The problem and issue with these articles are that they function in many ways as China based propaganda. As they fail to convey the entire context, and larger circumstances involved.

Due to much lower levels of environmental regulation, Chinese companies have had a huge Heavy Rare Earth mining cost advantage over western companies for decades. As they commonly engage in techniques that entails the discharge of harmful chemicals into the ground and then the collection of pregnant leachates at a downstream location. This process eliminates the need for more expensive, but more environmentally friendly techniques such as blasting and excavation. They are likely seeking to minimise their extraction procedure by claiming the mentioned aforementioned approaches are being used.