"Myanmar’s Kachin rebels stop rare earth exports to China" 14 November 2024

The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, has closed crossings it controls on the border with China, cutting off exports of valuable rare earths in response to recent closures of the border by China, residents of the area said on Thursday...

China, which the environmental group Global Witness said in a recent report had effectively outsourced its rare earth extraction to Myanmar, has also been trying to press insurgent groups battling the Myanmar junta to make peace by sealing the border to trade.

The KIA had responded by sealing the part of the border under its control, cutting off cross-border shipments of inputs needed for rare earth mining and the export of the minerals back to China...

“As for rare earth mining, that’s all been closed because we don’t have the materials we need to extract them,”...

RFA tried to contact KIA spokesman Naw Bu for information about the situation but he did not respond by the time of publication. RFA was not able to contact Chinese authorities or rare earth processors for comment and China’s embassy in Myanmar has not responded to inquiries from RFA.