Introduction

Since appearing in the 2000s, rubber plantations have spread widely throughout the areas of Laos and Myanmar which border Southwest China. This surge in rubber-cultivation activities has been primarily motivated by China's high demand for natural rubber; mainly in support of its expanding automobile industry (FAO CTTP 2010; Huang 2007). According to official Chinese discourse, the opening of rubber plantations in Laos and Myanmar close to the Chinese border provides an alternative to the growing of opium poppies in these areas, and in practice such plantations are operated by highly business-oriented state and private enterprises. By 2010, over 180 Chinese companies were engaged in agriculture projects (including rubber, sugarcane, rice, and other seasonal cash crops) in the former poppy-growing regions of Myanmar and Laos, covering 0.12 million hectares in Myanmar and 0.09 million hectares in Laos (CPGMSECP 2011).

On the Laos side, the introduction of alternative forms of development by China has been underpinned by the Laotian state's drive to modernize highland populations, halt swidden agriculture, commercialize land resources, and, through the eradication of opium production, reshape the nation's identity (Cohen 2013). Partly motivated by the high price of latex in the global market, in the mid-2000s many smallholders from ethnic groups living in the highlands of Luang Namtha – a northern Lao province – attempted to diversify their livelihoods through the cultivation of rubber.