ICG report shows how critical minerals link Myanmar’s civil war to the world

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The International Crisis Group’s new visual investigation, “How Critical Minerals Link Myanmar’s Civil War to the World,” released 10 September, examines the links between Myanmar’s widening civil war and its gold, jade, rare-earth and tin industries, which supply global sectors ranging from green energy and weapons manufacturing to luxury goods.

Combining field research with algorithmic analysis of satellite imagery and conflict, night-light, price and trade data, ICG found that:

Tin: Satellite data confirms a substantial restart at Man Maw, one of the world’s most important tin concentrate mines. As AI-driven demand for tin surges, supply now depends on opaque politics in a militia-run enclave at the Myanmar-China border.

Gold: Alluvial gold mining in parts of Sagaing Region has expanded by more than 160 per cent since the 2021 coup.

Jade: Fieldwork identified new territorial control lines and smuggling routes from Myanmar’s main jade-mining hub, Hpakant, into China.

Rare Earths: Mining has more than doubled in Kachin State, while an initially small mining area in eastern Shan State tripled in just one year, an expansion quantified in their report for the first time.

The ICG investigation comes ahead of the Trump-Xi summit on 24 September and the expiry of the U.S.-China export-control ceasefire on 10 November, with rare earths central to the talks.

Richard Horsey, Crisis Group’s Senior Adviser on Myanmar, says: “As Washington and Beijing bargain over rare earths, both sides know where a lot of the supply actually starts: unregulated mines in an active civil war. That’s not a supply chain anyone should be comfortable deepening.”

Thomas Kean, Crisis Group’s Senior Consultant on Myanmar and Bangladesh, says: “Natural resources aren’t the cause of Myanmar’s conflicts, but they help sustain them by generating vital revenue for both the military and its armed opponents. Local communities often pay the price for this war economy, facing greater risks of violence, environmental destruction and loss of other livelihoods, such as agriculture.”

From AI data centres to makers of electric vehicles, jewellery and missile systems, industries around the world depend on minerals extracted in Myanmar, the report notes.

Myanmar possesses some of the world’s most valuable deposits of jade, tin, gold and heavy rare earth elements. These minerals underpin industries ranging from electronics and artificial intelligence to clean energy, defence and luxury goods. Yet many are extracted in conflict areas in one of the world’s longest-running civil wars, under way since independence in 1948, and contribute to shaping the battlefronts in some of the country’s most remote areas.

Myanmar’s conflicts are not driven primarily by natural resources – they are political struggles over power, autonomy and identity. But control of valuable mineral deposits has become an important source of revenue, leverage and strategic influence for both the military and its opponents. Decisions taken by armed groups in Myanmar’s borderlands can reverberate through global commodity markets, while international demand helps sustain local war economies. Using satellite imagery, field research and interviews, this series examines how four critical resources connect Myanmar’s expanded civil war to the global economy.

The following stories highlighted in the ICG report show how four globally important resources – Tin, Gold, Jade, and Rare Earths – have become intertwined with the country’s civil war.

TIN: The Mine that Moves the Market

When a single mine in north-eastern Myanmar suspended operations in 2023, global tin prices spiked and smelters in China scrambled for supply. The shock rippled through supply chains, raising costs for electronics and semiconductor manufacturers across the world. Mining has since restarted, but output remains well below pre-suspension levels – and tin hit a record high above $53,000 a tonne in January 2026 as demand surged with the AI data centre boom.

Tin, in the form of solder, is a critical component in servers and data centre infrastructure.

The Man Maw mine is located in an enclave near the Chinese border controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a powerful non-state militia of more than 20,000 fighters with high-tech weaponry that has maintained a ceasefire with the Myanmar military since 1989. Mining is not its only source of income. It has been under U.S. sanctions since 2003 for narcotics trafficking, while a grand jury later indicted eight senior leaders in absentia on heroin and methamphetamine charges.

At its peak in the late 2010s and early 2020s, Myanmar became the world’s third-largest tin producer, behind only China and Indonesia, with the vast majority of the metal coming from Man Maw. In the peak years, Myanmar supplied over 90 per cent of China’s tin ore imports, making it a critical upstream source for global solder, electronics and semiconductor supply chains.

Production at the mine expanded rapidly through the 2010s. Satellite imagery shows roads, ore pads, tailings dumps and worker housing spreading across previously forested hillsides.

The UWSA governs this territory as a de facto mini-state, largely insulated from Myanmar’s civil war even after the 2021 coup, as the decades-old ceasefire between the group and the military remains in place. That stability translated into predictable tin output and growing global dependence on supplies from the region. Tin concentrate exports from Myanmar to China were worth over $1 billion annually at their peak. For a single armed group, control over such enormous flows gives it not only substantial revenue, but also political leverage in both Myanmar and China.

Then, in April 2023, Wa authorities announced a suspension of mining at Man Maw, ostensibly for a resource audit. Production essentially halted in August that year. Benchmark tin prices on the London Metal Exchange immediately jumped by more than 10 per cent, an abrupt price shock for an industrial metal. Smelters warned of tightening concentrate supply. Analysts described the global market as “beholden” to the fortunes of a single Myanmar mine.

The suspension also revealed an unforeseen vulnerability in the supply chain. As mentioned, the Wa justified the interruption in mining in Man Maw on the grounds of an audit, but Crisis Group interviews suggest that the real reason was internal Wa dynastic politics.

Man Maw was operated by seven companies, all controlled by senior Wa leaders. The closure coincided with a leadership transition within the UWSA, as a generational shift brought new individuals to the fore – including the sons of ageing leaders – and reopened disputes over informal power and revenue sharing arrangements. Tensions over revenue distribution from the mine – both among leaders and with the UWSA treasury – appear to have driven the prolonged halt in mining and the suspension of those companies’ permits.

The armed group opened applications for new mining licences in February 2025 and issued the first permits that July, on payment of sharply increased fees. Ore is moving again: China’s tin ore imports from Myanmar climbed through late 2025, and by the next June Myanmar was once more China’s largest single supplier, at 37 per cent of the total. But the recovery is partial. The deepest, highest-grade deposits have been flooded since 2023, and in February 2026 the Wa authorities issued rules sharing the cost of pumping them out among eleven mine portals. Satellite imagery shows large new buildings going up, and night-time illumination around the site has returned to higher levels after falling sharply following the suspension.

The reasons for the slow restart remain unclear. Industry and media reports point to several possibilities, ranging from normal lead times for restarting underground mines, flooding in shafts, administrative delays and potential depletion of higher-grade ore bodies. Whatever the cause, a central concern in the tin market is the lack of reliable information.

Smelters drew down inventories and sought alternative sources of concentrate, but no supplier has fully replaced Man Maw’s output. Three years on, the market is tighter than ever, with tin being the best-performing non-ferrous metal of the past year, and analysts anticipate the first global supply deficit since 2021. Industry insiders still see a full resumption at Man Maw as important to the market’s long-term stability.

Mines typically open and close in response to global market signals. In this case, the market is reacting to the decisions of a militia. As tin demand surges with the AI data centre build-out, a critical input for advanced computing depends on opaque politics in a militia-run enclave beyond state control at the Myanmar-China border.

GOLD: Funding the Grassroots Resistance to Military Rule

Gold mining has long been a lucrative source of income in Myanmar for both the government and non-state armed groups. But since the 2021 coup, worsening conflict, economic collapse and soaring global prices have triggered a new gold rush in parts of central and northern Myanmar. Official figures put Myanmar’s gold production at just 500kg, but informal production is likely to be at least ten times higher – valuing the industry at close to $1 billion a year. The sector also provides jobs for hundreds of thousands of people.

The dredging operations have triggered protests by nearby communities concerned about the impact on their livelihoods. The sandbanks that emerge in the Chindwin River during the dry season are prized for their fertile soil, but once miners churn them up, they can no longer be cultivated.

Resistance groups in the area say taxing gold extraction is one of the few ways they can buy weapons and ammunition. But residents accuse some local leaders of profiting personally from the industry, including by running dredging boats themselves. Residents also fear the mining will draw military attacks from a regime determined to cut off its opponents’ revenues.

Local regime officials have also benefited, collecting bribes and informal taxes from miners in exchange for not attacking their operations. But after battlefield losses and a shake-up in Sagaing Region’s military command in November 2025, pro-regime social media accounts began calling for airstrikes on mining sites in resistance areas to prevent these armed groups from getting funds.

Over the past nine months, local media has reported dozens of strikes against gold mining sites spanning at least eight townships. “Some unlucky rafts will be hit, equipment will be lost and workers will die. But it doesn’t take long for the rafts to restart operations – they take the hits and go back to work”, said one resistance source. “And for the military commanders, it’s all just for show”.

Much of this mining has spread from riverbanks into forests and paddy fields – even right up to the edge of houses. Farmers say armed groups pressure them to sell land to miners, leaving communities with polluted water and damaged fields.

Control of areas rich in underground gold seams has also become a military objective for both the regime and its opponents. In Banmauk Township, resistance forces seized the town and nearby mining areas in September 2025 before the military and Shanni Nationalities Army counterattacked. The resistance later abandoned the town, but still oversees many mines in the surrounding area.

Gold from mining operations is sent by boat, plane or road to refineries in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. Domestic demand is high because of the instability of the kyat, the national currency, capital controls and demand for safe-haven assets. But because gold fetches a higher price in neighbouring India and Bangladesh, traders also smuggle it across Myanmar’s porous borders.

Gold mining provides jobs in a devastated economy and revenues for armed groups fighting the regime. But it also destroys farmland, pollutes waterways, enriches local powerbrokers and makes nearby communities targets in the war. “I’m not opposed to all mining, particularly if the revenues really support the revolution”, said a Banmauk resident. “But the authorities need to manage the impact on the environment and communities. Now there are no rules – they mine anywhere”.

JADE: Fighting for Profits from the “Stone of Heaven”

For centuries, jade has been treasured in China as the “stone of heaven”, a symbol of nobility, protection and good fortune. Most of the world’s finest jade – including the vivid green stone known as imperial jade – comes from one place: Hpakant in northern Myanmar’s Kachin State. Every year, stones worth billions of dollars move from these mines toward China. The money enriches mining firms, traders and investors, but also the armed actors who control the extraction sites, nearby roads and border crossings. Since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, fighting has intensified around Hpakant as the military and its opponents vie for control of one of the country’s most lucrative industries.

The 1994 ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), one of the country’s oldest ethnic armed groups, transformed jade mining at Hpakant from artisanal to industrial. Satellite imagery from 1990 onward shows the scale of the transformation. The mines attracted hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from across the country, many hoping to find a life-changing stone among the waste piles.

But the boom came at immense human and environmental cost. Drug addiction among workers became widespread. Landslides repeatedly killed scores of itinerant miners and industrial extraction literally moved mountains, turning large parts of Hpakant into a dusty wasteland. Meanwhile, military and KIO officials – and their business partners – grew rich from the proceeds.

As China’s economy grew through the 2000s and 2010s, so did the profits from jade. But official figures capture only a small part of the trade. The best stones often bypassed formal gem sales and moved across the Chinese border through informal networks, with payments made to officials and armed groups along the route. Global Witness estimated the jade industry to be worth up to $31 billion in 2014 – roughly half of Myanmar’s official GDP. Mining continued despite the collapse of the Kachin ceasefire in 2011, with the military, the KIO and other ethnic armed groups all profiting from the trade.

The bigger shock appears to have come from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign from late 2012, which made conspicuous luxury purchases riskier in China. Though revenues have almost certainly fallen from the 2014 peak, the industry is still worth billions of dollars a year.

The 2021 coup brought an uptick in conflict in Kachin State. The KIO has not just been one of the military regime’s most formidable opponents, but it has also provided training and support to newly formed People’s Defence Forces, resistance groups fighting to overthrow the junta. For the first few years after the coup, the military retained direct control of the jade mines. But in March 2024, the KIO launched a major offensive, capturing large stretches of the Chinese border, including trade gates and rare earth mining sites. These gains shifted control of some of Kachin State’s most profitable and strategic locations – and set the stage for renewed fighting around Hpakant, which until then was mainly under military control.

RARE EARTHS: Outsourcing the Green Transition and Rearmament Imperative

The magnets inside electric vehicles, wind turbines and advanced weapons – including munitions and missile defence systems used in the 2026 U.S.-Israeli war with Iran – increasingly depend on rare earths extracted using toxic chemicals injected into hillsides in a Myanmar conflict zone.

Myanmar has become one of the world’s most important sources of heavy rare earth elements (HREEs), particularly dysprosium and terbium. These are essential for high-performance magnets used in electric vehicle motors, wind turbines and smart weapon guidance and control systems. The U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran transformed what is often regarded as a concern for the green transition supply chain – given their importance for renewable energy technologies – into one for the defence industry.

Replenishing the advanced munitions and missile defence interceptors consumed during the conflict will take years and depend on access to HREE supply chains that are both limited in capacity and vulnerable to geopolitical disruption.

While China dominates the market, its own HREE extraction has been curtailed by tightened environmental regulation since the early 2010s. In 2016, Jiangxi province shut down much of its heavy rare earth mining, the core of China’s production, along with smaller deposits extending into southern provinces including Yunnan. Extraction then shifted across the border into Myanmar, where the armed group in control of the area imposed few if any environmental safeguards.

By 2021, Myanmar had become the single largest source of heavy rare earth feedstock for China, with exports growing dramatically from roughly $1.5 million in 2014 to around $780 million in 2021.

Control of these deposits has shifted with the expansion of Myanmar’s civil war after the 2021 coup. Previously, the area was under the sway of Border Guard Forces aligned with the Myanmar military. But the coup and the upsurge in conflict that followed upended the balance of power. In late 2024, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), one of the country’s oldest and strongest ethnic armed groups, overran the area and assumed de facto control of the main mining belt. The revenue now flows to this group rather than Naypyitaw and its proxies.

For a time after the KIO took control, China closed the border for rare earth imports, as well as for exports of materials needed for mining. The importance of these rare earth supplies to Beijing meant that it soon relented, however, allowing a reduced flow of the minerals over much of 2025 and full reopening of the trade by late October. China has also applied much less pressure on the KIO to stop fighting the Myanmar military, compared with other armed groups along the border, such as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, both of which were forced into ceasefires with Naypyitaw. The differential treatment is at least in part due to the leverage the KIO has as a supplier of a strategic resource.

But rare earth deposits are a double-edged sword for the armed group. Beijing remains highly sensitive to disruptions in rare earth supply, and it is unlikely to tolerate prolonged interruptions or behaviour it views as threatening the reliability of exports. The same deposits that provide the KIO with revenue and leverage therefore also constitute a geopolitical vulnerability for the group.

The Shan sites are also responsible for environmental harm. Pollution from leaching operations has affected tributaries feeding into the Mekong River system, raising concerns in downstream countries, particularly Thailand.

The environmental impact is visible from space. Satellite imagery shows rapid vegetation clearance on steep hillsides, expansion of leaching ponds and waste areas, and a growing concentration of mining activity near waterways. But the consequences extend far beyond the mine sites themselves. Thai authorities have recorded persistent arsenic contamination in rivers flowing from Myanmar, while regional monitoring has detected pollutants crossing into both Thailand and Laos. Researchers have linked much of the recent contamination to the dramatic expansion of mining in eastern Shan State, which also includes gold mining.

The outsourcing of mining to Myanmar means that environmental damage occurs outside China’s borders while preserving Beijing’s control of processing, refining and manufacturing.

Decarbonising energy systems is vital to addressing global warming, but it has created externalities of its own. The supply of critical inputs for clean energy now depends on territories governed by armed groups in Myanmar’s borderlands, and their extraction is causing major environmental harm, with cross-border repercussions.

With no good alternatives, the green energy sector and government regulators have tended to close their eyes. Now the push for rearmament is increasingly entangled with the same supply chains.

As Western governments seek to bolster their defence capabilities and rebuild stocks of advanced missiles, interceptors and other weapons systems expended in recent conflicts, demand for heavy rare earths will grow. A strategic material sourced from Myanmar’s conflict zones now sits at the intersection of two defining global priorities: clean energy and rebuilding military stockpiles.

Source: International Crisis Group (ICG). Abridged.

Photos: ICG and Ye Aung Thu and Mladan Antonov for AFP