BANGKOK: When armed rebels seized northern Myanmar’s rare-earths mining belt in October, they dealt a blow to the country’s embattled military junta — and wrested control of a key global resource.
By capturing sites that produce roughly half of the world’s heavy rare earths, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rebels have been able to throttle the supply of minerals used in wind turbines and electric vehicles, sending prices of one key element skyward.
The KIA is seeking leverage against neighboring China, which supports the junta and has invested heavily in rare earths mining in Myanmar’s Kachin state, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Chinese imports of rare earth oxides and compounds from Myanmar dropped to 311 metric tons in February, down 89 percent compared to the year-ago period, according to Chinese customs data that hasn’t been previously reported. Most of the fall came after October.
Reuters spoke to nine people with knowledge of Myanmar’s rare earths industry and its four-year civil war about turmoil in the mining belt.
One of them described the move by the KIA, which is part of a patchwork of armed groups fighting military rule, as an attempt to drive a wedge between the junta and China.
“They want to use rare earth reserves as a leverage in their negotiation with China,” said Dan Seng Lawn, executive director of the non-profit Kachinland Research Center, which studies Kachin socio-political issues.

Three of the people also detailed previously unreported interest in the sector by India, China’s regional rival, which they said in late 2024 sent officials from a state-owned rare earths mining and refining firm to Kachin.
The KIA is one of the largest and oldest ethnic militias in Myanmar. It fights for the autonomy of the Kachin minority, a mostly Christian group who have long held grievances against the Bamar Buddhist majority.
The group has imposed a hefty tax on the mostly Chinese-operated rare-earth miners working around Panwa and Chipwe towns in Kachin, according Dan Seng Lawn, whose institute is based in the state, and a Chinese mining analyst. China has been one of the staunchest international backers of Myanmar’s military since it deposed a civilian-led government in 2021 and ignited a bloody civil war. Beijing continues to see the junta as a guarantor of stability along its frontier, though the military has been ejected from most of the borderlands since a major rebel offensive in 2023.
A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said the department was not aware of the specifics of the situation in the mining belt but it continues to “actively promote peace talks and provide all possible support and assistance for the peace process in northern Myanmar.”
India’s external affairs ministry, the KIA and a junta spokesperson did not return requests for comment. Bawn Myang Co. Ltd, which the US government previously identified as an operator of mines in the area, couldn’t be reached.
PRICE SPIKE
Chinese spot prices of terbium oxide <SMM-REO-TXO>, whose supply is concentrated in Kachin, jumped 21.9 percent to 6,550 yuan per kg between late September and March 24, data from Shanghai Metals Market show. Prices of dysprosium oxide <SMM-REO-DXO>, which is also largely mined in Kachin but was in lower demand over the last six months, eased 3.2 percent to 1,665 yuan per kg during the same period. Most rare earths from Kachin are processed in China, so a protracted stalemate would have global implications.
“A prolonged shutdown would likely lead to higher, potentially more volatile rare earth prices in China, and a reshaping of market dynamics in the near term,” research firm Adamas Intelligence said in a February note.
EXPORT PLUNGE
Chinese miners started building up major operations in Kachin in the 2010s, after Beijing tightened regulations on domestic mines.
Kachin’s often unregulated mines steadily expanded after the 2021 coup with the tacit approval of the junta, according to the U.K-.based Global Witness non-profit.
But the growth came at a heavy cost, ravaging the environment and leaving Kachin’s hills pock-marked with leeching pools, according to witness accounts and satellite imagery. Since the KIA’s takeover, a 20 percent tax imposed by the rebels has made it effectively impossible for local operators to run profitable mines.
The KIA wants China to stop pushing it to set down arms against the junta and to recognize the rebels’ de facto control of the border, said Dan Seng Lawn, adding that the parties had met at least twice in recent months.
The KIA has full control of the border in areas where it operates and anti-junta groups rule most of the rest of Myanmar’s frontier with China. Beijing appeared reluctant to accept the KIA’s demands, though it risked its monopoly on Myanmar’s rare earth reserves if it doesn’t position itself pragmatically, Dan Seng Lawn said.
Reopening the minerals sector would be a major financial lifeline to the rebels: Myanmar’s heavy rare earths trade stood at around $1.4 billion in 2023, according to Global Witness. The KIA has told miners in Kachin it will now allow shipments of existing rare earth inventories to China, Reuters reported Thursday.
But to resume operations at full capacity, the KIA needs an agreement with China, home to thousands of workers with the know-how, said Singapore-based rare-earths expert Thomas Kruemmer.
“Without them, this won’t work, full stop,” he said.
India alternative?
Amid the ongoing tussle, India has attempted to deepen its influence in Kachin, with which it also shares a border, according to Dan Seng Lawn and two people familiar with Indian official thinking.
India’s state-run mining and refining firm IREL in December sent a team to Kachin to study resources there, according to one of the Indian sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Indian authorities have reservations about operating in an area with armed non-state actors, but the Kachin desire to diversify away from China and New Delhi’s need for resources have pushed the two parties to talk, the Indian source said.
IREL did not return requests for comment.
An Indian delegation that included IREL also held an online meeting with the Kachins in December to discuss their interest in reopening the rare-earths sector, said Dan Seng Lawn, who attended the discussion.
They were willing to pay higher prices than China, he said.
Any India deal faces multiple obstacles, said Kruemmer and Dan Seng Lawn.
There is only skeletal infrastructure along the mountainous and sparsely populated Kachin-India frontier, making it challenging for commodities to be moved from Myanmar to the neighboring northeastern states of India. Those states are also far removed from India’s manufacturing belts in the south and west.
India also doesn’t have the ability to commercially process the heavy rare earths and transform them into magnets used by industry, according to Kruemmer and the Indian source. Some 90 percent of the world’s rare earths magnets are produced in China, which has brought the sector under tighter state control, followed by Japan.
Nevertheless, if Beijing does not recognize the “changing power dynamics,” Dan Seng Lawn said, the KIA “will have to open alternative options.”

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted about plans to kill a Houthi militant leader in Yemen two hours before a military operation meant to be shrouded in secrecy, according to screenshots of a chat released by The Atlantic on Wednesday.
The revelation that highly sensitive attack plans were shared on a commercial messaging app, possibly on personal cellphones, has triggered outrage in Washington and calls from Democrats that members of Trump’s national security team be fired over the leaks.
Republican President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to contain the fallout from the revelation that the March 15 chat included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg on the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Hegseth has repeatedly denied texting war plans, and Trump and his top advisers are saying no classified information was shared, bewildering Democrats and former US officials, who regard timing and targeting details as some of the most closely held material ahead of a US military campaign.
“I think that it’s by the awesome grace of God that we are not mourning dead pilots right now,” Democrat Jim Himes of Connecticut said at a hearing of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.
Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who leads the Pentagon’s oversight committee in the Senate, joined calls for an independent probe and said the texts appeared so sensitive “I would have wanted it classified.”

If Houthi leaders knew a strike was coming, they might have been able to flee, possibly to crowded areas where targeting is more difficult and the number of potential civilian casualties might be deemed too high to proceed.
The chat did not appear to include any names or precise locations of Houthi militants being targeted or to disclose information that could have been used to target US troops carrying out the operation.
Pentagon officials aware of the planning believed that information Hegseth texted was classified at the time, one US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, raising questions over whether, when and how Hegseth’s text messages may have been declassified.
It has also renewed scrutiny of Hegseth, who only narrowly won Senate confirmation after a bruising review that raised serious questions about his experience, temperament and views about women in combat.
The White House played down the idea that Hegseth or others would lose their jobs, saying Trump retained confidence in them.
Trump also played down the Yemen leak, calling it a “witch hunt” and defending Hegseth.
“Hegseth is doing a great job,” Trump said.
Goldberg, who had initially declined to publish the chat details, did so on Wednesday. The Atlantic magazine did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the release of the additional messages.

‘Team update’
Hegseth’s text started with the title “TEAM UPDATE” and included these details, according to The Atlantic:
“TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch“
“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
“We are currently clean on OPSEC”
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”

Hours later, national security adviser Mike Waltz confirmed to the group the killing of the Houthis’ top missile expert.
“We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed,” Waltz wrote, disclosing that the US was carrying out surveillance operations.
Reuters could not immediately establish what kind of building was brought down in the US military strike, how many occupants were inside, and how the detail squares with Pentagon statements there were no known civilian casualties.
Hegseth has declined to answer questions about whether he declassified the information on the Signal chat, perhaps retroactively. In Hawaii on Wednesday, he played down the controversy, telling reporters the texts contained “no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods.”
In Jamaica, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was part of the chat group, acknowledged to reporters that someone “made a big mistake” by adding a journalist to the chat. But he also dismissed concerns about any impact on the operations.
Senior US national security officials have classified systems that are meant to be used to communicate secret materials.
But CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified on Tuesday at a Senate hearing that Waltz set up the Signal chat for unclassified coordination and that teams would be “provided with information further on the high side for high-side communication.”
Waltz has said he took full responsibility for the breach as he had created the Signal group. But on Wednesday, Waltz also played down the disclosure, saying on X: “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent.”
At a hearing on Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Hegseth would be the one to determine what defense information was classified.
“Ultimately, the secretary of defense (holds) the authority to classify or de-classify.” Gabbard said, addressing the House Intelligence Committee.
The US military has so far declined to publicly offer even basic details about the offensive in Yemen, including how many strikes have been carried out, what senior leaders have been targeted or killed and even whether the operation has a name.