The Wartime Mining Boom Exporting Rare Earths, and Toxins Unregulated rare earth mining in Myanmar, directed by Chinese enterprises, is poisoning the Kok and at least three other rivers that flow through Thailand. For months, levels of arsenic and other toxic metals have spiked to dangerous levels in Thai waterways, including the Mekong, government data shows. The Kok, which normally flows limpid at this time of year, now runs brown, sullied with sediment believed to have been churned up by the mining in Myanmar. People who enter the river complain of skin ailments. The threat of longer-term health problems associated with toxins from rare earth extraction is sobering, including lung, bladder and kidney cancers. […] The so-called heavy rare earth elements mined in Myanmar are used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and nuclear power plants […] extracting them can be extraordinarily destructive to the environment. […] the mining boom is a byproduct of a fierce civil war in Myanmar, where the ruling military’s decades of repression have catalyzed ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy forces to fight back. To fill their war chests, the military and some of the militias rely on a panoply of illegal businesses, from synthetic drugs and opium to wildlife poaching to online scams. Many of these enterprises are directed by Chinese crime syndicates, which have expanded into Southeast Asia after crackdowns at home. The latest money-spinner is mining. Since the military staged a coup in 2021, the number of rare earth mines in just one state in Myanmar has nearly tripled, to about 370 at the end of 2024, the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar found, with a combined export value of more than $4 billion. Myanmar has become a major miner of certain rare earths. Extracted by Chinese companies and their subsidiaries, the minerals are transported from Myanmar directly to neighboring China, which has a stranglehold on the refining of rare earths for the global market. […] More than a million people living in these riverine ecosystems in Thailand are already affected by the pollution, researchers say. […] The witnesses said that the rare earths in Wa territory are mined with technical expertise from employees working for a subsidiary of China Rare Earth Group, a state-owned behemoth. […] a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Thailand said in a statement that “China is highly concerned about the heavy metal pollution incident in the tributaries of the Mekong River in Thailand,” without providing specifics. […] A spokesman for the United Wa State Army did not respond to requests for comment, nor did a representative of China Rare Earth Group.