Highlights

• Myanmar's poorly regulated heavy rare earth mining, tied to militia groups, has contaminated Thailand's waterways with arsenic, exposing the environmental cost of the green transition that downstream consumers rarely see.
• China controls 90% of global rare earth processing and sources heavily from Myanmar, but the pollution crisis stems from multiple failures—not just Chinese demand—including local governance collapse and non-state armed actors.
• Real change requires building credible alternatives to China's processing monopoly with transparent, financeable supply chains; MOUs and diplomacy alone cannot address the midstream choke point that perpetuates harm.

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A widely read 2025 commentary (opens in a new tab) from Southeast Asia argues that Thailand is paying the environmental price for an unregulated rare earth mining boom in neighboring Myanmar—one driven, indirectly, by China’s dominance of the global rare earth supply chain. Published by researchers at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (opens in a new tab), Eugene Mark and Kyi Sin, and amplified via regional outlets, the piece is emotionally compelling. It is also only partially aligned with supply-chain realities that investors should understand.

Where the Argument Rings True

The authors are correct on several core facts. China dominates rare earth processing, controlling close to 90% of global separation capacity, and has increasingly relied on Myanmar’s Shan and Kachin States for heavy rare earth feedstock as Rare Earth Exchanges™ has reported. Myanmar has, at times, supplied more than half of China’s imported rare earth concentrates, largely from poorly regulated ionic clay operations.

They are also right that environmental damage is real. Unregulated mining tied to armed groups—most notably the United Wa State Army (UWSA)—has contaminated waterways flowing into northern Thailand. Arsenic findings in the Kok River and reported health effects are credible and deserve scrutiny. This is the darker underside of the green transition that downstream consumers rarely see.

Where the Story Leans Too Hard

The article implies a clean causal chain: China → Myanmar militias → Thai pollution. Reality is messier. While Chinese processors are the dominant buyers, Beijing does not directly control militia-run mines, and Myanmar’s fragmented internal authority sharply limits enforceable oversight by any state. The claim that China has simply “externalized” pollution, while rhetorically powerful, compresses multiple layers of illegality, local governance failure, and non-state agency into a single villain. That’s the reality on the ground.

Similarly, the piece treats Thailand’s new memorandum of understanding with the United States as a potential lever to reshape the regional rare earth trade. That is speculative. MOUs do not create mines, processing plants, or enforcement regimes. They create optionality—not supply. And while a positive step, a lot of work is left.

The Missing Link: Processing, Not Just Mining

What the article largely omits is the midstream choke point. Environmental harm originates at extraction, but strategic leverage lives in processing. Until heavy rare earth separation capacity exists outside China—at scale and under transparent standards—raw material sourcing shifts alone will not change incentives. Myanmar’s problem persists in part because there are few alternative buyers with processing capability.

Why This Matters for the Supply Chain

The piece is notable because it surfaces a truth often ignored in Western policy debates: the green transition can export environmental harm to weak jurisdictions. But investors must separate moral clarity from industrial feasibility. Accountability will come not from river diplomacy alone, but from building regulated, financeable rare earth supply chains elsewhere—on land, with permits, capital, and oversight.

Final Take

Thailand’s river crisis is real. The supply-chain diagnosis is incomplete. The rare earth transition will not be cleaned up by diplomacy or MOUs alone, but by credible alternatives to China’s processing monopoly. Until then, pollution will continue to follow demand.

Citation: Mark, E.; Sin, K. Thailand Pays the Price for Unregulated Mining Boom. Fulcrum / ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, Nov. 18, 2025.

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