In a fit of serendipitous geopolitical comic timing, Boing Boing may have unwittingly hit upon the best metaphor for how the world views China at times like this. Beijing is flexing its rhetorical muscles with Japan and, on a possibly unrelated front, putting fear in the balance sheets of high-tech and clean tech companies by limiting its exports of rare earth metals, a resource that China virtually monopolizes, at least until other countries start producing more some years from now.

It remains unclear at this writing whether China has linked the issue of Japan’s detained Chinese fishing captain and rare earth metal exports, as The New York Times suggests in a report that has been disputed by several other outlets, including Reuters and the Associated Press. More thoughts on this below, but in the continuing spirit of not taking ourselves too seriously until the world actually does end, I present to you the panda that no one should mess with:

The joke here should not be taken too far, of course. But the metaphor one could choose to take away from it — that other nations and foreign companies are afraid to rile China and will cave in anytime China gets angry, and that China is willing to throw a tantrum to get its way — is too tempting for this China watcher to ignore. Especially since it (perhaps barely) justifies me posting it on my blog.

Back to the serious related issue of the day: The linkage of Japan with rare earths exports may be difficult to believe on its face, in part because it would confirm scaremongering notions that Beijing could and would, like the cheese panda, stomp all over other people’s economies like so many groceries, if it feels so inclined. (You can catch up on the China-Japan row by watching another entertaining panda-related video I posted yesterday). The threat of cutting off rare earth metal exports may appear partially self-defeating but is something that hawks about China in the Pentagon spend their time worrying about, as this GAO report (PDF) notes. Defense contractors like General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin would be at risk under such a scenario, Bloomberg and others have noted. So could the makers of MRI machines like General Electric, or the makers of hybrid electric vehicles like Toyota, Ford and many others.

What should these companies do? For now, one option is don’t make the panda too angry.