Buckle up — this episode of The Restricted Handling Podcast dives straight into the world’s biggest geopolitical power flex of the week: China tightening its rare earth chokehold, revving its war machine, and playing spy games straight out of a Cold War reboot. 

Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce just pulled a major move — dropping sweeping export restrictions on rare earths, the secret sauce behind everything from fighter jets and electric vehicles to missile guidance systems and smartphones. If it’s high-tech, it probably runs on these elements, and China controls more than 90% of them. Now, foreign companies — especially those in defense or semiconductor production — need Beijing’s permission to use or export anything with even a trace of Chinese-origin rare earths. Yep, even if it’s built outside China. That’s not just economic leverage; that’s industrial blackmail with a friendly smile. 

This all hits right as President Xi Jinping prepares to meet Donald Trump later this month in South Korea, setting up one of the most awkward high-stakes face-offs since the last time your ex showed up at a family wedding. The message from Beijing is loud and clear: “You can ban our chips, we’ll block your magnets.” It’s a geopolitical staring contest, and no one’s blinking. 

Meanwhile, Washington’s punching back. The U.S. just added fifteen Chinese companies to its restricted trade list for funneling American-made tech components into Iranian-backed drones flown by Hamas and the Houthis. The same drones that’ve been hitting targets across the Middle East now come with a made-in-China twist — and the U.S. is done pretending it doesn’t see it. 

Over in Taiwan, the defense ministry says the threat level’s rising fast. China’s running nonstop military drills, gray-zone incursions, and cyber campaigns meant to exhaust the island before a single shot’s fired. Add in satellite images of amphibious ships massing near Shanghai and aircraft carriers lined up in the South China Sea, and it’s pretty clear Beijing’s rehearsing for the real thing. 

And if all that wasn’t enough, the global spy thriller continues. A major U.K. espionage case against alleged Chinese agents collapsed, cyber researchers uncovered new Chinese hacking tools across Asia, and OpenAI revealed that China and North Korea were trying to use AI for surveillance and phishing campaigns. Welcome to the AI-enabled Cold War, where the propaganda writes itself and the malware updates automatically.