"Myanmar’s upland plantations worsen border floods", Mekong Eye, 8 December 2025

state-owned giants such as Yunnan State Farms Group (YSFG) and Guangdong Guangken Rubber received grants, concessional loans, tax breaks and duty-free import quotas.

As an early entrant, YSFG’s two subsidiaries in Myanmar had secured nearly 8,000 hectares through long-term leases by the late 2000s. They planted hundreds of thousands of rubber seedlings near Pangkham, the UWSA capital bordering China.

Surging rubber prices in the 2010s fueled further growth. In 2012, the group opened a processing plant that supplied tire-grade rubber to factories in Yunnan.

According to a Chinese state media, Yunnan Natural Rubber Industry Group, a subsidiary of YSFG, supplies rubber to Chinese and international tire manufacturers, including Giti, Hankook, Maxxis and Kunlun.

Mekong Eye contacted YSFG for comment on its activities in Myanmar and northern Laos, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

“In many parts of the Mekong River Basin, prolonged use of pesticides and herbicides has accelerated the depletion of soil organic carbon,” explained an Australian-Vietnamese environmental expert studying ecological change in Mekong region, who requested anonymity so he could speak more freely.

“If current monoculture practices persist, the rubber industry in the region faces substantial risk under intensifying climate change,” the expert warned.

The combination of chemical-heavy cultivation and acid-based rubber processing has left the rivers murky and the soil depleted.

In July 2025 [...] research team conducted a study of rivers along the Thai-Myanmar border and found alarming results. Water at eight of nine monitoring stations registered contamination at “high risk” levels, [...].

Multiple factors may be linked to this contamination, including mining and land-use changes associated with large-scale agriculture.