2025-08-20
21 分钟Bloomberg Audio Studios.
Podcasts, radio, news.
In the jungles of northern Myanmar, close to the border with China, a town called Pangwa sits in a small valley.
It's surrounded by forested peaks that are sometimes dusted with snow.
But against this scenic backdrop, a sprawling industrial operation is transforming the hilltops.
So you have these hills, these very, you know, dramatic hill slopes with these pools kind of midway up the hill.
So there's like kind of a lattice work of pipes that's laid over boreholes.
So yeah, it is sort of industrial and dystopian, but also set in a very remarkable, very beautiful part of the world.
Timothy McLaughlin is a journalist and a freelance contributor for Bloomberg, based in Singapore.
He says Pangwa and the surrounding region of Kachin State have come into the spotlight lately
because the ground there is rich with precious metals.
Rare earths that are in high demand right now.
Myanmar is hugely significant in the rare earths industry.
It is the third largest producer of rare earth globally behind the US and China.
These rare earth elements are worth billions of dollars.
They're key components in your iPhone, your electric vehicles, and even missiles used by the US military.
And Myanmar isn't just any producer of rare earths.
It's a crucial supplier to China, accounting for more than half of the country's total imports last year.
But the region around Pangwa has been disrupted by a long-running conflict between Myanmar's military junta and a rebel group,
the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA.