China's resource nationalism is on the rise as it hoards minerals essential for batteries, cell phones, computers, and the green revolution.

For some countries, trade policy is the stuff of arcane rules and wonky bureaucracy. But for centuries in China, trade has been the biggest bugaboo of foreign affairs. Every Chinese knows about the moment their country was forcibly "opened" to the West: British merchants compelled Beijing to allow imports of opium—a baleful product that many Chinese nonetheless desired—in the 19th century. More recently, though, the tables have turned. China has come to possess a raft of things coveted by those same foreign powers: cheap labor, abundant capital, and, as it turns out, the world's greatest supply of so-called rare earths—metals essential for everything from hybrid cars to iPods to precision-guided weaponry. (more)