used on houses and eventually westernized in the 80’s into ridiculous practices involving all sorts of superstitious beliefs about statues giving you good luck or wealth when in reality going back to the roots of it is all about the environment and the ability to tap into it is still the most effective practice.
So back to China and the industry they snuck up on and quietly dominated. If they use Feng Shui and date selection it’s only common sense to assume they’d also use QiMen DunJia. That fore-site, I suspect but can’t confirm was due to consulting a practitioner of QiMen DunJia. What I do know as many high profile corporations in China, Singapore, Malaysia many other Eastern countries, and now extending to the US include the practice of QiMen DunJia to plan strategic business moves years ahead. QiMen DunJia is a lesser known practice becoming more mainstream to thanks to Masters Joey Yap and Joseph Yu who offer courses to make it easily accessible to the modern practitioner. QiMen DunJia (which I will abbreviate for easier reading QMDJ) translates into the meaning mysterious door, hidden Jia. Qi (Mysterious) Men (door) Dun (hidden) Jia (Jia is Chinese name for the element of Yang Wood, it is the beginning of all the elements) therefore is hidden behind other elements within the chart. The different layers take into account all 5 elements, 9 deities, 8 doors, and 8 stars. All representing different matters including heaven, earth, man but with the added 4th layer which represents the the universe or spiritual influence. This is not generally not considered divination but instead is generally referred to as forecasting. In this forecast you can see yourself, your opponent and most importantly the strategy in which to put yourself at the most advantageous position. This is why many corporations and businesses secretly consult a practitioner to plan expansions, forming partnerships, takeovers Etc. These are generally planned years ahead of time so implementation of strategy is crucial to make everything fall into place. This however does not guarantee that you won’t encounter problems, on the contrary you may encounter many hurdles along the way but the benefit is that these solving these problems you encounter will actually get you to your goal. In fact these day to day issues can also be solved using QMDJ. But back to China, I believe this was the case when the mine was California closed. I theorize that the major corporations were able to foresee this booming industry using QMDJ as the quietly came in and not only started mining in vast quantities but also taking over the refining process. Lesley Stahl asked “Did we just not foresee what they foresaw?” But I, in fact believe they did indeed.
“The Chinese also had orders from the top. In a little-noticed speech in 1992, Deng Xiaoping signaled China's intention to corner the market.
Lesley Stahl: What exactly did he say?
Dan McGroarty: 'The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths.'
Lesley Stahl: He actually said that, Deng Xiaoping.
Dan McGroarty: Actually said that. I think it's fair to say, at that point, people in the rest of the world, who had been saying, 'What are - what is he talking about?'
Lesley Stahl: Just went right over our heads.
Dan McGroarty: I think so.
Lesley Stahl: Did we just not foresee what they foresaw?
Dan McGroarty: It's extraordinary if they actually foresaw all the uses. Our designers and developers advanced the miniaturized applications for laptops and cell phones while the Chinese were going after the metals and materials out of which these things are actually built.
Lesley Stahl: How did they get the know-how?
Dan McGroarty: An enormous amount of investment. It's kind of like the Chinese moon shot, the moon program.”
What do you think? Could these Chinese corporations have just made one of the luckiest guess of the modern ear? Or do you think just like they use Feng Shui for buildings and date selection for ground breaking, did they in fact also use QMDJ for this amazingly coincidental fore-site? How would you like to be able to use this in your business to foresee issues in you life? Or be able to know how a meeting or job interview will go? This is just a fraction of what you can use QMDJ for.