The Western world has been exploiting the resources of other nations for centuries. Lastly, it was China that handled all the industrial processing. Now the Western world points fingers at China because its CO2 emissions and pollution are unbearable. Too lazy.
I am wondering how Trump's plan to recover some industrial processing power will fit into this rhetoric, but it's a long shot, versus the incredible dynamics of his positions.
Just because one did a bad thing, doesn't justify other doing a bad thing. Western world and their colonization is the reason why they are so rich.
If you go back a thousand years ago, the gap between Europe and Asia wasn't as big as this, but now when you look at it, it's bigger, that is because of resources being plundered by them.
Should we be okay with another nation doing that? Absolutely not, that's still bad, call for reparations if you want, but not illegal mining.
I would say, a simple solution is right there; all of western world rejects ALL Chinese companies from selling in their nations, until they fix their CO2 emissions, suddenly, China will be the cleanest nation in the world to be allowed to sell again.
Claiming that the reason why they are not fully engaged in mining and processing is because of CO2 emissions and pollution, yet buying from China is hypocritical. For Europe to stop depending on China for these resources, it needs to get alternative suppliers. So the only way out is to get involved and make the process clean, if possible. New technologies that will make mining operations environmentally friendly would have to be discovered so that Europe can mine these resources domestically. China and Russia might have dominated the rare earth sector in Africa, but Europe can make it competitive by giving better deals.