Towards the late 19th century, three empires – the Qing, the British and the French – were fast closing in on the large, multi-polity and multi-ethnic hill region connecting southwest Yunnan, east Burma, and north Laos, known as the Shan-Dai region. These were semi-autonomous polities, interrelated by marriage and client relations, and tied to either the Qing state or the Burmese kingdom. This talk focuses on the northern Shan-Dai territor
