The Golden Triangle: Inside Southeast Asia's Drug Trade

Opium, a relatively recent product in Burma, and its derivative, heroin, have become Burma's major illegal commodities. Their production and trade is dominated by the Wa tribe. . . . Chin seeks to provide a brief history of the Wa; the opium, heroin, and methamphetamine trades; drug use and control; and the drug business and politics. In the absence of reliable historical studies and hard data, the author assembled research teams, devised questionnaires, and used the information acquired to develop his narrative. -Choice, September 2009

Ko-lin Chin provides a rare insight into drug production and trafficking in Southeast Asia. Despite the Golden Triangle being a pivotal force in the global drug trade, its inaccessibility means that it is rarely the focus of academic research. Not only doesChin successfully negotiate this hidden world of northern Burma to do his field research, but his work is remarkable in placing its drug trade in a geopolitical context. His field research involves numerous interviews with people either involved in, or affected by, the drug trade, ranging from opium growers to state officials. He weaves together his research findings with a detailed historical account of the political and ethnic influences that have fostered the drug trade in this area, including both the opium trade and, more recently, methamphetamine production and trafficking. His courage and objectivity in this venture is admirable. -Rebecca McKetin, Pacific Affairs

This is a necessary book for students of global drug commerce and a rare glimpse of contemporary life in the northern Burmese hill country, a region inaccessible even by the reclusive standards of Myanmar. -Dean R. Gerstein, Contemporary Sociology

Ko-lin Chin has written a seminal study of one of Southeast Asia's most destructive conflicts and deadliest exports, and this book deserves to be read by Asian scholars across a broad spectrum of disciplines. The author demonstrates how to conduct fieldwork in dangerous locations, never lose sight of the human factor, and also how to construct a balanced book of great use in the broader academic and policy worlds. -David Scott Mathieson, Contemporary Southeast Asia

The Golden Triangle provides a richly detailed account of drug production, use, trade, and enforcement in the region. Ko-lin Chin's individual site narratives of the Wa residents are unique. -David Steinberg, Georgetown University