It might seem far-fetched to talk about the remote hills of southeastern Laos as a theatre for great power politics.
It feels like a particularly unfitting description for the district of Dak Cheung, one of the most remote corners of one of Asia’s poorest countries, a place where many of the houses are still simple wooden structures and where 15% of people cannot read or write.
But if the standoff between the US and China is, at least in part, about the domination of new markets and technology, then that is exactly what it is.
In fact, places like this might be shifting not just the world’s climate, but perhaps its politics too.
