Stalemate: Autonomy and Insurgency on the China-Myanmar Border

Winner of the AMSEAS Early Career Book Prize of The Association of Mainland Southeast Asian Scholars

Stalemate reveals the history and contemporary politics of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia's strongest insurgent army on Myanmar's border with China. This ethnographic tale recounts how a highland group, often dismissed as rebels or narcotraffickers, maintains a relational autonomy between two powerful lowland states. The Wa polity engages rather than evades these surrounding states, ye...