Militias Assist PRC-Based Ventures Mining Rare Earth Elements in Myanmar

Militias Assist PRC-Based Ventures Mining Rare Earth Elements in Myanmar

Executive Summary:

• People’s Republic of China (PRC)-based firms are expanding rare-earth mining in Myanmar’s Shan and Kachin States by partnering with militias that lease mines, provide security, and tax exports.
• Satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in rare earth elements (REE) sites since 2015, turning militia-held enclaves into major suppliers of dysprosium, terbium, and other critical minerals for the PRC.
• As U.S.–PRC competition intensifies, Myanmar’s fragmented sovereignty enables armed groups with ties to Beijing to shape REE supply chains, complicating potential U.S. and Indian efforts to source Burmese minerals.

Introduction 

Chinese firms have been engaging in large-scale extraction of rare earth elements (REEs) in Myanmar with the help of ethnic militias. [1] Much of this synergistic mining occurs in Shan and Kachin (names in Burmese: ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်; ကချင်ပြည်နယ်) States (Global Witness, May 23, 2024; ISP Myanmar, June 10; Mongabay, September 16). With the absence of state authority in Myanmar, rebel groups have tightened, expanded, and concentrated their territorial grip over rare earth belts in those two states and increased the scale of REE mining. The PRC is believed to be “hoarding” REEs, reporting a 70 percent jump in their import in early 2023 (The Irrawaddy, December 28, 2024; ISP Myanmar, March 25). This REE mining boom and Chinese import dominance have drawn the attention of the United States and India, which may now consider sourcing REEs from Burmese mines (Mining, September 11; SCMP, September 18). 

Main Rebel Groups and Militias Mining REEs in Myanmar

United Wa State Army (UWSA)

The United Wa State Army (Chinese: 佤邦联合军, UWSA) is a strongly pro-PRC ethnic militia of the Wa People. The UWSA traces its origins back to 1989, when the Bamar-led Communist Party of Burma (Burma: ဗမာပြည်ကွန်မြူနစ်ပါတီ, CPB) disintegrated and split into four ethnic armies, which later signed ceasefires with the Tatmadaw (The Irrawaddy, September 4). [2] Afterward, the UWSA formed its political wing, called the United Wa State Party (Chinese: 佤邦联合党, UWSP) based in Shan State. The group boasts 30,000 armed soldiers in its regular rank-and-file and 20,000 soldiers in strategic reserve, along with a provision of mandatory conscription from each Wa household (The Irrawaddy, February 26, 2020; The Irrawaddy, August 31, 2022).  

UWSA forces are equipped with sophisticated weaponry. Their materiel includes vehicles, helicopters, military-grade drones, and anti-aircraft missiles. The militia also possesses its own weapons factory and has frequently supplied small arms to other allied ethnic armies (Grey Dynamics, June 20). Further, it chairs the largest and most powerful ethnic army alliance in Myanmar, known as the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (Burmese: ပြည်ထောင်စုနိုင်ငံရေးဆွေးနွေးညှိနှိုင်းရေးကော်မတီ, FPNCC) (PRIO, September 10, 2024). [3]

The UWSA governs the autonomous Wa Self-Administration Division (Burmese: ဝ ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ တိုင်း, Wa-SAD). The Wa-SAD is also known as Shan State Special Region 2 and popularly called Wa State (Burmese: ဝပြည်နယ်). This state is divided into two separate northern and southern enclaves bordering the PRC and Thailand respectively (Global Asia, December 1, 2023). The capital and headquarters of Wa State and UWSA is Pangkham (Wa: ​​Pang Kham) also known as Panghsang. Wa State is modelled as a one-party socialist state, with its own governance, education, administration, justice, taxation, and law enforcement structures independent of Myanmar’s central government. Wa leader Bao Youxiang (Chinese: 鲍有祥, Wa: Tax Log Pang) is the de facto president, party secretary, and supreme commander of Wa State, UWSP, and UWSA (ISP Myanmar, June 17).  

The UWSA is infamous for being one of the largest drug traffickers in Myanmar. As a result, UWSA and UWSP had officially been sanctioned since 2005 by the U.S. Treasury Department for narcotics trafficking (Modern Insurgent, January 17, US Department of Treasury, November 5, 2005). Wa State traditionally produced heroin, but partially switched to amphetamine products as a result of declining poppy cultivation in the 2000s (The Irrawaddy, November 2008), 

The group is now focused on a new revenue source from the boom of rare earth mining inside its territory. Satellite images reveal mines have increased at least eightfold since 2015, with at least 26 mining sites as of February 2025. These mines are leased to Chinese companies in exchange for a share of profit. UWSA soldiers ensure the security of Chinese ventures as well as smooth shipments of REEs to the PRC (SHRF, June 19; Al Jazeera, August 7; TDS, June 12). 

Wa State is also a critical node for the world’s tin supply chain. As of 2022, it produces around 10 percent of all global tin concentrate, with at least 70 percent of all Burmese tin sourced from Wa State (International Tin Association, April 17, 2023). [4] In 2023, the UWSA stopped tin production to conserve the remaining tin in its territories, triggering a tin shortage for Chinese smelters. This past July, however, the UWSA decided to resume operations of these tin mines (The Irrawaddy, July 23). 

National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA)

The National Democratic Alliance Army (Burmese: မြန်မာအမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရက်တစ် မဟာမိတ်တပ်မတော်, NDAA, popularly known as the Mong La Army) is a small but significant ethnic army based in Shan State. It is another one of the four major ethnic armies established after the disintegration of the CPB (ISP Myanmar, August 20). Its official principle is “peace, unity, and development” and practices a non-aligned political stance. The political wing of NDAA is known as the Peace and Solidarity Committee (Myanmar Peace Monitor, September 9). The estimated strength of the NDAA is around 5,000 men distributed in four brigades, controlling Shan State Special Region 4, with Mong La District (Shan: ၸႄႈဝဵင်းမိူင်းလႃး ) as its capital. NDAA-controlled territories have not yet been designated under official Self-Administered Zone (SAZ) status, but function under their own parallel governance structures similar to the UWSA (ISP Myanmar, August 20; Myanmar Peace Monitor, September 9).

NDAA-governed territories had been infamous for harboring criminal syndicates that operate narcotics, gambling, and prostitution rings (Time, March 9, 2014; Vice, December 14, 2015). The territories are also highly dependent on cross-border economic exchanges with neighboring Yunnan (Chinese: 云南) province in the PRC. Additionally, NDAA-controlled areas are crucial for connecting projects under the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), part of the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (Chinese: 一带一路, BRI) (ISP Myanmar, August 20). 

The Mong La region under the NDAA has seen a surge in mining operations. At least 19 new REE mines have been observed operating in 2025—up from only three in 2021, as per satellite images. These mines, similar to the UWSA model, are mostly operated by Chinese stakeholders and are guarded by NDAA soldiers in exchange for revenues and levies (SHRF, August 25; Mizzima, August 26; SHAN, August 26). 

Kachin Independence Army (KIA)

The Kachin Independence Army (Kachin: Wunpawng Mungdan Shanglawt Hpyen Dap, KIA) was formed in 1961 to achieve an independent state for the Kachin people. It is one of the oldest militias in contemporary Myanmar. Contrary to most other militias, the organization’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (Kachin: Wunpawng Gumrawng Gumtsa Mungdan, KIO), was formed first, followed by its military wing. The KIA now envisions establishing Kachin State as part of a federal system that ensures self-governance and autonomy (ISEAS Perspective, March 7; ISP Myanmar, August 20). 

The KIA is composed of 11 brigades and an estimated 15,000 soldiers in its ranks. These 11 brigades operate in both Kachin and Shan States, and include two mobile regiments, three special battalions, 24 regionally based battalions, and 27 mobile battalions (ISP Myanmar, August 20). KIA fighters are predominantly Christians, with most recruits coming from Jingpo, the largest Kachin subgroup. These Kachin rebels are headquartered in Laiza (Burmese: လိုင်ဇာ) near the Chinese border (Frontier Myanmar, February 25, 2020; The Irrawaddy, December 9).

The nearly two-decades-long KIA–Myanmar ceasefire broke down in 2011 (Tamil Guardian, October 15, 2023; CSIS, July 17, 2024). Since the 2021 military coup, the KIA has also allied with the pro-democracy National Unity Government (Burmese: အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရ, GNU) and its armed wing, the People’s Defense Forces (Burmese: ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်မတော်, PDF), in waging a full-on insurgency against the Tatmadaw.  The KIA also plays a leading role in the central military command and control structure of other pro-democratic rebel groups in Myanmar (The Irrawaddy, December 9, 2024; The Irrawaddy, August 25). 

The group funds itself primarily through jade mining, checkpoint levies, and informal cross-border trade with the PRC (Geopolitical Monitor, February 27, 2024). Unlike other Burmese militias, the KIA does not rely on narcotics production and trade for revenue (BNI, February 28, 2019). Instead, the KIA oversees jade mines run by Chinese nationals and corporations, which provide the KIA with taxes and revenues (RFA, February 26, 2024). 

The KIA found a new source of revenue by seizing control of Chipwi and Pangwa (names in Burmese: ချီဖွေမြို့; ပန်ဝါ) townships and their rare earth mines from a rival pro-Tatmadaw militia. These mines possess dysprosium and terbium, which are essential in the production of electric vehicles, wind turbines, and advanced defense systems. KIA now governs these key resource zones, manages export taxation, and negotiates directly with the PRC when it exports these REEs (ISP Myanmar, September 26; Stimson Center, June 24). 

New Democratic Army–Kachin (NDA–K)

New Democratic Army–Kachin (Burmese: ကချင်ဒီမိုကရေစီသစ် တပ်မတော်, NDA–K) has a history of entanglement with other militias. It was formed as part of the KIA, later joining the CPB in 1968 before breaking away in 1989. In 2009, it became part of the official government-run militia program and rebranded itself as the Kachin Border Guard Force (DVB, November 21, 2024). By doing so, it became integrated with the official military command structure, received government salaries, and enjoyed autonomy in the territory it controls, called Kachin State Special Region 1 (The Irrawaddy, December 9: BNI, November 2, 2024). The group is manned mainly by three battalions consisting of around 1,000 men and has been led by Zahkung Ting Ying, a former member of parliament. He has profited significantly from REE revenues in NDA–K-controlled territories (BNI, November 2, 2024; Frontier Myanmar, August 15). 

NDA–K has maintained a pro-Tatmadaw and anti-KIA stance following the 2021 military coup. During the October 2024 KIA offensive, NDA–K lost control of Chipwi and Pangwa Townships, where it operated over 100 REE mines close to the Myanmar–PRC border (The Irrawaddy, November 18, 2024; RFA, October 15, 2024). These mines had been leased by NDA–K to PRC-based companies in exchange for revenues (The Irrawaddy, July 15, 2023). Currently, KIA has taken over this leasing mechanism and has reached an understanding in REE trading with the PRC (The Irrawaddy, November 29, 2024; Frontier Myanmar, August 1; ISP Myanmar, September 26).  

Conclusion

Armed groups govern Myanmar’s resource-rich peripheries as a result of the country’s fractured sovereignty (PRIO, December 1, 2021; ACLED, November 26, 2024). The PRC has developed strong ties with most of these groups, alongside a warm relationship with the Tatmadaw (9DASHLINE, April 22). Factors like the growing global demand for REEs and increased U.S.–PRC competition are now driving the United States and India to rethink their engagement with Myanmar. The Tatmadaw, however, has been pragmatic in maintaining some semblance of control over REE supplies within its borders, which it uses to help secure international relationships. The cooperation of Burmese militias with opportunistic PRC-based ventures is nothing new, but signals increasingly close ties between the Tatmadaw and the PRC over a crucial international trade issue, as militant groups indirectly mediate the relationship.

Notes:
[1] Rare-earth elements (REEs) refer to 17 chemically similar elements in the periodic table of elements. These elements are defined as being highly magnetic, conductive, and in some cases possess thermal properties. Rare-earth elements are essential components to manufacture many high-end modern products, from consumer cell phones to cutting-edge AI hardware and defense systems.

[2] The four ethnic armies are the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and the New Democratic Army–Kachin (NDA–K).

[3] FNPCC consists of seven prominent ethnic armed groups active in Myanmar: the Arakan Army (AA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Shan State Army–North (SSA–N), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and the United Wa State Army (UWSA).

[4] Myanmar is the third-largest tin producer in the world as of 2022.