# United Wa State Army The armed wing of the United Wa State Party, exercising **de facto sovereign control** over the Wa Self-Administered Division of northern Shan State — its own administration, security forces, currency practice, taxation and economic system, effectively outside Naypyidaw's writ since a ceasefire in 1989. It is the largest non-state armed force in Southeast Asia, maintains close political and economic ties with China, and has stayed out of the post-coup civil war while extracting concessions from both sides. ## Why it is in a conflict-minerals knowledge base Because it is a **systemically important commodity supplier that no regulatory regime can reach.** **Tin.** The UWSA controls [[Man Maw]], which supplies roughly 7–10% of world mine output. Its unilateral suspension of mining on 1 August 2023 sent LME tin past $36,000 a tonne; its permitting decisions in 2025 and its dewatering levy of February 2026 are tracked by commodity analysts the way central bank minutes are. **Rare earths.** The UWSA has moved into heavy rare-earth extraction as China diversified away from Kachin State after the [[Kachin Independence Army]] took Chipwi and Pangwa in October 2024. Wa sites are reported up roughly eightfold since 2015, and Shan State now accounts for perhaps 10–20% of Myanmar's rare-earth output. The operating model is consistent: **lease the ground to Chinese companies for a profit share plus export tax, provide security, and manage shipment across the border.** ## The governance vacuum Nothing binds any of this. Myanmar has had no credible official extractive-sector disclosure since its EITI membership was suspended in February 2021 and terminated in February 2024. [[Dodd-Frank Section 1502]] does not reach Myanmar. The EU regulation reaches Wa tin but not Wa rare earths. Sanctions target the Myanmar military's conglomerates, not the ethnic armed organisations. And the buyer is China, which is subject to neither Western regime. The UWSA is therefore the purest case in [[Conflict Resources Atlas]]: an armed group with a genuine chokepoint on a global supply chain, operating entirely outside every instrument built to govern exactly that situation. ## See also [[Man Maw]] · [[Myanmar Conflict Minerals]] · [[Kachin Independence Army]] · [[Conflict Resources Atlas]] · [[China]]