“I think companies are consistently using Myanmar as a sacrifice zone.”
China pulled over 320,000 tons of rare earths out of Kachin and Shan states between 2017 and 2024, roughly two thirds of its imports. Water samples come back full of radioactive elements and heavy metals, farmland is too toxic to sell from, and landslides have killed workers at least five times. Armed groups run security and Chinese firms run the leaching. Every wind turbine and EV magnet marketed as clean has some of this in it.