I've always assumed that's what the Belters are doing, actually. With the glut of common raw materials in Fenspace, they have to be looking for something special - an asteroid with a large amount of iridium (like the dinosaur-killer that hit Earth 65 million years ago) or some other rare earth would be just the ticket. The fact that the USA is still unfriendly towards the Fen hints that the Belters haven't found such an asteroid yet... but the search for (and discovery of) one of these asteroids would fit in well with the rest of the Great Age of Exploration that is Season 2.
Breaking the Chinese monopoly on rare earths would annoy the Chinese, of course, but the Chinese opinion of the Fen couldn't get much worse without it becoming open war, and I don't see anyone in Beijing being unaware of what "falling rocks" can do.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Breaking the Chinese monopoly on rare earths would annoy the Chinese, of course, but the Chinese opinion of the Fen couldn't get much worse without it becoming open war, and I don't see anyone in Beijing being unaware of what "falling rocks" can do.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012