The rare-earth rush in Myanmar
As the world scrambles for minerals known as heavy rare earth metals, crucial to run many of the advanced digital systems, the Chinese govt is reaping windfall gains from a civil war.
In recent years, conflict-torn Myanmar has emerged as a leading source of the minerals for the Chinese. Miners working for Chinese companies have extracted metals worth billions of dollars and shipped them to China. The 2021 military coup prompted many Western nations to impose financial sanctions on Myanmar, leaving the junta with fewer trading partners.
China has continued to do business with the generals, who need cash.
Various armed groups fighting the military also want to fill their war chests. So do ethnic militias aligned with the army.
This situation has allowed Chinese state-owned firms to control rare earth mining in Myanmar. While rare earths were being mined before the coup, some of the areas where it happens have since been fought over by competing forces in the civil war. And China has occasionally throttled rare earth imports from Myanmar to favour one side in the conflict.
Much of Myanmar's mineral bounty is concentrated in the country's borderlands, such as in the northern states of Kachin and Shan, which neighbour China. Heavy rare earth metals, particularly terbium and dysprosium, are plentiful in this region.
The frenzy of extraction has now spread to pockets of northeastern Myanmar that are controlled by the Wa ethnic group, which holds autonomous territory under unofficial Chinese patronage.
The toxic byproducts of this mining are gushing out of Myanmar into neighbouring Thailand. A stretch of the Mekong River is being poisoned, along with some of its tributaries. Chinese companies send chemicals to Myanmar for use in the leaching and basic processing of mineral ores. The rare earths are then trucked across border to China for further refining.
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