China enacts formal rare‑earth licensing and tightens data‑center rules

China did not unveil a brand-new rare-earth weapon this week. The key move was earlier: export controls on seven medium and heavy rare-earth categories took effect on April 4, 2025. (english.mofcom.gov.cn) The order came from China’s Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs in Announcement No. 18 of 2025. It requires exporters to apply for licenses under China’s Export Control Law and dual-use export rules. (english.mofcom.gov.cn) The list names samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium-related items. Those elements are used in magnets, lasers, sensors, displays and defense equipment, which is why Beijing classifies them as dual-use. (english.mofcom.gov.cn) (english.scio.gov.cn) China’s public line since then has been that compliant civilian shipments can still go through. On April 10, 2026, commerce ministry spokesperson He Yadong said applications meeting the rules for “genuine civilian use” would be approved according to law. (english.scio.gov.cn) That means the pressure point is not an outright ban but licensing discretion. A case-by-case system lets Beijing slow, clear or condition shipments for industries that depend on Chinese rare-earth processing. (english.mofcom.gov.cn) (english.scio.gov.cn) The data-center side of the story is different. The clearest nationwide tightening on the books is a July 2024 action plan that pushes new large and super-large data centers into national hub clusters, raises efficiency standards and ties approvals more closely to power and water use. (english.www.gov.cn) (ndrc.gov.cn) That plan set a national average power usage effectiveness target below 1.5 by the end of 2025. It also said new and expanded large data centers should get PUE down to 1.25, and projects in national hub nodes should not exceed 1.2. (english.www.gov.cn) (ndrc.gov.cn) It also tightened geography. The plan says places with existing data centers operating for more than a year and rack utilization below 50% should, in principle, stop planning new clusters and large projects. (ndrc.gov.cn) For foreign tech companies, that is a more complicated picture than a simple shutdown. China has simultaneously opened a pilot allowing foreign participation in some value-added telecom and data-center services in Beijing, Shanghai, Hainan and Shenzhen, and MIIT said in February 2025 it had approved 13 foreign-invested firms in the first batch. (miit.gov.cn) So the cleanest reading is this: rare-earth controls are a formal export-licensing lever already in force, while data-center policy is being tightened through energy, location and infrastructure rules even as selected foreign-investment pilots stay open. (english.mofcom.gov.cn) (english.www.gov.cn) (miit.gov.cn)