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Japan's Cabinet Office and the country's national marine research institution announced on Monday that they had successfully retrieved mud believed to contain rare-earth elements from 6,000 meters beneath the Pacific Ocean near the remote island of Minamitorishima, Nikkei Asia reported. In response to a related inquiry, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular press briefing on Tuesday that "we have noted that there have been similar reports in Japan in recent years."

Chinese experts said that the trial may bolster Japan's confidence in national security and resource preparedness in the short term, but the project's high costs and technical complexity mean its ability to provide sustained, large-scale rare-earth supplies on a sustainable basis will remain limited.

The Nikkei Asia report claimed that the effort is part of the Japanese government's Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program, aimed at enhancing so-called long-term resilience to China's economic approach for the valuable minerals. 

As to whether the project can significantly reduce reliance on Chinese rare earths, Chinese experts said that its short-term effect will be limited. An independent rare-earth industry analyst surnamed Wu told the Global Times that even if Japan's deep-sea rare-earth resources enter an initial development phase, they are likely to meet only a small share of domestic demand, carrying symbolic security value and serving mainly as "strategic insurance" and risk hedging, rather than functioning as a cost- and scale-competitive alternative to China's onshore rare-earth supply system, he said.

Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times that rare-earth resources are widely distributed globally, but the real bottleneck lies in refining and processing, where core technologies and the integrated industrial chain remain largely concentrated in China. Even if resources are available, building a complete alternative supply chain would take many years, making it difficult to reduce reliance on China in the short term.

From a global supply-and-demand perspective, the project is better viewed as a variable to be monitored over time rather than a structural shift, experts said,

The JAMSTEC research ship Chikyu departed Shimizu Port in central Japan on January 12 and reached a trial mining site in Japan's exclusive economic zone near Minamitorishima on January 17. Operations began on Friday, with the first rare-earth slurry successfully pumped out early on Sunday, according to Nikkei Asia.

Wu told the Global Times that Japan's achievement in lifting rare-earth slurry from depths of around 6,000 meters near Minamitorishima mainly represents a verification of engineering capability and technical pathways. However, achieving long-term, continuous operations at a scale of hundreds of tons per day while ensuring equipment durability, maintenance efficiency and controllable ecological impacts will require multiple rounds of further engineering iteration, he said. At this stage, the breakthrough is better understood as a form of technological reserve and strategic demonstration rather than an immediately scalable supply solution.

Previous surveys near Minamitorishima have identified at least six rare-earth elements at high concentrations contained in seabed mud, Nikkei Asia reported.

Scientists will analyze the composition of the slurry, as well as data obtained from subsea monitoring devices, at research facilities after the ship returns to port in the next two weeks. Attempts will also be made to see if rare-earth elements can actually be refined from it. Following the mission's trial extraction, a large-scale project is planned in the Minamitorishima area in February 2027 to extract about 350 metric tons of mud per day, with the aim of examining the full process through to the separation and processing of rare earths, Nikkei Asia reported.

Wu noted that from an economic perspective, sea operations at depths of 6,000 meters are extremely costly. Compared with the cost advantages of China's onshore rare-earth mining and initial processing, Japan's deep-sea rare earths, even if of higher grade, are unlikely to be price-competitive in the short term.

Lin added that economic viability is one of the major constraints. While national security concerns may outweigh costs initially, projects with persistently high expenses will struggle to achieve commercialization. The challenge is not resource availability, but the time and cost required to establish a competitive, integrated rare-earth industry chain, he said.

Wu added that resource development around Minamitorishima could also face geopolitical and environmental constraints. He noted that deep-sea ecosystems at depths of 6,000 meters remain highly fragile. As international environmental standards for deep-sea mining continue to tighten, such projects may face growing regulatory and compliance pressures, he said.