Myanmar Shows War Doesn’t Stop Mining

Australia's strategic decoupling from China depends partly on securing alternative rare-earth supplies and reducing Beijing's monopoly control. This article shows China is deepening access to Myanmar rare earths despite state collapse, proving that fragmented conflict zones can still service Beijing's supply chains, undercutting Australia's assumption that unstable partners will deny China resources. This erodes Pillar 5 (Decoupling) and resource sovereignty (Pillar 1) by demonstrating the resilience of China-centric extraction networks and the limits of Australia's leverage through traditional statecraft.