“Communist China” is plotting to monopolize the world’s supply of precious metals by mining asteroids. It is “China’s determination to dominate what China considers a new ‘strategic industry,’” Brandon Weichert writes in today’s Washington Times. His outburst was provoked by the launch planned for next month of the first space mining robot, by Origin Space, a small Chinese startup. “Should Beijing gain exclusive access to the bountiful, untapped source of these rare earth minerals in space, China would have unprecedented economic, and therefore, strategic advantage over the United States and its allies,” Weichert complains. He is the author of the newly released Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, on the new U.S. Space Force.