Thailand: A Chin Haw woman in the Yunnanese KMT village of Padang in the hills near Tam Ngop, Chiang Rai Province (c. 1993)

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 Prabang in Laos, Moulmein in Burma, Dali and Kunming in Yunnan, and Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

Chinese Nationalist troops entered Thailand in the 1960s and were divided into three main groups. The KMT 5th Army, numbering just under 2,000 men and commanded by General Tuan Shi-wen, established an armed camp on Doi Mae Salong close by the Burmese frontier in Chiang Rai Province.

The KMT 3rd Army, numbering around 1,500 men under the command of General Li Wen-huan, made its headquarters at the remote and inaccessible settlement of Tam Ngop, in the farthest reaches of Chiang Mai Province.

Finally a smaller force of about 500 men, the KMT 1st Independent Unit under General Ma Ching-kuo, acted as a link between the two main factions, reporting directly to Taiwan. All three groups were considered to be "Haw" by the Thais, though of the three commanding officers only one, General Ma Ching-kuo, was a Muslim.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

David Henley

Credit:

Pictures From Asia