China vowed to continue implementing its regulation policies on the mining and exporting of its rare earths as it remained unperturbed by the panel that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said it will create to look into the complaints lodged by the U.S., European Union and Japan.

"In any case, the Chinese government will surely provide reasonable protection for rare earth resources and ensure environmental protection and sustainable development while making use of the resources," Zhu Hongren, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

The Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the WTO on Monday has created a panel that will effectively kickoff the investigation into the mounting rare earths dispute among the four economic world leaders. The panel will investigate if China's export duties and quantitative curbs over its exports, most especially on tungsten, molybdenum and other rare earths, are consistent and comply with the rules and regulations set by the world body.

Although China is very much open to hold discussions and full consultations within the WTO charter in hopes to amicably solve the disputes, it still lashed at the apparent bullying the country is receiving from the three other economic leaders.

"Some countries with rare earths resources don't explore their own resources but criticize China, (and) it's not appropriate," Zhu said.

"Those with rich rare earth resources have not mined their own land for environment protection or other reasons, but made groundless accusations against China and repeatedly ignored the widely-known pollution caused by rare earth exploitation in the country."

China, holding only just a quarter of the world's rare earth reserves, has been pushed to produce and supply more than 95 per cent of total global output. The pressure to deliver has produced a corresponding massive damage to its environment which it hopes to still be able to reverse.

But critics said the country is only using the environmental excuse as leverage to give its domestic companies the competitive advantage.

Regardless of the WTO panel, Beijing said will remain cracking down on illegal production as well as the use of outdated technology. It has also started implementing consolidating the sector under big state-owned companies.

"Whatever it (the WTO) says, the Chinese government must be able to reasonably conserve its rare earth resources, and must ensure that these scarce rare earth materials make a greater contribution to humanity under the framework of environmental protection and sustainable development," Zhu added.

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