‘The Rat Sh*t Chilli’: Historical Memories and Chinese Power in Upland Far-North Laos

ABSTRACT

This article offers historical and anthropological insights into China’s growing presence in an understudied but important part of the Sino–Southeast Asian frontier: the uplands of Phongsali province, far-north Laos. Bringing ethnographic fieldwork in an ethnic Khmu (and Akha) community into conversation with oral history and archival sources, it provides both historical insight into previous China–Laos entanglements (particularly the Sino–Vietnamese conflict of 1979) and anthropological insight into how culturally specific historical memories relate to upland engagement with ‘global China’ in the future-oriented present. In so doing, this article both balances the disproportionate scholarly focus on headline-making, BRI-related nodes and corridors and pushes back against the stereotype of Laos and its people as hapless prey to an all-devouring China. It also suggests a more nuanced, localised approach to upland oral history: far from being unequivocally ‘marginal’ or even ‘subversive’ to official discourse emanating from national capitals and regional centres, upland minority histories and their attendant moral claims can resonate with broader tropes, for reasons owing to both agentive appropriation and locally specific dynamics.

KEYWORDS:

• History
• ethnography
• China
• Khmu
• Laos
• Phongsali

Introduction

China’s burgeoning presence in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR or Laos) is attracting growing scholarly attention. Thus far, however, researchers have focused largely on Laos’ northwest (e.g., Dwyer, 2022; Laungaramsri, 2019; Lu, 2021; Lyttleton & Li, 2017; Nyíri & Tan, 2017; Rowedder, 2022; Tan, 2015). Strikingly little attention has been given to Laos’ northernmost province of Phongsali (for exceptions, see Bouté, 2013; 2018a; Lutz, 2022b). On one level, this is unsurprising, given that Laos’ northwest hosts several prominent China-driven initiatives including the Mohan–Boten Special Economic Zone, Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor, Kunming–Vientiane railway, Kunming–Bangkok highway, and, more broadly, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Nevertheless, scholarly neglect of Phongsali is lamentable, given the province’s unique China-related entanglements and geopolitically relevant features. Wedged between Yunnan and northern Vietnam, Phongsali hosts more than half of Laos’ 424km-long border with China. The Nam Ou river – which runs through the province from the Chinese frontier toward the Mekong – long facilitated trade between the Lao kingdom of Luang Prabang and southern China (Keay, 2005, 176–177). Supplementing the Nam Ou was a network of muletracks historically used to transport salt, opium, and forest products across present-day borders (Antonella, 2009, 66–68; Aymé, 1930; Tan, 2015, 4). Owing in part to this trade, Phongsali has a sizeable, long-established community of Yunnanese Hor (Rowedder, 2022, 73, fn. 6). More than half the province’s roughly 180,000 inhabitants are Sino–Tibetan speakers with a history of (recent) in-migration from present-day China and/or continuing cross-border ties (Schlemmer, 2012). Phongsali is also the only Lao province to border both China and Vietnam and has featured in jockeying between these two regional rivals (see below). In recent years, Vietnamese and above all Chinese investments in infrastructure, agroforestry, and mining have transformed Phongsali from one of Laos’ poorest and most inaccessible regions into an interconnected middle-income province. Four of the seven Chinese-funded hydropower dams that now traverse the Nam Ou are in Phongsali. Despite all this, scholarly engagement with China’s presence in Phongsali remains woefully limited.

This article contributes to filling this gap. It offers novel, ethnographically grounded insights into Sino–Lao entanglements from upland Phongsali. How are people in Phongsali’s increasingly less remote uplands gauging and engaging with China’s rise? What culturally specific resources can they draw on to understand and morally evaluate China’s growing power in their lives? What role does Phongsali’s unique history play? Addressing these questions, this article brings into conversation three foci of contemporary scholarship on China’s presence in Laos. Firstly, it answers recent calls to balance ‘inflationary scholarly interest’ in headline-making ‘exceptional spaces’ (Rowedder, 2022, 20, 198) with close ethnographic attention to ostensibly more mundane and peripheral settings. While there is a growing body of grounded research highlighting nuance and localised complexity in Lao engagements with ‘global China’ (e.g., DiCarlo, 2021; Dwyer, 2022; Lu, 2021; Lyttleton & Li, 2017; Rowedder, 2022), much of this research is multi-sited/breadth-oriented and/or focuses on Chinese actors in the northwest. In-depth single-sited studies of settings beyond the immediate pale of BRI nodes and corridors remain rare (Rowedder, 2022, 16; Sims, 2022, 309). In contrast, this article offers novel insights generated by long-term research conducted in a single, hitherto-unstudied Phongsali community with several noteworthy characteristics. These characteristics include an ethnic minority population with (perceived) proximity to the Lao state, largely intact land-based livelihoods, and a significant and growing Chinese presence that has not yet led to enclosure and dispossession.

Secondly, this article answers recent calls to more closely examine how ‘past imaginaries’ (Lin & Yang, 2022, 230) of China–Southeast Asia relations are ‘activated for present and future projects’ (Sims, 2022, 321; DiCarlo, 2021, 251–293). Inspired by the burgeoning ‘historical anthropology of upland Laos’ (Bouté, 2018b; Petit, 2015; 2020; Petit & Goudineau, 2024; Tappe, 2019; Tappe & Badenoch, 2021; cf. Jonsson, 2010), the following pages foreground the vernacular historical memories of Phongsali uplanders.¹ In so doing, I draw on what Stewart (2016) labels an ‘essential tension’ between two pursuits of ‘historicity’. According to Stewart (2016, 85), historians use ‘historicity’ to refer to the facticity of past events, while anthropologists use ‘historicity’ to refer to the culturally specific ways people construe, use, and represent their past. Concurrently, while historians work with a ‘correspondence theory of truth’ where statements about the past must capture verifiable events, anthropologists work with a ‘coherence theory’ that seeks out the social and cultural contexts in which groups accept statements as credible and worthy of remembrance (Palmié & Stewart, 2016, 220).² Similarly, Petit and Goudineau (2024, 17) note that historical memory offers an ‘ideal path’ to investigate ‘the grey zone’ between what ‘really happened’ and what is ‘inside people’s minds today’. Using both an historian’s ‘correspondence’ and an anthropologist’s ‘coherence’ approach to productively milk this ‘grey zone’, this article shows how current China–upland Phongsali entanglements are intertwined with both history and the locally and culturally specific telling of history.

Thirdly, and concomitantly, this article resolutely works up from local narratives, norms, and metaphors. In a recent book, Rowedder (2022, 15) proposes adopting a ‘lens of smallness’ to enable ‘ethnographically grounded exploration’ of Sino–Lao entanglements. Like the cross-border traders discussed by Rowedder, the upland peasants featured in this article frame their relationship with China in terms of ‘smallness’. However, and as evinced in the local metaphor of the ‘rat shit chilli’ (a small but very spicy chilli), this trope does not reduce to self-deprecation. As we shall see, Phongsali uplanders’ historical memories of encountering China routinely foreground local- and national-level agency and aptitude. Despite being ‘tiny’, the histories shared below assert that Laos ‘cannot be eaten’ – not least due to the Lao state’s aptitude for ‘making and keeping big friends’. Unpacking this local self-conception, this article pushes back against the stereotype of Laos and its people as hapless prey to the overpowerful Chinese ‘dragon’ (Strangio, 2020). It is indeed a stretch to infer impotence from inequality or assume that agency is a property of the strong alone (Emerson, 2020, 4). Finally, and importantly, this article analyses emic notions of ‘smallness’, without leaving behind the larger world of diplomacy and inter-national relations (Rowedder, 2022, 22). Firmly grounded in single-sited ethnography, this article also adopts a multi-scalar approach; oscillating between the local and geopolitical to show that upland ethnic minority histories need not be ‘alternative’ (Sims, 2022), ‘marginal’ (Eilenberg, 2011), or subversive to the grand narratives of ‘BRI discourse’ and/or official history (DiCarlo, 2021; Lutz, 2021a, 140ff.; Tappe, 2013). Rather than simply echoing or critiquing tropes emanating from capitals and regional centres (Lin & Yang, 2022), Phongsali upland histories may themselves be decidedly state-centric for reasons owing to both agentive appropriation and local, culturally specific dynamics.

Pursuant to these objectives, the following pages unfold both in the ethnographic present and as a roughly chronological history. I begin with a brief introduction of the research field site. We then head to the late 19^th century. Drawing on a local tale of resistance against invading Chinese ‘bandits’, I show how close perusal of upland histories can provide insight into both past events and contemporary concerns, norms, and values. Having distilled occult prowess, state entanglement, and reciprocity as key themes of locals’ culturally specific historicity, we move forward to the Cold War era, again connecting villagers’ historical memories with valuations of recent and very much ongoing Sino–Lao encounters. Here I focus on memories of the 1979 Sino–Vietnamese conflict, an oft-neglected but locally salient historical moment in which ostensibly marginal Phongsali became central to regional geopolitics. In the final section, I show how culturally specific historicity and intergenerational change are reshaping the salience of this inconvenient past in an increasingly China-dominated present. Ultimately, this account affirms that history shapes contemporary engagements and vice versa.

The Field Site

This article draws on 12 months’ ethnographic research conducted between 2017 and 2020 in the ethnic Khmu (and Akha) community of Sanjing.³ Sanjing is a village of two dozen households, perched atop a mountain ridge in central Phongsali, approximately 60 km (as the crow flies) or a bumpy day’s motorbike ride from both China and Vietnam. During Laos’ civil war (roughly 1950–1975), Sanjing’s Khmu overwhelmingly supported the eventually victorious leftists, the Pathet Lao (PL). Having skilfully translated their wartime allegiance into political capital, locals maintain a strong – if at times ambivalent – sense of agency and identification vis-à-vis Laos’ current regime. Sanjing routinely receives government support, and villagers have relatives at various levels of the state (Lutz, 2022a). Perhaps as a result (Dwyer, 2022), Sanjing’s Khmu have thus far been largely spared from the downsides of China-driven development. Notwithstanding intensifying market engagements, subsistence-buttressed land-based livelihoods remain largely intact.

Nevertheless, Sanjing’s Khmu have been increasingly impacted by China’s rise. Since the early 2000s, nearly half of Sanjing’s original Khmu population has migrated to China-driven boomtowns in northwestern Laos (cf. Bouté, 2013, 402–403). For those who have stayed, the seemingly insatiable Chinese appetite for broomgrass, Job’s tears, cardamom, and other local agro-forestry products has generated previously unattainable levels of income. In recent years, however, COVID-19-induced border closures have collapsed demand, plunging several households into financial distress. At the same time, Chinese smartphones have brought footage of Chinese bosses abusing Lao workers to Sanjing, adding to local angst over China-driven enclosure (Lutz, 2021b; RFA, 2021). In short, Sanjing’s Khmu have proactively seized opportunities offered by China’s rise but insist on doing so on their terms. As Uncle Man explained: ‘we’re happy when the Chinese buy our products … but we won’t give them our land … we don’t want to become wage labourers with the Chinese as our landlords!’ (cf. Bouté, 2018a).

The most visible local impact of China’s rise is the hydropower dam that now sits at the foot of Sanjing’s mountain ridge, some 8km from the settlement itself. According to Chinese state media, this dam is one of a ‘string of seven dazzling pearls’ that have brought ‘vitality’ and ‘around the clock electricity’ to the once ‘dark’ and ‘silent’ Nam Ou valley, all while ‘protecting and improving the local ecology’ (Ma et al., 2020). According to Sanjing’s Khmu, silt from the dam has severely depleted local fisheries, depriving them of a major source of sustenance. Repeatedly, villagers urged me to publicise pictures of their muddied local river, to ‘let the whole world know our suffering!’ Adding insult to injury, Sanjing has still not received the dam’s electricity as promised. To this day, only the patchy, weather-dependent power generated by privately purchased Chinese solar panels keeps Sanjing from remaining ‘dark’ and ‘silent’.

As I discuss elsewhere (Lutz, 2022b), villagers recount the dam’s construction as a power encounter between China and Sert, the erstwhile spirit lord of their mountain ridge. To briefly summarise: locals say that as down-payment for the dam, the Lao government allowed the Chinese to mine an adjacent hill. This hill, called Mokjeng, was Sert’s abode. A place of great occult power, Mokjeng was long off limits to locals. Disregarding the taboo, the Chinese brought ‘big machines, trucks, and drills’ and removed two enormous nuggets of gold from deep inside the hill. Enraged by the brazen theft, Sert unleashed his wrath, killing ‘many’ dam construction workers. In the end, however, Sert ‘could not outdo the Chinese’ and left Mokjeng. With Sert outdone, Mokjeng is now open for business. Most Sanjing households have eagerly expanded cash-crop cultivation onto the once-forbidden hill. As brother Jit explained, ‘before Mokjeng was scary, but now it’s safe; the Chinese liberated Mokjeng!’

In sum, this complex perception of impacts and outcomes shows that Sanjing’s Khmu engage with China’s growing presence as cautious, aspiration-driven pragmatists, at times even harnessing it to their advantage. Yet villagers do not simply cede to China as a matter of might is right. Their engagements are shaped by normative judgements. It is here that historical memories come into play. The tale of Sert’s clash with Chinese (hydro)power at Mokjeng is but the newest of several local myths and memories of encounter. In the following sections, I recount some of these myths and memories – assessing them for both their correspondence with written records and their coherence with villagers’ efforts to morally evaluate the legitimacy of China’s mushrooming clout in contemporary Laos.

‘Bandits!’

It is a hot monsoon day, a few weeks into my fieldwork. Uncle Sit, Aunt Deng, and I are out weeding Sanjing’s swiddens. Moving hunchbacked up the slopes, Sit shares, unprompted, the following story:

This happened over 100 years ago, but our parents said it’s really true. Back then we Khmu were poor and destitute … but oh we had grùu [spells, incantations]! In [the nearby village of] Gúngyai, there were two brothers, Jersri and Langrok … now they had grùu! An enormous wild boar kept entering Gúngyai, looking to eat, destroying everything … Nobody could stop it! So the two brothers pounded rice, chanting grùu, until the rice was shaped like a bullet, harder than metal! When the boar came, they shot it with that rice-bullet: dead on the spot! The brothers cut it open and look … Inside were three piglets!

Sit rises and pierces me with a wide-eyed stare: ‘A pregnant boar! Does this happen according to science? No!’ We hunch back down and continue weeding:

The king of Luang Prabang heard this and wanted the piglets … so Jersri and Langrok … went to Luang Prabang and gave the piglets to the king … in return, the king gave them a gun and three bullets … ‘go defend your area!’ he said … The brothers returned to Gúngyai … then came Nugok and his bandits, from China … murdering, pillaging, and stealing, all the way from Ngot Ou to Gúngyai … oh the villagers were afraid! The brothers fought but could not outdo Nugok … until Jersri took the gun [they had received from the king] and shot Nugok … dead on the spot! Ha! Nugok’s bandits came all the way from China … but couldn’t outdo us Khmu!

There are two ways to read the tale of Jersri and Langrok. On one hand, the story resonates with verifiable historical events. From the 1860s to the 1890s, Hor ‘flag bandits’ spawned by unrest in southern China ravaged much of northern Laos (McCarthy, 1994[1900]; Neis, 1997[1884], 116–117). At the time, Gúngyai and present-day Sanjing lay on the northern fringes of the Lao kingdom of Luang Prabang.⁴ Seeking to repel the intruders, Luang Prabang assigned local upland notables to guard and manage their areas; replete with arms, privileges, and regalia (Aymé, 1930; Bouté, 2018b, 47–48; Garnier, 1996[1885], 288). I thus wondered: were the brothers indeed historical figures as Sit insisted; local notables assigned to defend Luang Prabang against marauding Chinese bandits? Was ‘Nugok’ indeed a Hor intruder they defeated? Initially, my efforts were focused on confirming this hypothesis. However, this ambition soon confronted the common quagmires of corroborating oral history: lack of written records, inconsistencies in accounts (both by different people and by the same person over time), local politicking, and, in my specific case, the mass death of knowledgeable elders shortly before my fieldwork. Ultimately, the tale of Jersri and Langrok refused to paint more than a fuzzy picture of possible events (cf. High, 2021, 121–141; Petit, 2020, 6–7).

Moreover, and as I eventually learned, villagers simply did not share my level of interest in verifying their histories. As in much of upland Asia, past events are considered worthy of recounting less for their factual historicity than for their role in conveying ‘moral claims’ in(to) the future-oriented present (Palmié & Stewart, 2016, 219–221; Petit & Goudineau, 2024). In Sanjing, these moral claims centre on three interconnected themes. The first is ‘occult power’ (Valeri, 2000, cited in High, 2021, 101–102). As evinced in the aforementioned tale of encounter between Chinese hydropower and Sert, Sanjing’s Khmu remain committed to spirits, spells, and other unseen forces. Asserting the existence and efficacy of these forces is a persistent concern, particularly for village elders (Lutz, 2021a; 2022b). This assertion is clearly made in the tale of Jersri and Langrok. Despite being ‘poor and destitute’, the story proclaims, local Khmu have long used their grùu to engage and, if needed, outdo outsiders. The second theme is state entanglement. Like other Southeast Asian uplanders, Sanjing’s Khmu have long interacted with lowland states. Local oral histories mention not only upland–lowland antagonism, but also collaboration and collusion. Notably in the tale of Jersri and Langrok, it is not the brothers’ local, magic-made rice bullet that defeats Nugok, but a bullet gifted-in-exchange by the king of Luang Prabang. In other words, the tale takes a detour to include the Lao state: Jersri and Langrok’s grùu-bullet subdues a destructive-yet-magically potent local intruder (the pregnant wild boar), which in turn allows the brothers to establish a relationship with Luang Prabang and attain the means to repel another, non-local intruder (‘Chinese bandits’). The centrality of exchange in this detour highlights the third theme I distil from the story: reciprocity. Reciprocity is a key norm in local Khmu kinship dynamics, customary mutual aid, land-use, and human–spirit relations (Lutz, 2021a, 47–61; 2021b; Stolz, 2021). ‘Eat the [small] hog plum, give the [large] elephant apple’, a locally popular idiom proclaims, succinctly expressing the ideal that prestige and moral standing are secured and maintained by giving more than one receives.⁵ The same ‘ethic of exchange’ (Holt, 2009, 86–88) is asserted in the tale of Jersri and Langrok: rather than simply taking the three piglets, the king of Luang Prabang reciprocates with a gift that ultimately saves Gúngyai. For Sanjing’s Khmu, such life-giving largesse exemplifies righteous rule: a culturally specific ‘political morality’ in which power is legitimised through mutually beneficial exchange between unequal yet complementary actors (cf. High, 2022, 13–17; 2014, 165–166).

In sum, the tale of Jersri and Langrok is a story of entanglement between Khmu occult power, Lao state power, and intruding Chinese power in which reciprocity plays a vital role. Read historically, it offers glimpses into the still understudied history of 19^th-century Sino–Phongsali entanglements. Read anthropologically, it sheds light on culturally specific claims, norms, and values. It is with this duality in mind that we move forward to the Cold War era, assessing villagers’ historical memories both for their correspondence with verifiable events, and for their role in moral evaluations of China’s growing clout in the future-oriented present. As we shall see, here too the themes of occult power, state entanglement, and reciprocity are salient.

‘The Rat Shit Chilli’

It is a damp, gloomy day, roughly five months into my fieldwork. Uncle Hnam and I are in the kitchen of brother Kam, Sanjing’s village chief. Moonshine and roasted cassava carry our conversation to Hnam’s years in the military. ‘I was ready to fight!’ Hnam proclaims as he recalls joining the ‘many’ Vietnamese soldiers massing on Phongsali’s border with China. Hnam’s eyes beam intently as he describes how Soviet-built Chinese fighter jets repeatedly threatened to strafe them, flying so low they revealed remnants of Cyrillic script crudely scratched off their wings. ‘But truthfully, the Chinese wouldn’t dare touch us!’ Hnam asserts.

‘Why not?’ I ask. Hnam smiles and puffs out his chest:

Because we had big friends! Had a single Chinese plane entered Laos, the Soviets would have nuked Beijing! It was like this: we Lao were country bumpkins, but our uncle was the prime minister! Among the countries of the world, Laos is the maak pet kii nuu [lit: ‘the rat shit chilli’; a small but very spicy chilli] … We’re tiny, but nobody can eat us! Why? Because we know how to make and keep big friends!

Hnam laughs, pours another round, and seamlessly drifts into anecdotes from the ‘political theory training’ he received at the time:

‘What’s wrong with Mao Zedong thought?’ [the instructing cadre] asked. I raised my hand: ‘Mao Zedong thought is a coercive doctrine that doesn’t acknowledge friends; there’s no real solidarity among countries, only leaders and followers, like NATO!’⁶ ‘Exactly correct! Praise!’ [Hnam gestures rousing applause, then turns to me] It’s not a good doctrine, but still the Chinese haven’t abandoned it!

‘To Mao Zedong thought!’ Kam interrupts, lifting his glass in a bid to drown his discomfort in a humorous toast.

A few months later, I find Hnam and several other villagers on brother Pok’s porch, chatting with an ethnic Tai Dam trader from Điện Biên Phủ in Vietnam. I join them just in time to catch the tail end of an animated discussion about Sert’s departure from Mokjeng. ‘Who’ll outdo the Chinese!?’ Uncle Man proclaims to widespread agreement.

‘Have you posted those pictures [of the muddied local river] on Facebook?’ Pok asks, pulling up a stool for me.

‘Not yet,’ I reply.

‘Post them!’ Pok admonishes, somewhat briskly.

‘Hmmm … ’ Father Boun, another local elder and army veteran, hums in agreement, ‘besides, why do the Chinese get our water, our gold?’

It’s not right! During the war … yes, the Chinese helped us with shoes, guns, roads … but not a single Chinese soldier died fighting for Laos … unlike the Vietnamese, so many Viets died for Laos! Without the Viets, we wouldn’t have overcome the French or the Americans … look at Điện Biên Phủ, that was Lao country before, no? [Boun turns to the trader] The Viets defeated the French there, so we gave it to them! Truthfully, we still owe Vietnam such a debt, Laos isn’t really ours yet … If anyone has the right to build a dam here, it’s Vietnam!

There are, again, two ways to read these historical memories. In abridged summary, the corresponding history is as follows: in 1893, Laos became part of French Indochina, and Luang Prabang a French protectorate. In 1945, Lao nationalists declared independence. However, independence was not fully confirmed until Ho Chi Minh’s Việt Minh defeated returning French forces at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954. In the meantime, the fledgling Lao nation-state had been sucked into the emerging Cold War, particularly as it played out in neighbouring Vietnam. By the late 1950s, a civil war had ensued, pitching the internationally-recognised, US-backed Royal Lao Government (RLG) against the PL – a leftist insurgency backed by North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC supported North Vietnam’s 1953–1954 incursion into northern Laos that secured the PL’s foothold in Phongsali, and provided logistical, diplomatic, and material backing to PL operations throughout the war (Shu, 2021; Zhang, 2002). At the same time, China engaged (neutralist elements within) the RLG, as well as Khammouane Boupha – Phongsali’s royalist governor turned pro-PL warlord (Chanda, 1986, 173; Chiou, 1982; Zhang, 2002, 1159). Beijing opened a consulate in Phongsali town in 1961 (Storey, 2011, 166). Completed in 1963, the first of northern Laos’ many Chinese-built roads linked Phongsali not to the rest of the country, but to Mengla in Yunnan. By the early 1970s, more than 20,000 Chinese ‘engineering troops’ were building roads and bridges in northern Laos (Chanda, 1986, 130; Dwyer, 2022, 66–73; Zhang, 2002, 1160).

Beijing’s variegated involvements in Laos’ civil war were motivated by several (at times conflicting) factors including, not least, growing unease over Vietnamese domination of the PL (Chiou, 1982; Storey, 2011; Stuart-Fox, 1981, 92ff.; Zhang, 2002). This unease only intensified with the escalating Sino–Soviet split from the late 1960s. As Vietnam leaned ever closer to a now hostile Soviet Union, PRC leaders became increasingly concerned about the strategic implications for Laos (Stuart-Fox, 1981, 94; 2003, 180; Zhang, 2002, 1164–1165). Acutely aware of this concern, the PL – and, after 1975, the Lao PDR government – strove to balance ties to its Vietnamese, Soviet, and Chinese backers (Evans & Rowley, 1990, 71–74; Stuart-Fox, 1981, 85). As relations between Vietnam and China deteriorated, this balancing act became untenably precarious. In 1977, Laos and Vietnam signed a 25-year ‘Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation’ (SWB, 1977a). Within months, Lao leaders were (coyly) labelling the PRC an ‘international reactionary’ and ‘big power hegemon’ (Chiou, 1982; Stuart-Fox, 1981, 86). The decisive tipping point came in early 1979, when China invaded northern Vietnam – as ‘punishment’ for Hanoi’s toppling of the PRC-backed Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Lao officials ramped up anti-China rhetoric, organised anti-China rallies in Phongsali and other provinces, and expelled the thousands of Chinese workers still in northern Laos at the time (Chiou, 1982, 301; Zhang, 2002, 1160).

As the only Lao province to border both belligerents, Phongsali was uniquely exposed to the Sino–Vietnamese conflict. Within a fortnight of China’s invasion of northern Vietnam, Soviet, Vietnamese, and other sources were reporting that ‘many Chinese divisions’ were preparing to invade Phongsali and use the province as a ‘Deng Xiaoping trail’ and ‘springboard’ for flank attacks on northwestern Vietnam (SWB, 1979a; 1979b; 1979c). Rumours swirled of Chinese incursions, shelling, and support for ex-RLG émigrés and upland ethnic minority rebels (Brown & Zasloff, 1986, 106; Chanda, 1986, 179–180; Chiou, 1982, 301; Evans & Rowley, 1990, 168–170; Stuart-Fox, 1980, 195–200; 1981; SWB, 1979b; 1979c; 1979d). While Beijing soon withdrew from Vietnam (in the face of stiff Vietnamese resistance), Sino–Vietnamese skirmishes and concomitant concerns over PRC threats to Phongsali continued into the 1980s (Stuart-Fox, 1981; SWB, 1982a). It was not until the Sino–Lao rapprochement of 1987–1988 that Phongsali definitively moved from potential battlefield to emerging marketplace.⁷

In Sanjing’s historical memories of these turbulent decades, China occupies a perhaps unsurprisingly ambivalent place. As evinced in Boun’s dismissive statements, most villagers have a rather muted appreciation of Beijing’s support for the PL’s ‘national liberation struggle’ (as the Lao civil war is officially called today). When it comes to Cold War-era China, it is above all the Sino–Vietnamese conflict that dominates memories. Repeatedly, and much to my initial confusion, Sanjing’s Khmu spoke of ‘war’ and ‘enemy’ not with reference to the civil war and RLG/US, but with reference to 1979 and the PRC. Hnam and Boun are among several locals who found themselves – once again, if you will – called on to guard their state’s frontier against Chinese ‘intruders’. Uncle Sit, for instance, was sent to the border between China and neighbouring Luang Nam Tha province. He vividly recalls challenging PRC soldiers who were ‘illegally moving border markers’ near the village of Boten. In one such incident, Sit says the Chinese opened fire, killing a member of his unit; ‘but we were strictly forbidden to shoot back’. Sit’s recollections clearly resonate with official claims made at the time: that Chinese soldiers entered Laos near Boten, shot ‘several’ Lao soldiers, and that Laos declined to retaliate for fear of escalation (Stuart-Fox, 1980, 200; SWB, 1979g; 1979o). Hnam’s memory of joining ‘many’ Vietnamese soldiers similarly corresponds with reports of ‘massive Vietnamese troop reinforcements’ on the Sino–Phongsali border (SWB, 1979e; 1979f; Baird, 2018, 746–747; Evans & Rowley, 1990, 169; Stuart-Fox, 1981, 86–87). His recollections of studying the dangers of ‘Mao Zedong thought’ also match the historical record: throughout 1979, the Lao military held ‘political courses’ for soldiers to ‘study the new situation’ and ‘clearly understand’ the ‘threat’ posed by ‘Maoist reactionaries’ (e.g., SWB, 1979l). Boun’s dismissive stance on Chinese support during the civil war also echoes state discourse at the time. Concomitant to political trainings, officials laboured to re-cast now inconvenient – and often very recent – memories of PRC solidarity and support. While in 1977 Laos still expressed ‘profound gratitude’ for ‘valuable’ PRC road-building assistance during the civil war (SWB, 1977b), by 1979 officials were claiming that, in fact, China long intended to use these roads solely ‘to attack Vietnam’ (SWB, 1979n). The following ‘educational conversation’ between two fictitious characters, ‘Uncle Ka’ and ‘Uncle Han’, from a June 1979 Lao National Radio broadcast (SWB, 1979k) is revealing:

Ka: Why have the Peking rulers betrayed the LPDR and been hostile? We’ve never done anything harmful to them … in the past, [during] our struggle, why did they give help to our revolution?

Han: We must understand clearly that the help was not given by the traitorous [current] Peking rulers [but by] the genuine Chinese revolutionaries and Chinese people. At that time, [China’s] big-nation expansionists were not yet strong … they were outnumbered by genuine revolutionary forces [acting] in accordance with proletarian internationalism. Of course, we thank the genuine revolutionaries for their help. However, the [current] Peking rulers gave assistance for their future gain … [they] want to implement their big-nation expansionism, [control] Laos and use it as a path into Southeast Asia.

Ka: Did the [current] Peking rulers’ opposition to the Lao revolution begin right after the establishment of the Lao PDR, comrade?

Han: Not totally correct, comrade. The Peking rulers who are pursuing the Maoist line [cf. Hnam on ‘Mao Zedong thought’] and big-nation expansionist policy began opposing our country right at the beginning of our revolution [i.e., from the beginning of the civil war]. However, such opposition was not open but secret. [During the war], the Chinese simultaneously helped and opposed us [!].

Using radio, loudspeakers, and ‘political courses’ to re-write history in this way was considered particularly important in northern upland areas where erstwhile exposure to Chinese engineers was now deemed a security risk, and where ‘agents’ of the ‘Peking reactionary rulers’ were allegedly using ‘psychological warfare tactics’ to induce ‘credulous’ minorities to rise up against the Lao PDR and Vietnamese ‘occupation’ (SWB, 1979j; 1979m; 1979n). As trusted revolutionaries in an area teeming with Sino–Tibetan uplanders (Lutz, 2022a), Sanjing’s Khmu would have been made acutely aware of the need to ‘clearly understand’ China’s now allegedly dubious role during national liberation.⁸

Finally, the same moral claim conveyed in Hnam’s metaphor of the ‘rat shit chilli’ also features prominently in official discourse of the period. Throughout 1979, Lao and Vietnamese sources emphasised that while Laos was a ‘small country’ that cannot threaten ‘big China’, ‘Lao people have never submitted to anyone’ (SWB, 1979b). As statements repeatedly proclaimed, buoyed by ‘the iron-like invincible strength’ of ‘militant solidarity’ from the Vietnamese and Soviet Union, Laos would never be ‘swallowed’ by Beijing’s ‘big-nation expansionists’ (Stuart-Fox, 1980, 205, 207; SWB, 1979e; 1979h; 1979i; 1979j; 1982a).⁹

In short, Sanjing’s historical memories of Cold War-era China – and 1979 in particular – clearly correspond with both the historical record and official discourse at the time (see below).¹⁰ On one level, such resonance is unsurprising: a clear indicator of local people’s intimate, longstanding entanglement with the Lao state.¹¹ Yet there is more to Sanjing’s historical memories than mimetic compliance with national narratives. Here, too, culturally specific forces are at work. Firstly, and much as in the tale of Jersri and Langrok, villagers recall their (near-)confrontation with China not least to insert their occult power into wider events. Sit, for instance, recounted his participation in the aforementioned border skirmishes largely to insist that ‘had the Chinese shot me, the bullets wouldn’t have entered!’ He attributes his impregnability to the glaang khong (stone amulet containing a protective spell) he wore throughout his sojourn in the military. Secondly, and much like tales of Chinese dam-builders ‘stealing’ Sert’s gold but failing to deliver electricity, local histories of Cold War-era China carry moral claims that centre on reciprocity. To those gathered on Pok’s porch, Boun’s assertion that the PRC provided (too) little help during the civil war and thus has no right to Laos’ resources rang true chiefly by virtue of its coherence with a broader image of present-day Chinese as rapacious intruders, greedily taking while giving (too) little in return (Rowedder, 2022, 214). To give just two examples: several months prior to hearing Boun’s statement, I was out weeding swiddens at the height of the locust plague then sweeping through northern Laos. Overhearing me note that the swarms were coming from the north (i.e., from China), one prominent villager proclaimed, half-jokingly, that ‘Chinese locusts’ and people were ‘much the same’: ‘they both come to Laos looking to eat, destroying everything [cf. the pregnant boar in the tale of Jersri and Langrok] … and when they’re full they go home, leaving nothing!’ A few weeks later, Father Dee commented on the (then still unfinished) Kunming–Vientiane railway by asking:

Why are the Chinese digging so many tunnels for that train?¹² They could just put tracks through the valleys … they dig tunnels so they can look for gold and minerals in our soil! How many tons will they take? And what will we get in return?

Like Hnam’s claim that the Chinese continue to follow ‘Mao Zedong thought’, these statements express a lingering/resurgent suspicion that Beijing still seeks to devour Laos. ‘In 20 years, we’ll be a Chinese province!,’ villagers repeatedly proclaimed (cf. Strangio, 2020, 24). It is in this context of contemporary angst that local histories of resisting Chinese ‘big-nation expansionists’ remain worth telling. For Sanjing’s Khmu, the local metaphor of the ‘rat shit chilli’ iterates the (falsely?) comforting claim that while Laos may indeed be ‘tiny’, its leaders can skilfully negotiate asymmetry and, if needed, call on ‘big friends’ to deter anyone seeking to ‘swallow’ their country (Emerson, 2020, 9; Tan, 2015, 14).

‘The Chinese are Smart … ’

Nevertheless, it would be a distorting simplification to posit Sanjing’s historical memories as merely coalescing into Sino-phobic angst. As evinced in local tales of Chinese dam-builders ‘liberating’ once-tabooed Mokjeng, sitting alongside villagers’ mistrust and (fantasies of) resistance are sentiments of awe and aspiration. The electricity poles that now preside over Sert’s once-forbidden hill not only remind locals of broken promises and depleted fish stocks. They also serve as boasting monuments to the triumph of Chinese technology over local occult power – a triumph that, as noted, has allowed Sanjing’s Khmu to significantly expand lucrative cash-crop cultivation (see also DiCarlo, 2021, 31; Tran & Suhardiman, 2020, 224 on the ‘symbolic’ power of infrastructure). In short, and like the intruding boar in the tale of Jersri and Langrok, Sanjing’s Khmu consider Chinese power to be both potentially destructive and intriguingly potent. ‘We Lao are stupid … the Chinese are smart,’ Uncle Man quipped. ‘That’s why they outdo us … so we must make friends, learn from them!’ Indeed, at times villagers explicitly invoked China as both a model and a foil for indirect critique of affairs at home (DiCarlo, 2021, 3–6; Rowedder, 2022, 205–215). ‘In China, we wouldn’t have to pay a single kip!’ brother Jit sighed while preparing Sanjing’s annual tax forms; ‘over there, if you’re peasants like us, the government gives you money!’

In short, Sanjing’s Khmu consider intruding Chinese power much as they do the local occult power of spirit lords such as Sert (Lutz, 2022b): as ambiguous potential – to be both feared and steered in accordance with ever-evolving circumstances. This ambivalent approach crucially inflects locals’ historical memories. Tales of past encounters are told not simply to resist or condemn, but also to assert Sanjing’s place within Beijing’s proclaimed pursuit of ‘win–win’ development (Dwyer, 2022, 87–88; Sims, 2022). Vexations over Chinese dam-builders destroying local fisheries while failing to provide electricity, denials of China’s historical right to Laos’ resources, and calls for Beijing to abandon ‘Mao Zedong thought’ do not preclude redemption. Rather, they convey implicit appeals for China to engage in better faith. Sanjing’s Khmu lament not China’s intrusion per se, but an alleged lack of reciprocity. Here too an ‘ethic of exchange’ is at work in which Chinese power should and can be legitimised through mutually beneficial give-and-take between unequal yet potentially complementary actors. Sanjing’s Khmu are ready to give Beijing the hog plum, but to accept the legitimacy of Chinese pre-eminence, they demand at least the prospect of receiving an elephant apple in return. ‘And what will we get?’ Father Dee asked.

This pragmatic, future-oriented approach is intimately entangled with locals’ culturally specific approach to the past. As mentioned, Sanjing’s Khmu do not consider the conservation and transmission of historical facts to be ends in themselves. Indeed, and for customary reasons that need not detain us here, villagers are largely unconcerned with events predating the lifetimes of their grandparents (Lutz, 2021a, 62–66, 362–376).¹³ Persistently preoccupied with identifying present sources of prowess (cf. Wolters, 1999, 3), locals see little point in holding historical grudges. Most consider Laos’ rapprochement with China not as betrayal, but as renewed evidence of their government’s aptitude at turning old ‘big enemies’ into new ‘big friends’. The same Uncle Hnam who was ‘ready to fight’ China in 1979 proclaims that, today, fellow ‘socialist countries’ Laos, China, and Vietnam would ‘fight together’ to defend North Korea in any conflict with the US.

This eclectic attitude is further buoyed by intergenerational dynamics. As elsewhere in Laos, history-telling in Sanjing remains the prerogative of older males (Petit, 2020; Petit & Goudineau, 2024). At present, Hnam, Sit, Boun, and other veterans of 1979 are respected local elders and officials. Their words and memories carry weight, crucially shaping public opinion about China’s contemporary rise. However, this is changing. As I discuss elsewhere (Lutz, 2021b), Sanjing’s older generations find keeping pace with Laos’ rapid (China-driven) development a mounting challenge. Increasingly, elders feel compelled to cede to younger generations (‘before the grandfather taught the grandchildren, now the grandchildren teach the grandfather,’ a local idiom proclaims). Seeing educated youth as their best path to progress – or at least to avoid becoming landless labourers on Chinese plantations – most villagers invest the bulk of their (China-generated) income into schooling their children. Increasingly, these investments have been directed northwards. In the late 2000s, Uncle Man’s son Som became the first villager to study in Yunnan. Upon returning, Som secured a spot in Phongsali’s foreign affairs office. His job: facilitating for Chinese investors. At the time of my fieldwork, three Sanjing youngsters were in Yunnan, studying on Chinese government scholarships (cf. Rowedder, 2022, 213). In 2018, Som helped his cousin Mone secure a much-coveted scholarship at a prestigious military academy in Shanghai. Her two-year sojourn in China’s preeminent megalopolis has visibly transformed Mone; from a shy peasant girl into a confident, cosmopolitan young lady. Mone now works in Vientiane and uses Chinese apps such as WeChat and TikTok to keep in touch with former Shanghai classmates from as far away as Pakistan and Burkina Faso. Closer to home, and despite COVID-19, aspiring Sanjing youngsters have found work with Chinese-run businesses in burgeoning towns such as Oudomxay and Luang Prabang. For these increasingly mobile youth, historical memories of Sino–Lao belligerence have little salience. ‘We don’t concern ourselves with such old stories,’ Hak’s daughter Tou noted with a shrug. Buoyed by their (largely) successful engagements, youngsters see China as less threat than opportunity. While their parents lament its destructive impacts, Sanjing teenagers post stylised pictures of the nearby dam on social media; material proof of their participation in an increasingly China-led modernity (Lutz, 2021a, 339). In short, rather than simply ‘furthering ethnic minority marginalization’ (Sims, 2020, 271), China is opening whole new worlds for Sanjing’s Khmu. More than passive victims, local youth in particular are actively contributing to ‘China-induced change’ (Rowedder, 2022, 200). As Beijing provides new avenues towards prosperity, a tentative acceptance of Chinese power as nurturing and thus legitimate is taking root in Sanjing, reshaping – though not yet eliminating – the local salience of (grand)parental histories of a hostile, devouring China.¹⁴

To an extent, this pragmatic, future-oriented approach is again one that Sanjing’s Khmu share with their state. Today, the official attempts to rework historical memory exemplified in the above-quoted radio dialogue between Ka and Han have been all but reversed. Apart from vague and isolated references to the bilateral relationship going through ‘ups and downs’ or ‘withstanding the test of time’ (Laungaramsri, 2019, 197; Sims, 2022, 312), erstwhile Sino–Lao antagonism has been fully erased from official Lao (and Chinese) history, enabling leading figures in both countries to confidently proclaim that Laos and the PRC ‘have always stayed committed to their common ideals, trusted and offered mutual support for each other, and worked for a shared future’ (Pholsena, 2022, emphasis added; Baird, 2018, 748; Sims, 2022, 313). The same Boten where Sit once confronted encroaching Chinese ‘enemies’ is today a bustling border town, de facto PRC exclave, and entry point for the Kunming–Vientiane railway. In May 2023, the Lao PDR and PRC held their first joint military exercises near Vientiane, codenamed ‘Friendship Shield’ (RFA, 2023).

Nevertheless, angst and suspicion over the expansionist intentions of ‘big China’ remain real and salient sentiments even for Sanjing’s aspirational youths, just as congruence between local and official history’s selective amnesia remains far from total. Despite increased divergence from today’s national narrative, imaginaries of a violent, rapacious, domineering China remain vehicles for moral claims, readily activated as circumstances demand. In short, for both Sanjing’s Khmu and their state, history is a tool, to be reworked, discarded, and/or revived in accordance with the ever-shifting contingencies of the future-oriented present. On balance, however, Sanjing’s Khmu seem increasingly willing to hedge their leaders’ bet that China is not a devouring ‘big-nation expansionist’ and may yet be(come) the nurturing harbinger of ‘a bright shared future’ it proclaims to be (An, 2018). Here as elsewhere, the present is proving ‘irreducible’ in its effects on how the past is remembered (Petit, 2015, 411, citing Sahlins, 1985).

Before concluding, some thoughts about the implications of these dynamics for Sanjing’s – and Laos’ – longstanding allegiance to Vietnam. In marked contrast to their muted appreciation of PRC support, older villagers fondly remember the Vietnamese stationed near Sanjing for much of the civil war; ‘helping in the fields’, ‘patrolling’, and ‘spying, like you are now’ (as the late war veteran Grandma Tee quipped during one of our interviews). Many attribute their rudimentary Vietnamese to these soldiers. Some joined the PL and went on to study in Vietnam. Boun’s assertion that ‘if anyone’ then only Vietnam has the right to build a dam near Sanjing is but one of many expressions of the continuing local salience of Lao–Vietnam ‘special solidarity’. In 2018, two ethnic Tai Dam teachers from the nearby Vietnamese province of Lai Châu spent five months teaching Vietnamese at the district high school in the valley below Sanjing. Each weekend, these teachers accompanied a different group of students to their home village.¹⁵ During their weekend in Sanjing, the teachers were at visible pains to be on their best behaviour, sharing lengthy pleasantries, food, and too much moonshine with nearly every household. Buoyed by such localised diplomacy, officially reinforced memories of wartime solidarity and longstanding people-to-people connections, Vietnam retains a sympathetic edge over Beijing, particularly among Sanjing’s older generations. Here at least, Laos’ long-anticipated pivot away from Vietnam and towards China has yet to definitively materialise (cf. Dwyer, 2022, 151; Storey, 2011, 165, 173).

However, this too is changing. Slowly but surely, Sanjing’s Khmu are gaining familiarity and even intimacy with China, with village youths leading the way. In contrast to the growing rush for Chinese education, only one local youngster has recently gone to study in Vietnam.¹⁶ Chinese fortune-seekers have set up shop in the valley below Sanjing – peddling knock-off smartphones, processed foods, and other sundries. For Sanjing’s Khmu, these recent immigrants are the new local faces of ‘global China’. Encounters I witnessed were always cordial and often convivial. Shortly after my fieldwork, one of Aunt Deng’s cousins married a Chinese foreman involved in the dam construction, thus establishing Sanjing’s first known kinship ties to China. Signs of growing Sino–Lao intimacy are also manifesting in the local occult economy. Like uplanders elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Sanjing’s Khmu have long integrated outside power into their local rituo-cosmological repertoire (Lutz, 2021a; 2022b). Over time, Indic deities, Buddhism, Tai–Lao lords, and PL/Lao PDR leaders have all joined Sanjing’s amorphous pantheon of spirits. Visiting Sanjing in early 2020, I noticed yet another addition: 100-yuan bills were being tied to local wrists alongside Lao kip in customary soul-strengthening ceremonies, or placed on altars alongside (replicas of) French colonial piaster coins during spirit healing rituals. ‘In this era, our spirits like Chinese money too,’ Father Gle joked upon enquiry.

‘What about Vietnamese dong?’ I asked.

Gle laughed, ‘not so much, Viet money doesn’t have value like Chinese!’

Conclusion

This article has offered novel, ethnographically grounded insights into China’s rise from the uplands of Phongsali province, far-north Laos. Bringing oral and written sources from this oft-neglected area into conversation, it has provided both historical insight into previous (and still understudied) Sino–Lao entanglements, and anthropological insight into how the culturally specific telling of history relates to the future-oriented present. Far from being simply ‘alternative’, ‘marginal’, or even ‘subversive’ to official discourse, the historical memories shared here show that upland voices, norms, and values may be decidedly ‘state-centric’ for their own agentive reasons. Productively integrating local narratives with those emanating from national capitals and regional centres, Sanjing’s Khmu do more than inflict ‘epistemic violence’ (Sims, 2022) on themselves. Ostensibly peripheral upland histories need not be confined to compliant appropriation of state discourse or entirely ‘locally charged’ (High, 2008, 546; 2014, 4ff). They may indeed be ‘alter-native’ (Knauft, 2002).¹⁷

Concomitantly, and far from being unequivocally ‘restrictive’ (Sims, 2022, 318), the ‘frame’ of the nation-state can also be empowering to ethnic minorities. Buoyed by creative vernacularisation of official discourse, the historical memories shared here go well beyond the reductionist, well-critiqued binary of submission vs resistance. Sanjing’s ever-evolving histories of China offer not a blueprint for struggle, but a nuanced, pragmatic, foresightful take on power and legitimacy in which both the state and culturally specific values play key roles. They partake in the same questions currently pervasive throughout Laos, Asia, and the world more broadly: is China’s growing power nurturing or devouring? Opportunity or threat? Is Beijing (once again) a ‘big-nation expansionist’ or the harbinger of a ‘bright shared future’? Or both? How can ‘small’ countries and villages harness China’s increasingly undeniable prowess without being ‘eaten’ in the process? Crucially inflected by these very contemporary concerns, Sanjing’s historical memories facilitate villagers’ efforts to approach China much as they would any other intruding power, human or occult: as an a priori morally neutral force, to be gauged for its nurturing and/or devouring potential and, if possible, hitched to local ends. Despite being infused with tropes of ‘smallness’, local histories do not paint a picture of Sanjing, Phongsali, or Laos as simply ‘weak and vulnerable’ (Strangio, 2020, 106; Rowedder, 2022, 22). Ultimately, the overarching moral claim conveyed in the upland historical memories shared here is one of future-oriented yearning for mutually beneficial exchange. On balance, a culturally specific acceptance of China as a powerful, reciprocating, and thus legitimate patron is taking tentative root in this understudied but important part of the China–Southeast Asia frontier.

Finally, and to be sure, Sanjing’s pragmatic approach to Chinese power is of course contingent on a fortuitous blend of locally specific factors. As mentioned, these include historically endowed proximity to state power and the continuing availability of independent land-based livelihoods. Buoyed by their history, Sanjing’s Khmu are clearly adept at articulating themselves as ‘worthy’ citizens, stakeholders, and agents of the Lao PDR, and are thus comparatively well positioned to negotiate the terms of their (China-driven) development (Dwyer, 2022, 11, 111ff.). In Sanjing, encroaching Chinese power has not (yet) led to enclosure, displacement, and proletarianisation, affording locals a crucial degree of autonomy and agency. Of course, the same does not apply everywhere in Laos, let alone the wider region. Sanjing’s case thus highlights the importance of specificity: geographical, cultural, and historical – and, consequently, the need for in-depth, single-sited, historically informed ethnography. Even the biggest regional/global shifts play out in a mosaic of ‘small’ conjunctures, and only nuanced understanding of multiple local settings can offer satisfactory intimations of an integrated whole.

Acknowledgements

This article draws on research conducted in accordance with a University of Sydney’s Human Research Ethics Committee approval (no. 2015/954 modified). All local place and person names have been anonymised. I thank the two anonymous reviewers and the people of ‘Sanjing’.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Carlyle Greenwell Bequest, Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney; and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Doctoral Travel Grant Scheme, University of Sydney.

Notes

^1. See Petit’s (2020, 9) definition of ‘historical memory’ as ‘situated narration of past events of collective importance’ through discourse and performance.

^2. See also Palmié & Stewart’s (2016, 209–210) distinction between ‘anthropological history’ and an ‘anthropology of history’. Of course, Stewart (2016) and Palmié & Stewart (2016) concede that historians too have studied how societies relate to the past, just as anthropologists have enquired into what really happened.

^3. ‘Sanjing’ and local names are pseudonyms. In-migrating Akha now make up one-third of Sanjing’s population. For reasons discussed elsewhere (Lutz, 2022a), I focus here on Sanjing’s Khmu. Fieldwork was conducted using the Lao language without a translator or field assistant. All translations of verbatim statements into English are mine.

^4. Sanjing itself was founded in the early 20^th century (Lutz, 2021a).

^5. Hog plum – Khmu: bleh kók, L. Spondias Pinnata. Elephant apple – Khmu: bleh pru, L. Dillenia Indica.

^6. ‘Coercive doctrine’ – latthi kum, latthi bangkap (ລັດທິກຸມ, ລັດທິບັງຄັບ). ‘Political theory training’ – feugophom tidsadeekanmuang (ຝຶກອົບຮົມທິດສະດີການເມືອງ).

^7. Trade between Yunnan and Phongsali quietly resumed in 1983. Beijing and Vientiane normalised ties in 1987 (Lu, 2021, 431). In 1989, Lao prime minister Kaysone Phomvihane became the first foreign leader to visit Beijing after the Tiananmen massacre (Storey, 2011, 169). Deng Xiaoping welcomed Kaysone as an ‘old comrade’ and lauded the visit as marking restoration of ‘all-round relations’ between the two countries (Gunn, 1990, 84).

^8. See also Zhang (2002, 1165) and Stuart-Fox (2003, 166) on official Vietnamese history’s minimisation of China’s support for the Lao revolution.

^9. ‘Big-nation expansionists’ – phuak khangai anakhet phe amnat (ພວກຂະຫຍາຍອານາເຂດແຜ່ອຳນາດ; SWB, 1982b). The trope of the ‘rat shit chilli’ also resonates with similar tropes in other Southeast Asian countries; see e.g., Emerson (2020, 7) on Singapore’s erstwhile self-portrayal as a ‘poisonous shrimp’.

^10. Even Boun’s claim that Điện Biên Phủ was ‘Lao country’ and gifted to Vietnam after the Việt Minh defeated the French there resonates with Điện Biên Phủ’s belated integration into the (North) Vietnamese nation-state (Lentz, 2019). Of course, here too correspondence remains fuzzy. Boun’s assertion that ‘not a single’ Chinese ‘died fighting’ for the PL during the civil war, for instance, is almost certainly incorrect historically (Zhang, 2002, 1160–1162). See also Emerson (2020, 11) vs Hnam’s claim about Chinese fighter jets.

^11. As beneficiaries, stakeholders, and vanguards of the Lao PDR, Sanjing’s Khmu have a lengthy track record of imbibing official slogans and discourse. Local speech is littered with – and inflected by – value-laden terms drawn directly from the state’s official lexicon (Badenoch, 2018; Lutz, 2021a; Petit, 2015, 414; 2020).

^12. 48 per cent of the 420km railway runs through 72 tunnels (Lampton et al., 2020, 139).

^13. Concomitantly – and somewhat ironically – the tale of Jersri and Langrok’s resistance to intruding Chinese bandits ‘over 100 years ago’ currently sits on the fuzzy, ever-moving horizon of local historical memory.

^14. Even recent woes have not bucked this overall trend: Sanjing’s Khmu do not blame COVID-19 on Beijing and gratefully received free lifesaving Sinovac vaccines, just as they attribute ongoing economic difficulties to their own government rather than to China.

^15. Tai Dam and Lao are mutually intelligible.

^16. In 2019, brother Kam’s eldest daughter was among 40 Phongsali youngsters selected to study early childhood education in Lai Châu on a Vietnamese government scholarship.

^17. Critiquing both the failure to engage seriously with ‘local notions of value, worth, and success’, and the relativist naivety of giving ‘short shrift to larger patterns of power’, Knauft (2002, 3–5, 10) invokes the term ‘alter-native’ to occupy a ‘productive middle ground’ between wider ‘material, economic, or political factors’ and localised ‘cultural and subjective orientations’.