A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY

The Economic Quadrangle has become a popular motif in discussions of Southeast Asia's northern borderlands. For its proponents in international development organizations, national governments, and regional chambers of commerce, the Quadrangle is an ambitious vision of liberalized economic integration across national borders and rugged terrain. Creation of transport linkages between the expanding economies of northern Thailand and southern China via the hinterlands of Myanmar and Laos is promoted as a sure path to regional development and prosperity. In the tawdry tourist stalls where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet on the Upper Mekong, Economic Quadrangle tee-shirts (four flags and a river of blue) are now sold alongside the opium memorabilia and Golden Triangle kitsch (three flags and a poppy) of an earlier socio-geometric era. A new frontier, we are told, is opening up: a deregulated Upper Mekong corridor, a new era for the borderlands.

The Economic Quadrangle Joint Development Corporation — a joint venture between the Lao government and a northern Thai construction firm — is one of the most ambitious and optimistic proponents of this new era. It is marketing an extraordinary future for northwestern Laos, one of the “quarters” of the Quadrangle and the focus of this chapter. The company's latest promotional brochure features a glowing, golden map of northwestern Laos, flanked by glossy pictures of investment opportunities, laid out to tempt the Thai entrepreneur.