Within the politically-defined Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), the borderlands of southeast
Yunnan, China and Lào Cai province, northern Vietnam, have been categorized as being part of the
GMS North-South Economic Corridor. I argue that the creation of this subregion and corridor have
been an opportunity for the governments in these locales to extend their territorialization and
create new state spaces. For centuries, relatively isolated and ignored by lowland rulers, ethnic
minority residents in these borderlands maintained their own culturally appropriate livelihoods,
trade networks and societies. Nowadays, an increasing state presence in the uplands presents both
challenges and opportunities for local populations on either side of the border, be they ethnic
minorities, or Kinh (lowland Vietnamese) and Han Chinese. Contemporary border narratives
gathered from local traders managing important upland commodities shed light on the means by
which these borderland spaces are shaping both attractive prospects as well as restrictive constraints.
Local residents fashion new trading-scapes by drawing on kin ties, historical linkages, local
indigenous knowledges and transnational societies that reach deep inside each country. As inhabitants
carefully avoid or manipulate the state’s gaze, I conclude that those living in the SinoVietnamese
borderlands possess the agency to ‘do things differently’ from hegemonic development
approaches supported by GMS sponsors, and can create, maintain, support and refashion culturally
appropriate trade livelihoods.