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Among all, the earliest move had been made by the Japanese giant, Sumitomo Corporation in Kazakhstan. After talks for a joint enterprise project with the Kazakh company, Central Asian country’s National Atomic Company, Kazatomprom, for uranium ore’s mining and refining, the Japanese corporation formally signed a cooperation agreement with its counterpart in March 2010 under the purview of the then Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama and the then Kazakhstan foreign minister, Kanat Saudabayev. [29] Of particular note here is that such deal is not a RE agreement per se in that the Japanese side extracted the much needed RE minerals from another element, the uranium ores, which is made possible through the latter’s refinery process. With operations started in 2010, it is expected that the plant in Kazakhstan will be able to produce around 3,000 tons per year [30] with the venture with Kazatomprom (set up in 2010) values nearly $200 million. [31] The same goes to neighboring Uzbekistan in which the then Kan administration had started talks with its Uzbek counterpart for possible collaboration on exploration and production of RE resources within the larger framework of comprehensive bilateral cooperation between the two countries. [32] Within a relatively short period, a final agreement was eventually signed between the then Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan and Uzbek president, Islam Karimov during the latter’s visit to Tokyo in February 2011. Similar to the Kazakhstan case, approaching one of the largest mineral producers such as Uzbekistan, [33] increases the alternative RE sources which Tokyo is able to tap into and thus, helps to decrease its RE reliance on China.

On the other hand, Mongolia, a country believed to be holding potentially high volume of REs in the world, was also high on the Japanese “radar” for alternative RE supply source. During the Mongolian prime minister, Sukhbaatar Batbold’s visit to Japan, Prime Minister Kan held discussions with his Mongolian counterpart and further decided to locate prospective RE reserve sites in the mineral-rich country. In the middle of the same month, the Japanese trade ministry sent a study group comprising members appointed from JOGMEC and National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) to Mongolia to conduct research on possible rare earth deposits in the land-locked country. [34] The move, sponsored from JOGMEC’s funds and technology, is also said to be a positive step towards developing Mongolia’s potential for mineral resources [35] as well as the advancement of the overall Japan-Mongolia Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in the foreseeable future. [36]

Just as with Mongolia, Japan had vigorously pursued the RE agenda by capitalizing on the strategic talks with its Indian counterpart as early as in October 2010. Under the Joint Statement Vision for Japan-India Strategic and Global Partnership in the Next Decade issued in the same month, both Japanese and Indian Prime Ministers had tampered for the possibility of furtheri本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。