Until the World Shatters: Truth, Lies, and the Looting of Myanmar

Combs, a foreign service officer in the U.S. state department, debuts with a deeply reported look at how Myanmar’s jade industry fuels the country’s 70-year-old civil war. He untangles links between jade mining, which takes place in the remote, resource-rich northern province of Kachin State and is driven largely by demand from China, and the government’s oppression of minority ethnic groups, including Rohingya Muslims, through the parallel stories of Bum Tsit, a 30-year-old Kachin businessman starting out in the jade trade, and Phoe Wa, a 22-year-old photojournalist in the city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Chronicling his subjects’ lives from August 2017 to September 2018, Combs explains the political dangers and uncertain economics faced by independent jade traders, who must rely on smugglers to get their stones across the border into China; reveals evidence that Kachin elites have colluded with the national army to control the region’s natural resources; and documents the government’s anti-Rohingya propaganda campaign and crackdown on press freedoms. Though Combs succeeds in elucidating Myanmar’s complex political and cultural dynamics, the narrative occasionally slips into exoticism. Still, this is an illuminating portrait of a troubled and secretive country. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Mar.)