Latest stories

Thai-Cambodia ceasefire wobbles as fiery new accusations fly

North Korea-Russia alliance more than a 'brotherhood of arms'

US moving to revive China Initiative targeting espionage

But here's the catch: Myanmar's rare earth mines are not controlled by the junta. They are under the authority of powerful ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that govern territory along the Chinese border. The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), one of the world's oldest rebel movements, seized what may be the world's largest heavy rare earth mines last year.

This development has not gone unnoticed in Washington. Some lobbyists are now advancing two proposals : either the US should work directly with the KIO to extract these resources, or it should broker a bilateral peace deal between the KIO and the junta to enable joint exploitation.

The first idea is logistically absurd. Kachin State is landlocked and surrounded by junta-controlled territory, war zones with the presence of a myriad of other armed groups, remote regions of northeastern India, and China.

The second proposal is even more misguided. It reflects the worldview of DC business lobbyists, who reduce a decades-old political movement to a mere business enterprise. If the KIO were motivated solely by profit, it would have already caved to Chinese pressure for a bilateral ceasefire. It has not, because its goals are political, not commercial.

The KIO has long fought for autonomy and has been a key supporter of the countrywide resistance against the junta. Short of international recognition and the sale of sophisticated weapons, the US has little to offer that would make such a deal worthwhile. Certainly not enough to risk alienating China, whose relationship the KIO depends on for survival.

Meanwhile, the sharpest increase in rare earth mining is occurring in areas controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia's most powerful non-state army. The group, which emerged from the remnants of the Communist Party of Burma, remains armed and supported by Beijing.

The idea that the US could gain a meaningful foothold in Myanmar's rare earth sector is not just naïve; it is nonsensical. Worse, it risks playing directly into China's hands.

Beijing already wields enormous influence over Myanmar. The brutal USAID cuts earlier this year have further strengthened China's position to manipulate Myanmar politics. The lifting of sanctions now risks cementing this dominance.

Myanmar's generals will welcome the change. They will use it to legitimize their planned sham elections and bolster their propaganda, both at home and abroad. But they will not abandon China, which remains their most reliable source of weapons, funding and diplomatic cover.

Meanwhile, the country's resistance movement, now controlling more than half of Myanmar's territory, has been left in the cold. Despite promises of non-lethal aid under the Burma Act, the Biden administration failed to deliver .

Western support in general has been largely symbolic, limited to patchy sanctions, humanitarian relief, and words of sympathy. And now, even that symbolic support is being rolled back.

After years of empty rhetoric, Myanmar's resistance fighters have little reason to trust the West. But this latest betrayal may force them to forge closer relations with China. This won't happen overnight.