Traders of the Golden Triangle

During the latter half of the twentieth century the little-known and often lawless region where Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and China meet has become known and widely romanticised as "The Golden Triangle". Originally a Western designation applied to the region because of its wealth in jade, silver, rubies, lumber, rare animal products and, above all, opium, the name has stuck and is today accepted both in Chinese--jing san jiao--and in Thai--sam liam thong kham. By reputation, by very definition, the area is off the beaten track. The home of drug warlords, arms dealers, insurgent armies, latter-day slave traders and plain, old-fashioned bandits, it's also the home of an extraordinarily wide range of colourful ethnic minorities, many still only partly known and understood, and a veritable Tower of Babel linguistically.

In recent years the defeat of communist insurgencies in Thailand and Burma, coupled with the lowering of the Bamboo Curtain in China and Laos as both those countries slowly switch to free trade, has opened some parts of the Golden Triangle to the outside world for the first time in decades. Other areas--most notably Myanmar's unadministered Wa States--have never been open. Even during the British Raj the area remained sealed off, closed to outsiders. And for good reason; the "Wild Wa" were head-hunters who lived in all-but-impregnable thorn-stockaded villages. The only way in was by a narrow, winding tunnel, pierced with narrow slots which ensured the uninvited could be pierced with spears as they wormed their way in. Heads were taken to ensure the fertility of the harvest, and prominently displayed near the frontiers of Wa territory. Hardly surprisingly, people stayed away.

People stayed away; yet there was one exception. The rugged, indomitable Chinese muleteers known to the Burmese as Panthay, and to the Thai and Lao as Haw or Chin Haw, were--and to some extent still are--the masters of the Golden Triangle. Certainly they were the traders par excellence, penetrating into the remotest reaches of forbidden territory such as the Wa States, whilst at the same time their mule caravans, laden with everything from precious stones and jade to opium and copper pans, traded as far as Luang Phabang in Laos, Moulmein in Burma, Tali and Kunming in Yunnan, and Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Wherever they went they were protected with the best weapons money could buy, and they used these to good effect to ensure the respect of the law-abiding and the fear of the lawless. When the British first arrived in the Shan States in 1886, they were amazed to find the Panthays armed with Remington repeater rifles better, in most cases, than those of their own troops. Today, of course, it is the semi-automatic AK47, with it's tell-tale curved ammunition clip, which rules the roost.

The question arises, who are these hardy people, and where did they come from? The Thais--even Thai academics--often designate them as a "Chinese Hill Tribe", and lump them together as Chin Haw to distinguish them from the far more numerous Hua Chiao, or "Overseas Chinese", who arrived in Thailand by sea and have settled in large numbers throughout the country, forming an estimated 10 per cent of the Thai population.

If the Hakka, Hokkien, Hainanese and Cantonese can be styled Overseas Chinese, then an altogether appropriate designation for the "Chin-Haw" must be Overland Chinese. Yunnanese-speaking muleteers and traders, they walked or rode into Thailand and Burma by the back door of the Golden Triangle. They do not consider themselves a "hill tribe", but proud denizens of the Middle Kingdom, China. They consider themselves Chinese, and the only distinction they recognise is between Hui, or Muslim Chinese, and Han, or non-Muslim Chinese.

At this point those unacquainted with the complex ethnic and religious patchwork of the Golden Triangle may legitimately raise a quizzical eyebrow. Muslims in the Golden Triangle? And Chinese ones at that? Sop Ruak, where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet, is a long way from the Middle East by any standard. Why, how, when did this come about? To find an answer we have to travel back in time about six hundred years, to the Yuan Dynasty, when the Mongols ruled not only China, but a broad swathe of land extending across Central Asia to the Russian steppes and large parts of the Middle East. Like any large and successful empire, the Mongols used mercenary and conscript troops. In remote frontier areas--such as southern Yunnan--they also borrowed from Chinese tradition, "using barbarians to control barbarians". In suppressing the remnants of the Southern Sung and extending their control as far as Pagan, then capital of Myanmar, they employed fierce Uzbek fighters from the Khanate of Bukhara in Central Asia.

By the late 13th century Yunnan had been successfully incorporated in the Mongol realm, and Kublai Khan turned his attention further afield. Some of his Turkic mercenaries were sent to attack Myanmar--the likenesses of two are still recorded in frescoes at Pagan, one officer supporting a fierce hunting falcon on his wrist. Others were ordered to settle in newly-conquered Yunnan to ensure the continued pacification of the province. They were given Chinese wives, and one--Shams al-Din al-Bukhari--was made governor. As a further reward, the faithful Muslims were given control over roads and communications. From that time, their grip on the trade of the region has rarely slackened. Even today most out-of-the-way hostelries are Muslim-run, and truck drivers, as much as muleteers, are likely to be followers of the Prophet Muhammad.

During the centuries following their settlement in Yunnan the Uzbek followers of Shams al-Din gradually became assimilated through intermarriage into the local population--a process which continues today. They became increasingly Chinese in appearance (though some are still noticeably more hirsute, with longer noses than their Han neighbours), and they adopted Yunnanese Chinese as their language, retaining Arabic only for religious instruction, and forgetting Turkish completely. To their Han neighbours they became known as Hui, or Chinese-speaking Muslims. Relations weren't always good, but they got along fairly well until the mid-19th century, when oppression by the Ch'ing authorities sparked a major Muslim rebellion.

Between 1855 and 1873 a large part of Western Yunnan broke away from the Ch'ing Empire as local Muslims set up their own state, Ping Nan Kuo, or "Kingdom of the Peaceful South". Their leader, Tu Wen-hsiu, styled himself Sultan Sulayman and--tellingly--donned Ming Dynasty costume, indicating loyalty to the Ch'ing's predecessors rather than to some distant Middle Eastern potentate. In the end the more powerful Ch'ing armies triumphed, massacring innocent Hui as well as rebels as they advanced. Many Hui, amongst them the most hardened supporters of Tu Wen-hsiu, fled into the hills of the Golden Triangle with their horses and arms. This was no new territory to them--their trade routes had criss-crossed the region for centuries, and because of their influence Yunnanese Chinese was already the lingua franca of the area.

Some of the Hui refugees made their way south, through the Golden Triangle to Chiang Mai, the capital of Northern Thailand, where they established a small trading post which became known as Ban Chin Haw, or Chin Haw Village--today the area of the renowned Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Others settled as far afield as Vientiane and Yangon, though they maintained touch with each other, and with their fellows at home in Yunnan, through an extensive network of trade links and caravan routes.

The toughest of Tu Wen-hsiu's followers made their way into the Wa States, where they made a temporary treaty with the Wa ruler and established themselves at the small, isolated settlement of Panglong. In time they defeated and dominated the local Wa, making Panglong the de facto capital of the region. When the British arrived in 1886 they contracted with the new rulers of Panglong to supply mule trains for the colonial armies. Records from the time make it clear that the British regarded the hardy Chinese Muslims--whom they styled Panthays, after the Burmese usage--as the most advanced people in the region, noting with evident surprise the wealth and power of Panglong.But how was such money amassed in so remote a fastness of the Golden Triangle? As Sir George Scott, the first Commissioner of the Shan States, cryptically observed - armed with repeating rifles, financed by Chinese syndicates from Singapore, the Panthays of Panglong sent long caravans of mule trains the length and breadth of the region, carrying - yes, carrying pots and pans and walnuts and cotton and all manner of knick-knacks - but above all, carrying opium.

Until the fall of the Ch'ing Dynasty and the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1911, the Yunnanese Muslims of the Golden Triangle had things pretty much their own way. Nobody - neither the French, nor British, nor Siamese, nor Chinese - exerted more than a nominal influence over the region, and the Traders flourished. By way of example, in 1926 Panglong was visited by G. E. Harvey, British Superintendent of the Shan States, only to be informed by the inhabitants: "Neither the Chinese Government nor the British means anything to us. It's we who rule here".

Those who made big money often chose to become respectable, settling in towns like Chiang Mai and Mandalay and opening trading houses. Many went on Haj to Mecca, others devoted themselves to charitable causes. It was a Chinese Muslim - a Thai "Chin Haw" - who donated the land for Chiang Mai railway station to the Thai crown, for example.

During the twentieth century, however, the ethnic makeup of the "Traders of the Golden Triangle" began to change. Increasing numbers of non-Muslim, Han Chinese fled the chaotic situation in Yunnan, driven first by rival warlord factions, then by Japanese invasion, and finally by the long and savage civil war between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Mao Tse-tung's Communists. The crisis peaked in 1949, when the victorious PLA entered Yunnan, driving remnants of Chiang's Nationalist forces across the border into Burma, Laos and Thailand - the very heart of the Golden Triangle.

During the early years of the Cold War period many of these staunchly anti-communist soldiers became front-line paramilitary forces for the Thai and Lao governments. Armed, and to some extent protected by the CIA they mounted two unsuccessful counter-invasions of Yunnan, only to be forced back to their mountain fastnesses along the Thai-Burma-Lao frontier. Here, as anti-communism waned and the bitterness of isolation and defeat crept in, the KMT remnants turned increasingly to the opium business to finance not just their way of life, but life itself. Armed with sophisticated modern weaponry, they soon developed a stranglehold on the trade - and of course the muleteers they needed for transport were already there and spoke the same Yunnanese dialect. Not that the indigenous hill peoples made much distinction - Hui caravaneer or renegade KMT general, they were all "Chin Haw", Yunnanese Chinese, the ubiquitous Traders of the Golden Triangle.

Today, in the wake of the Cold War, some things have changed. The Muslim Yunnanese have, by and large, settled in urban communities in large centres like Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Mae Sai in Thailand, Lashio, Mandalay and Taunggyi in Burma. They still maintain links with their fellows in Yunnan, and dominate much of the regional caravan trade in consumer goods between China, Burma and Thailand. A visit to, for example, the prosperous Attaqwa Mosque in Chiang Mai reveals pictures of Kunming as well as of Mecca. Chinese script, as well as Arabic and Thai, is much in evidence - as are pictures of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Chinese Republic. Trade remains the lifeblood of the community, albeit - they are quick to assure - only in strictly legal commodities.

The former KMT soldiers, participants in the second mass wave of migration sparked by the communist victory in 1949, have enjoyed more mixed fortunes. More recent arrivals than the 19th century Muslims, they have settled in isolated hill top villages in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces. The best known of these is called Doi Mae Salong. Once an impoverished, heavily-armed KMT outpost at the sharp end of the Cold War, it is today a tranquil oasis of tea gardens, fruit orchards and Yunnanese-style houses.

Much of the village's prosperity is derived from Taiwanese tourists who come here to see the remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's "Lost Army" - but not all. A quiet investigation of the sloping back-streets in the chilly early morning mists may often reveal a mule train departing northwards, carrying - who knows what? A sign near the bottom of the steep hill leading to Doi Mae Salong announces in three languages - Thai, Chinese and English - "The man who cannot make it to the top of the hill is not a man". Against the odds, the Traders of the Golden Triangle continue to achieve prosperity and success.

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