Klinger in FT on Rare Earth Elements

Julie Klinger, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Associate Director of the Land Use and Livelihoods Initiative at the GDP Center at Boston University, was quoted in a recent article on whether China’s near-monopoly of rare earth elements gives it leverage over the United States.

Klinger was interviewed for a June 3, 2019 article in Financial Times entitled “Rare Earths: Beijing Threatens a New Front in the Trade War.“

From the text of the article:

During the following decade China overtook the US as the largest producer of rare earths, although at a heavy environmental cost. It was a “race to the bottom”, according to Julie Michelle Klinger, assistant professor of international relations at Boston University, with low environmental oversight allowing China to export at the cheapest prices. A toxic lake grew in Baotou, while the cost of cleaning the soil and water in Ganzhou runs to billions of dollars.

Julie Michelle Klinger, PhD, specializes in development, environment, and security politics in Latin America and China in comparative and global perspective. Her recent book Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes (Cornell University Press in Fall 2017) received the 2017 Meridian Award from the American Association of Geographers for its “unusually important contribution to advancing the art and science of geography.”