A recent report from the Congressional Research Service (PDF) suggests that China's restrictive policy on rare earth mineral exports isn't going to change anytime soon. The report comes on the heels of a renewed call for a rare earth production boost in Europe and a dispute settlement filed in March by the United States, Japan, and the European Union with the World Trade Organization over alleged unfair trading practices concerning rare earth minerals.

"From 2002 to 2011, the value of US rare earth imports from China rose by 1,376 percent," the CRS report states. "From 2010 to 2011, the value of US rare earth imports from China increased by 305 percent."

For a few years now, there has been a lot of talk about rare earth minerals. You know, the ones that aren’t particularly rare, but are nevertheless crucial for many products. Demand for them has shot up. They’re needed in the production of hybrid cars, missiles, and smartphones. And it doesn’t help that China, the world’s largest producer, announced in 2010 that it was cutting export of its domestic supply. This has since led to newfound attention on mines and processing in California, Estonia, Malaysia, and Australia.

Not surprisingly, the rest of the world isn't very happy at China. The country produces 97 percent of the world's rare earth minerals—according to the United States Geological Survey, that translated to $3.4 billion of the stuff in 2011.

The Chinese government has said that it is merely imposing these limits as a way to manage its domestic supply. Foreign analysts argue that it may be a way to profiteer off of international demand, in addition to enticing manufacturing to move directly to China (where companies could take advantage of domestic rare earth pricing).

"For example, according to Lynas Corporation Ltd., an Australian rare earth mining company, average prices for eight types of rare earth oxides in the 4th quarter of 2011 were between 70.5 percent and 557 percent higher than those for domestic users," the CRS report adds, noting that developing an American rare earth supply chain "could take up to 15 years."

That said, Molycorp, a Colorado corporation, which owns a rare earth mining and refinery facility in Mountain Pass, California, has 1.3 million metric tons of ore in reserve. The company acquired one of two rare earth processing facilities in Europe late last year. By comparison, China’s largest areas at Baiyun Obo, the CRS reports, maintains a reserve of about 36 million metric tons.

Still, there are some rare earth experts that believe that non-Chinese mines can ramp up production much sooner than the Congressional Research Service thinks.

"Molycorp has put out 6,000 [metric tons], and this year they're going to get to 10,000 by end of the year, and 40,000 by next year, and that’s one-third of the world’s supply" [PDF], said Karl A. Gschneidner, a professor of materials science at Iowa State University (and an expert on rare earths).

If Molycorp can achieve it, 40,000 metric tons would exceed China's annual foreign export quota, set near 30,000 metric tons from 2010 to 2012. But, Gschneidner adds, the ramp-up in ore production and refinement is merely a temporary fix.

"Basically [China wants to] use the rare earths for internal consumption and export for high-end products," he told Ars on Tuesday. "The Chinese are not dumb. Down the road, between 2018 and 2020, we'll have some price wars not on the original ore materials, but on products that are made with the ore."