Mr Lanung Tu Kumbun, a Research Scholar in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad, under the supervision of Professor Kham Khan Suan Hausing, presented a paper at the international conference on “2026 Myanmar Update: Contours of a New Myanmar” held at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, from 24 – 25 July 2026.
The conference was jointly convened by the ANU Myanmar Research Centre in the College of Asia and the Pacific, and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales Canberra.
In a panel titled “The Chinese border: Conflict, crime, and underdevelopment”, Mr Kumbun presented a paper titled “Myanmar’s rare earth minerals: The geopolitical competition between China and India.” In the paper, he argued that rare-earth elements (REEs) have become a strategic resource in global geopolitics and that the capture of Myanmar’s principal REE-producing region in Kachin State by non-state armed groups has transformed the area into a new arena of strategic competition between China and India.