Guanxi and regulation in networks: The Yunnanese jade trade between Burma and Thailand, 1962-88

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 479-501

  Chang, Wen Chin ^a  

^a ACADEMIA SINICA   (Taiwan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GEMSTONE; IMMIGRANT POPULATION; INTERNATIONAL TRADE; REGULATORY FRAMEWORK; TRADE RELATIONS;

ASIA; EURASIA; MYANMAR; SOUTHEAST ASIA; THAILAND;

EID: 33845784351     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463404000244     Document Type: Article

References (137)

1. Wen-Chin Chang, 'The Kuomintang Yunnanese Chinese of northern Thailand', in The dynamics of emerging ethnicities: Immigrant and indigenous ethnogenesis in confrontation, ed. Johan Leman (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1998), pp. 35-55;
2. Chang, 'From war refugees to immigrants: The case of the KMT Yunnanese Chinese in northern Thailand', International Migration Review, 35, 4 (2001): 123-46.
3. Barry Wellman et al., 'Networking guanxi, in Social connections in China: Institutions, culture, and the changing nature of guanxi, ed. Thomas Gold et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 221-42.
4. Thomas Gold et al., 'An introduction to the study of guanxi, in Gold et al. ed., Social connections in China, p. 3.
5. N. E. Whitten and E. M. Wolfe, 'Network analysis', in Handbook of social and cultural anthropology, ed. John Joseph Honigmann (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973), p. 717;
6. J. Clyde Mitchell, 'Social networks', Annual Review of Anthropology, 3 (1974): 279-99;
7. Nitin Nohria and Robert G. Eccles, Networks and organizations: Structure, form and action (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1992), p. 1;
8. Walter W. Powell and Laurel Smith-Doerr, 'Networks and economic life', in The handbook of economic sociology, ed. Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 368.
9. J. Clyde Mitchell, 'The concept and use of social networks', in Social networks in urban situations: Analyses of personal relationships in Central African towns, ed. J. Clyde Mitchell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1969), p. 9.
10. John A. Barnes, 'Class and committees in a Norwegian island parish', Human Relations, 7, 1 (1954): 39-58.
11. Other examples include Peter C. W. Gutkind, 'African urbanism: Mobility and social network', International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 6, 1 (1965): 48-60;
12. Jeremy Boissevain, 'The place of non-groups in the social sciences', Man, 3, 4 (1968): 542-56;
13. and Johan Leman, From challenging culture to challenged culture: The Sicilian cultural code and the socio-cultural praxis of Sicilian immigrants in Belgium (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1987).
14. Raymond T. Firth, Elements of social organization (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951);
15. Marcel Mauss, The gift: Forms and functions of exchange in archaic society, tr. Ian Cunnison (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1954);
16. Bronislaw Malinowski, The Argonauts of the western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1961).
17. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The elementary structures of kinship, tr. J. H. Bell et al. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969);
18. Lévi-Strauss, Structural anthropology I, tr. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1969).
19. Abner Cohen, 'Political anthropology: The analysis of the symbolism of power relations', Man, 4, 2 (1969): 223.
20. Representative writings include R. W. Nicholas, 'Factions: A comparative analysis', in Political systems and the distribution of power, ed. Michael Banton (New York: Praeger, 1965), pp. 21-61;
21. Norman B. Schwartz, 'Goal attainment through factionalism: A Guatemalan case', American Anthropologist, 71, 6 (1969): 1088-108;
22. and The political consequences of social networks, ed. Gwen Moore and J. Allen Whitt (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1992).
23. Whitten and Wolfe, 'Network analysis', pp. 732-5 discuss the integration of the three theories;
24. the quotation is from p. 740. For application of the network approach in political and economic undertakings see, for example, Powell and Smith-Doerr, 'Networks and economic life' and Social structures: A network approach, ed. Barry Wellman and S. D. Berkowitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
25. See, for example, James T. Fawcett and Benjamin V. Carino, 'Explaining diversity: Asia and Pacific immigration systems', in Pacific bridges: The neiv immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands, ed. James T. Fawcett and Benjamin V. Carino (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1987), p. 23;
26. Mary M. Kritz and Hania Zlotnik, 'Global interactions: Migration systems, processes, and policies', in International migration systems: A global approach, ed. Mary M. Kritz et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 6;
27. and Larissa Adlerde Lomnitz, Networks and marginality: Life in a Mexican shanty-town (New York: Academic Press, 1977), p. 38.
28. Wellman et al., 'Networking guanxi', p. 225.
29. Liang Shuming, Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi [The essential features of Chinese culture] (Taibei: Cheng Zhung Book Co., 1989 reprint), p. 111 (relation-oriented)
30. and Hu Shi, Zhexueshi dagang [An outline of the history of (Chinese) philosophy] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1919), p. 116 (interaction).
31. The differential mode is discussed in Fei Xiaotong (Fei Hsiao-tung), From the soil: The foundation of Chinese society, tr. Gary G. Hamilton and Wang Zheng (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Fei uses the metaphor of concentric circles of ripples to describe each person's network of ties; each ring represents a circle of differentially categorised social connections to the centre, i.e., the individual (pp. 60-70).
32. Fei Xiaotong, From the soil: The foundation of Chinese society, Ibid., p. 67.
33. Ambrose Y. C. King, 'The individual and group in Confucianism: A relational perspective', in Individualism and holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist values, ed. Donald J. Munvo (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1985), p. 57;
34. see also King, 'Kuan-hsi and network building: A sociological interpretation', Daedalus, 120, 2 (1991): 63-84.
35. Examples of this approach include Victor Simpao Limlingan, The overseas Chinese in ASEAN: Business strategies and management practices (Manila: Vita Development Corporation, 1986);
36. S. Gordon Redding, The spirit of Chinese capitalism (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990);
37. and Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1995).
38. For critiques of the cultural perspective, see Donald M. Nonini and Aihwa Ong, 'Introduction: Chinese transnationalism as an alternative modernity', in Ungrounded empires: The cultural politics of modern Chinese transnationalism, ed. Donald M. Nonini and Aihwa Ong (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 3-38;
39. Ong, Flexible citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999);
40. Chinese business networks: State, economy and culture, ed. Kwok Bun Chan (Singapore: Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Asia, 2000);
41. Chinese business in Southeast Asia: Contesting cultural explanations, researching entrepreneurship, ed. Edmund Terence Gomez and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001);
42. and Gold et al. ed., Social connections in China.
43. Mayfair Yang, Gifts, favors, and banquets: The art of social relationships in China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
44. Two other anthropological works on the same topic are Yunxiang Yan, The flow of gifts: Reciprocity and social networks in a Chinese village (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996)
45. and Andrew B. Kipnis, Producing guanxi: Sentiment, self, and subculture in a North China village (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997). Both focus on Chinese personal connections in rural areas while adopting different theoretical orientations.
46. See Ong and Nonin ed., Ungrounded empire
47. and Ong, Flexible citizenship.
48. The problems of data collection are mentioned, for example, in Kwok ed., Chinese business networks
49. and Gomez and Hsiao ed., Chinese business in Southeast Asia.
50. In an earlier paper written by Qiao Jian, the definition of guanxi already includes the relationships between persons and persons, persons and institutions, and among institutions; Qiao Jian (Chiao Chien), 'Guanxi chuyi' [A preliminary discussion of guanxi], in Shehui ji xingwei kexue yanjiu de Zhongguohua/The Sinicization of social and behavioral science research in China, ed. Kuo-Shu Yang and Chung-I Wen (Taibei: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 1982), pp. 345-60. However, its discussion only focuses on personal particularistic ties; later researchers have followed the same direction.
51. See, for example, Fei, From the soil;
52. Fukuyama, Trust
53. and King, 'Individual and group'.
54. I began my anthropological fieldwork among the Yunnanese migrants in northern Thailand at the end of 1994, focusing on their migration history and process of resettlement. Since 2000, I have extended my interest to the jade trade and conducted fieldwork in upper Burma as well. Based on friendships gradually built up with my informants, I was able to expand my study of their networks to different places in Thailand, Burma and Taiwan, and to obtain a good knowledge of the trade.
55. By the sixteenth century, the number of Yunnanese Chinese settled in northern Burma had become significant; Laichen Sun, 'Ming-Southeast Asian overland interactions, 1368-1644' (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2000), p. 207.
56. In another article I apply the genre of life stones connected to a long historical perspective to discuss the migration culture of Yunnanese traders from Tengchong, an important border entrepôt for centuries; Wen-Chin Chang, 'Three Yunnanese jade traders from Tengchong', Kolor: Journal on moving communities, 3, 1 (2003): 15-34.
57. See Union of Burma Ministry of Information, The Kuomintang aggression against Burma (Rangoon: Ministry of Information, 1953);
58. Republic of China Ministry of Defence, Dianmian bianqu youji zhanshi [History of guerrilla wars in the Sino-Burmese border areas] (Taibei: Guofangbu Shizhen Bianyiju, 1964);
59. Kenneth Ray Young, 'Nationalist Chinese troops in Burma: Obstacle in Burma's foreign relations, 1949-1961' (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1970);
60. Wen-Chin Chang, 'Beyond the military: The complexmigration and resettlement of the KMT Yunnanese Chinese in northern Thailand' (Ph.D. diss., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 1999);
61. and Chang, 'Identification of leadership among the KMT Yunnanese Chinese in northern Thailand', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 33, 1 (2002): 123-45.
62. Robert H. Taylor, Foreign and domestic consequences of the KMT intervention in Burma (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Data Paper, 1973), pp. 33-5;
63. Richard Nations, 'Politics and the poppy', Far Eastern Economic Review [henceforth FEER], 15 Apr. 1977, pp. 24-5.
64. Apart from a common political ideology, a secondary reason for the Thai government's attitude was economic cooperation between several high-ranking Thai officers and the KMT on drug trafficking; see Alfred W. McCoy, The politics of heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade (New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991), pp. 162-78
65. and Bertil Lintner, Burma in reivlt: Opium and insurgency since 1948 (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1994), pp. 116-18.
66. See Mya Than and Joseph L. H. Tan, 'Introduction: Optimism for Myanmar's economic transition in the 1990s?', in Myanmar dilemmas and options: The challenge of economic transition in the 1990s, ed. Mya Than and Joseph L. H. Tan (Singapore: ASEAN Economic Research Unit, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990), pp. 9, 12;
67. Martin J. Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the politics of ethnicity (London: Zed Books, 1993), pp. 24-6;
68. and Bertil Lintner, Burma in revolt, pp. 178-9.
69. Smith, Burma: Insurgency, p. 25;
70. Chen Wen, Kunsa Jinsanjiao chuanqi [Khun Sa: stories of the Golden Triangle] (Taibei: Yunchen Wenhua, 1996), p. 144.
71. The major Thai border towns/points involved in the flow of smuggled goods between Thailand and Burma were Mae Sai (Chiang Rai Province), Arunotai (Chiang Mai), Piang Luang (Chiang Mai), Rakthai (Mae Hong Son), Wang Kha (Tak), Mae Sot (Tak) and Ranong (Ranong). The other countries that had informal trade with Burma included Malaysia, Singapore, China, India, Ba ngladesh, Indonesia and Laos; Mya Than, Myanmar's external trade: An overview in the Southeast Asian context (Singapore: ASEAN Economic Research Unit, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1996), p. 57.
72. See Chang, 'Beyond the military", ch. 6.
73. Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, The Shan of Burma: Memories of a Shan exile (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990), pp. 124, 149.
74. Such close interactions between Yunnanese traders and the KMT forces, however, tend to be ignored by researchers; see, for example, Ann Maxwell Hill, Merchants and migrants: Ethnicity and trade among Yunnanese Chinese in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale Southeast Asia Studies Monograph, 1998), p. 18.
75. Bertil Lintner, 'All the wrong moves', FEER, 27 Oct. 1988, p. 83;
76. Mya Than, Myanmar's external trade, p. 3;
77. the lower figure is from Smith, Burma: Insurgency, p. 25.
78. The 'open sore' quotation is from Philip Schmucker, 'Isolated socialism in tatters', Inter Press Service, 3 Oct. 1987;
79. the 'economic lifeline' remark is in Jonathan Sikes, 'Ox cart smugglers have gone from Three Pagodas Pass: Thai army severs Burma's economic lifeline', Toronto Star, 11 Sept. 1988.
80. See also Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe, 'The politics and the informal economy of the opium-heroin trade: Impact and implications for Shan State of Burma', in Religion, culture and political economy in Burma, ed. Bruce Matthews (Vancouver: Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the Northwest Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, 1993), p. 31.
81. Josef Silverstein, Burma: Military rule and the politics of stagnation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 33, 41, 156;
82. Albert D. Moscotti, ' Current Burmese and Southeast Asian relations', Southeast Asian affairs 1978 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1978), pp. 83-94.
83. See, for example, Catherine Lamour and Michel R. Lamberti, The second opium war, tr. Peter and Betty Ross (London: Lane, 1974);
84. André and Louis Boucaus, Burma's Golden Triangle: On the trail of the opium warlords (Bangkok: Asia Books, 1992);
85. and Carl Trocki, Empire and the global political economy: A study of the Asian opium trade (New York: Routledge, 1999).
86. See also Yawnghwe, 'Politics and the informal economy', p. 32.
87. To a certain extent, drug smuggling and the jade trade between Burma and Thailand were intertwined. Some traders were involved with both commodities, using the latter as a means to laundry money gained from the former; Richard W. Hughes, 'Conspiracy theory: Gems & junkies in Burma', The Guide, 20, 4 (2001): 8-14.
88. The term 'non-state' is analogous to Mayfair Yang's usage of 'minjian () in her Gifts, favors, and banquets. The term denotes the people's realm, separate from the state bureaucracy. Yang refers to Elemér Hankiss's usage of the term 'second society', which is in contrast to the 'first' or official society; Elemér Hankiss, 'The second society: Is there an alternative social model emerging in contemporary Hungary?', Social Research, 55, 1 (1988): 13-42. The 'first' society is characterised by eight features: '(1) vertical organisation, (2) downward flow of power, (3) state ownership, (4) centralisation, (5) politicisation of culture, (6) official ideology, (7) visibility, and (8) official legitimacy' (Yang, p. 288). Conversely, the 'second society' is devoid of these features. The term 'non-state' is more appropriate than 'minjian' or 'second society' for this article as it deals with cross-border activities, whereas the other two terms refer to practices within specific nation-states (China and Hungary respectively).
89. In terms of economic value and aesthetic appeal, Jadeite is usually more appreciated than nephrite (the other kind of jade) for its rarity, finer translucency and more vivid green colour; see Zhou Jinglun, Yunnanxiang yu xue [Study of jade] (Taibei: Haojiao Chubanshe, 1992).
90. Unlike the unlawful status of narcotics in every place it is traded, jade is publicly appreciated, especially in Chinese societies. Seen from the perspective of the 'social life' of commodities, Burmese jade stones were distinguished from drugs on account of their priceless nature and the fact that they became a legal commodity once carried to Thailand during the period in question. For study of the social life of commodities, see Arjun Appadurai, 'Introduction: Commodities and the politics of value', in The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 3-63.
91. Khin Maung Nyunt, 'History of Myanmar jade trade till 1938", in Traditions in current perspective: Proceedings of the Conference on Myanmar and Southeast Asian Studies, Universities Historical Research Centre, Yangon, 15-17 Nov. 1995, pp. 258, 272.
92. Xia Guangnan, Zhong Yin Mian dao jiaotongshi [History of the traffic between China, India and Burma] (Shanghai: Zhonghua Shuju, 1948), p. 107;
93. Tengchong Xiangzhi [Gazetteer of Tengchong County] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1995), p. 413.
94. Under the Ming eunuchs were assigned to Yunnan to purchase gemstones, including Jadeite, from Burma; Sun, 'Ming-Southeast Asian overland interactions', pp. 134-54. Although there have been suggestions that Burmese Jadeite could be obtained in China even before the Ming, there are no certain records to prove this.
95. The transported jade stones ranged in size from pieces that could be held in one hand to large pieces of rocks and boulders weighing hundreds of kilos.
96. Zhou Jinglun, Yushi tiantming [The destiny of jade stones] (Taibei: Haojiao Chubanshe, 1989), p. 281.
97. See also Chang, 'Three Yunnanese jade traders'.
98. Yin Wenhe, 'Yunnan han Heshunxiang shi gaishu' [History of Yunnan and Heshun township], Yunnansheng lishi yanjiusuo yanjiu qikan, 2 (1984): 273-301;
99. Dong Ping, Heshun fengyu liubainian [Six-hundred-year history of Heshun] (Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe, 2000).
100. Most Yunnanese refugees did not obtain legal status in Thailand until the 1980s or even later (Chang, 'Beyond the military", ch. 5).
101. The Hakka are one of the major ethnic Chinese groups that came to Thailand; the others are Teochiu, Hokkien, Hainanese and Cantonese. On account of their migration route, they may be classified as 'overseas Chinese', as opposed to the Yunnanese, who are 'overland Chinese'. The former settled in Thailand earlier and have acquired a more prominent socio-economic status there; see G. William Skinner, Chinese society in Thailand: An analytical history (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957)
102. and Skinner, Leadership and power in the Chinese community of Thailand (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958).
103. They are often referred to as 'Sino-Thai'; see Cristina Blanc Szanton, 'Thai and Sino-Thai in small town Thailand: Changing patterns of interethnic relations', in The Chinese in Southeast Asia, Vol 2: Identity, culture and politics, ed. L. A. Peter Gosling and Linda Y. C. Lim (Singapore: Maruzen Asia, 1983), pp. 99-125. In Mae Sai, many shops are owned by Sino-Thai.
104. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, The stone of heaven (Boston: Little, Brown, 2001).
105. The company is also referred to as Hanjia, after the family name of Qiu's husband.
106. Zeng Yan, Qicaiyu [Seven-colored Jadeite] (Taibei: Zhongyang Ribaoshe, 1979).
107. The book is partly based on her own flight from Yunnan to Burma during the Cultural Revolution and her stay in upper Burma; the story is comparable to John Steinbeck's The pearl.
108. 'The rise and fall of the kingdom of opium', The Nation, 14 Nov. 1973.
109. As informants confided, after the deal the armies abstained from openly engaging in drug trafficking, though individual members continued the business on a smaller scale. Khun Sa and his Shan United Army gradually became the dominant drug traffickers of the region. Duan, the commander of the Fifth KMT Army, though remembered as a good leader, was not as business minded as General Li, and he did not follow suit in the jade trade; only individual members of his army took part. On Li as a leader see Chang, 'Identification of leadership'.
110. Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, 'Politics of Burma and Shan State: Effect on North Thailand and Thailand', Political Science Review (Chiang Mai University), 3 (1982): 95-114.
111. On Khun Sa see Chen, Kunsa Jinsanjiao chuanqi, pp. 53-72;
112. McCoy, Politics of heroin;
113. and Lintner, Burma in revolt.
114. The involvement of Qiu Ying and Lin Minglan in the brokerage of jade, a Yunnanese male-dominated business, is distinctive and could be an interesting topic for further research.
115. Liang, Burma's foreign relations;
116. Aung Kin, 'Burma in 1979: Socialism with foreign aid and strict neutrality", Southeast Asian affairs 1980 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1980), p. 103;
117. Aung Kin, 'Burma in 1980: Pouring balm on sore spots', Southeast Asian affairs 1981 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1981), p. 112.
118. The incident was related by a Yunnanese informant and by the Thai officer himself.
119. 'Warlord on the run", Asiaweek, 19 Feb. 1982.
120. The Thai government's reaction to drug trafficking varied from time to time, depending upon who was in power at any given moment and upon the varying degrees of pressure exerted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration; see McCoy, Politics of heroin
121. and Chen, Kunsa Jinsanjiao chuanqi.
122. Despite the fact that Li's and Khun Sa's forces fought each other from time to time, they were in a way intertwined. As pointed out earlier, many members of the upper echelon of Khun Sa's army were former members of Li's or other KMT troops, and their relatives or even immediate families continued to stay in the KMT villages.
123. Chiranan Prasertkul, Yunnan trade in the nineteenth century: Southwest China's cross-boundaries functional system (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Institute of Asian Studies, 1990);
124. Wang Mingda and Zhang Xilu, Mabang wenhua [Culture of the caravan trade] (Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe, 1993);
125. Shen Xu, Zhongguo Xinan duiwai guanxishi yanjiu-yi Xinan sichou zhilu wei zhongxin [A historical study of the cross-boundary interrelationship between Southwest China and its neighboring countries] (Kunming: Yunnan Meishu Chubanshe, 1994);
126. Andrew Forbes and David Henley, The Haw: Traders of the Golden Triangle (Chiang Mai: Teak House, 1997);
127. and Sun, 'Ming-Southeast Asian overland interactions'.
128. Hill, Merchants and migrants.
129. Yunnan wenshi ziliao xuanji [Anthology of Yunnan history], 42 (1993) contains several articles that discuss the organisation and management of Yunnanese trading firms that existed prior to the Communist regime.
130. Chang, 'Identification of leadership'.
131. Andrew Walker, The legend of the golden boat: Regulation, trade and traders in the borderlands of Laos, Thailand, China and Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999), p. 14.
132. Shinya Sugiyama and Linda Grove, 'Introduction', in Commercial networks in modern Asia, ed. Shinya Sugiyama and Linda Grove (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001), p. 6.
133. Philip D. Curtin, Cross-cultural trade in world history (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 2-3.
134. Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the people wthout history (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).
135. See, for example, Liang, Zhongguo wenhua;
136. Fei, From the soil;
137. and Fukuyama, Trust.