Thailand zahlt den Preis für den unregulierten Bergbauboom

SS: In their *Fulcrum* article, Eugene Mark and Kyi Sin argue that the global clean-energy boom has driven a surge in unregulated rare earth mining in Myanmar’s UWSA-controlled territories, creating toxic runoff that now contaminates northern Thailand’s Kok River and exposes the limits of state-to-state diplomacy.

They explain that China dominates global rare earth processing and has effectively outsourced environmentally destructive extraction to weaker neighbours, using non-state proxies to externalise pollution while preserving plausible deniability.

Thailand’s efforts to address arsenic contamination through monitoring and a joint panel with Myanmar have little traction because Naypyitaw cannot control the UWSA, leaving Bangkok dependent on Chinese leverage.

A new US–Thailand rare earth MOU, however, gives Thailand strategic room to reframe the crisis within broader Mekong basin governance and to pressure Beijing to accept greater responsibility.

The authors contend that unless major powers rein in non-state extractors and impose real safeguards, the green transition will lose legitimacy by shifting environmental costs onto politically vulnerable regions.