Admixed origin of the Kayah (Red Karen) in Northern Thailand revealed by biparental and paternal markers.

Austroasiatic (AA) speakers constitute around 4% of the population of Thailand, while the majority (89.4%) speak Kra-Dai (KD) languages. Previous forensic and population genetic studies in various Thai populations have employed a limited number of short tandem repeats (STRs). This study aims to expand the investigation of the genetic makeup of AA populations in Thailand and their relationship to KD populations using a larger number of autosomal STRs with the VeriFiler™ Plus PCR Amplification Kit. We generated 593 new genotypes from AA-speaking groups and combined them with previously reported data from AA and KD groups. A total of 1,129 genotypes across 23 STR loci were used to construct the largest allelic frequency profile for Thai and Lao populations. However, several loci deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, likely due to the reduced genetic diversity in some highland populations, which should be considered in forensic investigations. Beyond forensic applications, our findings reveal genetic differences between AA-speaking groups in Northern and Northeastern Thailand. The AA groups from Northeastern Thailand exhibit greater genetic homogeneity and diversity, likely due to population interactions. In contrast, reduced diversity and increased heterogeneity in AA groups from Northern Thailand are possibly driven by genetic drift and cultural and geographic isolation. In conclusion, we emphasize the usefulness of increasing the number of autosomal STRs in forensic and anthropological genetic studies. Additional Y-STR and X-STR data from various AA-speaking groups in Thailand would further enhance and strengthen forensic STR databases in the region.

Migration is a microevolutionary process that shapes cultural, societal, and genetic diversity in human populations. While previous genetic studies have examined the effects of migrations in several key areas of the world, there is a paucity of such studies in the upper Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). The upper GMS, encompassing northern Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, and southern China, has been a major corridor for human migration and interaction between East and Southeast Asian populations for thousands of years. We generated new genome-wide data for Tai-Kadai (TK)-speaking ethnic groups, namely Lue and Yong, from northern Thailand and integrated them with data from the upper GMS and across Asia. Our results highlight the genetic diversity among ethnic groups in the GMS, particularly the genetic continuity of TK migration from southern China to northern Thailand. The TK speakers in Thailand predominantly exhibit multiple ancestries from East Asia and Southeast Asia, with regional differentiations. The TK groups in northern Thailand primarily derive their genetic contributions from Dai-related communities, while northeastern Thai populations show a higher proportion of Lao-related ancestry. Those in central and southern Thailand display additional ancestries from other groups, such as Austroasiatic and South Asian populations. The genetic history of TK-speaking Lue populations illustrates the role of TK migration, founder effects, and historical resettlements in shaping genetic diversity. Overall, analyses of genome-wide data reveal that the genetic background of TK speakers in Thailand is predominantly of East Asian origin, with additional contribution from Southeast Asian populations. This pattern supports the idea of sustained migration from southern China into Thailand, particularly concentrated in the northern part. Our findings reinforce the historical continuity of TK movements across the upper GMS and provide new insights into the genetic and cultural transformations that have shaped present-day Thai populations.

<p>Interannual variation of tropical cyclone (TC) landfall frequency is not consistent along the coast of East Asia, with large contrast of north and south East Asia coast regions in boreal summer. This study examines interannual variations of TC landfall frequency over north and south East Asia and identifies roles of the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) and TC genesis frequency associated with these variations. Although the total number of landing TC of north and south East Asia is similar, interannual variations of TC landfall frequency are relatively independent to each other, with the corresponding correlation coefficient north and south of 25°N is only –0.024 from 1979 to 2017. TC landfall over north East Asia is largely modulated by the circulation related to the WNPSH, while TC landfall in the south has no significant relationship with the WNPSH or other remote large-scale circulations. The WNPSH effectively regulates TC landfall in the north by modulating TC genesis east of the Philippines and steering flows. Nonetheless, the two factors have weak contradictory effects on TC landing in the south region. The frequency of TC genesis around the South China Sea directly connects to the TC landfall over south East Asia, which is modulated by the surrounding genesis environment, including relative humidity and relative vorticity. This work favors for a better understanding of the seasonal forecasts of TC landfall frequency and the subsequent climate service over East Asia.</p>

From a geopolitical perspective, the Asian littoral divides into three subregions: Northeast Asia (the People's Republic of China, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan and the Russian Far East), Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka). Both Northeast Asia and South Asia contain political and economic Great Powers. In the latter, India's economic activities and growing politico-security influence extend to all of Asia. In the former, Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan play significant global economic roles, while Tokyo and Beijing are also major political-security players. By contrast, Southeast Asia contains no Great Powers with global reach. While the region consists of several states with vibrant economies--Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand--or economic potential--Vietnam and Indonesia--in geopolitical stature, Southeast Asia pales in comparison to its Northeast and South Asia neighbours. Yet Southeast Asia is where most Asian regional organizations originate and whose structures and procedures are determined by Southeast Asian preferences. The primary goal of this article is to explain how this has happened, what the implications are for Asia's future and whether Southeast Asian states organized for the past forty years through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be able to maintain their pivotal position in Asian affairs. For the past several decades, the Asia-Pacific region has been marked by a difficult asymmetry: the most dangerous disputes lie in Northeast and South Asia while the region's multilateral institutions designed to manage and reduce conflict have originated in Southeast Asia. While ASEAN has maintained its organizational integrity, it has added new internal and external dimensions. The former include the incipient ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the ASEAN Interparliamentary Organization which has been particularly vocal in condemning Myanmar's human rights violations, and the Track Three ASEAN People's Assembly, an NGO that brings a variety of societal interest groups together to lobby ASEAN governments. ASEAN-dominated organizations encompass the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on security matters, ASEAN+3 (Japan, South Korea and China), various ASEAN+1 dialogues with important states, the ASEAN-Europe meeting (ASEM), and most recently, regular dialogues with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Africa and Latin America. The newest and most contentious addition to the mix is the East Asian Summit (EAS) inaugurated in December 2005. The EAS brings ASEAN+3 countries together with India, Australia and New Zealand--all of which have signed ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) as a membership condition. Conceptualizing ASEAN The Asia-Pacific region has no hegemon. Instead, political, economic and social networks proliferate. Regional issues are addressed through collective action. The various frameworks have diminished the strength of the absolute sovereignty norm that dominated ASEAN at the time of its 1967 creation. Over the ensuing decades, security issues have become increasingly transnational. Money laundering, human trafficking, environmental degradation, multi-national river development, migratory maritime species, terrorism and piracy require multilateral regime building rather than ad hoc diplomacy. In theory, at least, organizations such as ASEAN have established procedures and decision-making rules in which all governmental stakeholders have a voice. (2) Conceptualizing ASEAN, International Relations theorists generally employ three analytical frameworks: neo-realism, neoliberalism and constructivism. (3) Neo-realists disdain ASEAN's role in regional security because, in their view, institutions are epiphenomenal. Stability depends on the distribution of power within the Asia-Pacific and not on an international organization of small and medium states confined to Southeast Asia. …

Cancer is a major cause of mortality and morbidity throughout the world, including the countries of North-East and South-East Asia. Assessment of burden through cancer registration, determination of risk and protective factors, early detection and screening, clinical practice, interventions for example in vaccination, tobacco cessation efforts and palliative care all should be included in comprehensive cancer control programs. The degree to which this is possible naturally depends on the resources available at local, national and international levels. The present review concerns elements of cancer control programs established in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan in North-East Asia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia as representative larger countries of South-East Asia for comparison, using the published literature as a guide. While major advances have been made, there are still areas which need more attention, especially in South-East Asia, and international cooperation is essential if standard guidelines are to be generated to allow effective cancer control efforts throughout the Far East.

Abstract. An accurate paddy rice map is crucial for ensuring food security, particularly for Southeast and Northeast Asia. MODIS satellite data are useful for mapping paddy rice at continental scales but have a mixed-pixel problem caused by the coarse spatial resolution. To reduce the mixed pixels, we designed a rule-based method for mapping paddy rice by integrating time series Sentinel-1 and MODIS data. We demonstrated the method by generating annual paddy rice maps for Southeast and Northeast Asia in 2017–2019 (NESEA-Rice10). We compared the resultant paddy rice maps with available agricultural statistics at subnational levels and existing rice maps for some countries. The results demonstrated that the linear coefficient of determination (R2) between our paddy rice maps and agricultural statistics ranged from 0.80 to 0.97. The paddy rice planting areas in 2017 were spatially consistent with the existing maps in Vietnam (R2=0.93) and Northeast China (R2=0.99). The spatial distribution of the 2017–2019 composite paddy rice map was consistent with that of the rice map from the International Rice Research Institute. The paddy rice planting area may have been underestimated in the region in which the flooding signal was not strong. The dataset is useful for water resource management, rice growth, and yield monitoring. The full product is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5645344 (Han et al., 2021a). Small examples can be found from the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.17632/cnc3tkbwcm.1 (Han et al., 2021b).

A Matrilineal Genetic Perspective of Hanging Coffin Custom in Southern China and Northern Thailand.

Inference of intraspecific population divergence patterns typically requires genetic data for molecular markers with relatively high mutation rates. Microsatellites, or short tandem repeat (STR) polymorphisms, have proven informative in many such investigations. These markers are characterized, however, by high levels of homoplasy and varying mutational properties, often leading to inaccurate inference of population divergence. A SNPSTR is a genetic system that consists of an STR polymorphism closely linked (typically < 500 bp) to one or more single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). SNPSTR systems are characterized by lower levels of homoplasy than are STR loci. Divergence time estimates based on STR variation (on the derived SNP allele background) should, therefore, be more accurate and precise. We use coalescent-based simulations in the context of several models of demographic history to compare divergence time estimates based on SNPSTR haplotype frequencies and STR allele frequencies. We demonstrate that estimates of divergence time based on STR variation on the background of a derived SNP allele are more accurate (3% to 7% bias for SNPSTR versus 11% to 20% bias for STR) and more precise than STR-based estimates, conditional on a recent SNP mutation. These results hold even for models involving complex demographic scenarios with gene flow, population expansion, and population bottlenecks. Varying the timing of the mutation event generating the SNP revealed that estimates of divergence time are sensitive to SNP age, with more recent SNPs giving more accurate and precise estimates of divergence time. However, varying both mutational properties of STR loci and SNP age demonstrated that multiple independent SNPSTR systems provide less biased estimates of divergence time. Furthermore, the combination of estimates based separately on STR and SNPSTR variation provides insight into the age of the derived SNP alleles. In light of our simulations, we interpret estimates from data for human populations.

Introduction: The small size of Short Tandem Repeats (STRs), their ubiquitous genome-wide distribution and polymorphic nature enhances their value in human forensic/population genetics applications. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the short tandem repeat variation based on 15 loci in a population from the central region of Saudi Arabia. Methods: Allele frequency variation for 15 Short Tandem Repeat (STR) loci was examined in 190 unrelated Saudi volunteers. Results: This study summarizes the allele distribution in the Saudi population and compares them to other populations located in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The standard forensic parameters of Observed Hetrozygosity (Ho), Expected Heterozygosity (He) and Gene Diversity Index (GD) were determined for the following 15 STR loci: D8S1179, D21S1, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH0, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S5, D5S818 and FGA. The most frequent alleles in the Saudi population were: 8 repeats (0.558) at TPOX, 12 (0.411) at D13S317, 12 (0.385) at CSF1PO, 11 (0.382) at D16D539 and 10 (0.358) at D7S820. The 15 markers utilized in this study are highly informative as evidenced by their high power of discrimination (PD) values with D2S1338, D19S433 and FGA having the highest PD values. The relationship between the Saudi population and other geographically distributed populations, assessed by a Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) plot, showed that the Saudi population clustered with groups from Yemen, Iraq, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. Conclusion: TPOX, D13S317, CSF1PO, D16D539 and D7S820 markers were found suitable for forensic analysis, paternity testing and can also be used for chimerism study after allogenic bone marrow transplantation for Saudi population. On the other hand, the population admixture with other ethnic origins might explain the variable degree of genetic distances of this population and other Arab-related groups.

This chapter critically analyses the extent to which the EU's unique experience of regionalism has been appreciated outside its borders. In particular, it explores external reflections of the European project, taking into consideration Asian elites' reaction. Three levels of Asian regional integration are considered, where a regional organisation is: absent, Northeast Asia; weak, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC); well established, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The chapter draws on the perceptions of European integration held among 283 Asian policy- and decision-makers from the three regions: Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea), South Asia (India), and Southeast Asia (Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam). While the study demonstrates that informed elites in Southeast, Northeast and South Asia have expressed an appreciation and recognition of the values of European integration, the findings also indicate that perceptions of the EU as an example of regional integration worthy of consideration differ depending on the regionalism situation in each case.KeywordsEuropean IntegrationRegional IntegrationDebt CrisisTrading BlocExternal ImageThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna was established on January l, 2000 by merging the Institutes of Sinology and Japanese Studies. Initially comprising the pillars Sinology, Japanese, and Korean Studies, the fourth pillar, the Chair of East Asian Economy and Society (EcoS), was established in 2007. The first Head of Department was Erich Pilz (2000-2001), followed by Sepp Linhart (2001-2012), both leading researchers on Japanese history, society, and culture. The current head is Rudiger Frank (since 2012), specialized in East Asian politics and economics, in ge- neral and North Korea, in particular. In addition to six professors, the Department of East Asian Studies currently has a staff of about 50 permanent and temporary researchers and lecturers (Institut fur Ostasienwissenschaften der Universitat Wien, 2001-2013).In addition to language courses, the disciplines Sinology, Japanology, and Koreanol- ogy offer strong social and cultural science studies. EcoS focuses on current political, security, and economic relations in East Asia and the respective national political and economic systems. The Department of East Asian Studies applies a broad area defini- tion of East Asia by incorporating North-East and South-East Asia. In this context, South-East Asia, in particular the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in promoting East Asian regionalism, has always figured prominently in the respective EcoS courses. Yet, in order to demonstrate the growing international rel- evance of this region, it has been a strategic aim of Rudiger Frank to institutionalize South-East Asian Studies at the EcoS Department to complement its range. In Octo- ber 2013, the position of a university assistant at the postdoc level was created. Two university assistants (praedoc) and one study assistant, concentrating on North-East Asia, complete the EcoS team. Overall, the teaching and research program at EcoS reflect the interconnectedness of North-East and South-East Asia. For instance, two key areas of research are state socialist systems (notably China, North Korea, and Vietnam) and climate change, the environment, and energy.Since October 2008, EcoS offers a four-semester Master of Arts (MA) as well as a PhD course on East Asian Economy and Society. Since an adaption of the curriculum in 2011, the MA is offered exclusively in English, and South-East Asia features explic- itly as an area of research in addition to the North-East Asian countries China, Japan, and the two Koreas. The Master course promotes the inter- and transdisciplinary comparative analysis of international relations and of domestic politics and econom- ics in the region in the twentieth and twenty-first century. In their Master thesis, students have to compare specific topics in at least two countries, either in North- or South-East Asia. The program provides students with a broad range of possibilities to specialize in topics of their choice. In addition, students have to acquire basic lan- guage skills in an East Asian language, particularly in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. An admission requirement is a Bachelor or an equivalent college or university degree; eligible majors are, for instance, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Studies, (Internation- al) Business Studies, or Political Science. The five core modules are Contemporary East Asian Language, East Asian Economy, East Asian Politics, East Asian Society and Research, and Master's Colloquium.Due to the popularity of the program in other European but also East Asian coun- tries, student numbers have far exceeded the initial planning for 25 students per study year (217 Master students in the summer term 2013). Due to the shortage in staff, room, and teaching resources, the rectorate decided to introduce admission re- quirements, starting with winter term 2013/2014. Since then, students have to apply for admission to EcoS; inter alia, they have to submit a demanding letter of motiva- tion, detailing their research interests and goals after graduation. …

Background A previous report from the COMBINE AF database (A Collaboration Between Multiple Institutions to Better Investigate Non-Vitamin K Antagonist Oral Anticoagulant Use in Atrial Fibrillation), which includes data from RE-LY, ROCKET AF, ARISTOTLE, and ENGAGE AF-TIMI 48, demonstrated that the advantages of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) over warfarin were more evident in Asian patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) than in non-Asians. However, Asia is a vast region, and randomized data comparing clinical outcomes among AF patients of Asian race across different regions within Asia remain limited. Methods Using the COMBINE AF database, we performed an individual patient-level meta-analysis to compare clinical outcomes in patients of Asian race from 4 regions: East Asia (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan), Northeast (NE) Asia (Japan, South Korea), Southeast (SE) Asia (Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) and South Asia (India). Results There were 9,943 pts (64% males) of Asian race enrolled from 4 Asian regions (East: 3,388, NE: 2,751, SE: 1,673, South: 2,131) randomized to warfarin or DOACs. Patients in East Asia were older (median age: East 71 yrs, NE 70 yrs, SE 67, South 65; p&amp;lt;0.001), heavier (mean body weight: East 68.5kg, NE 65.7kg, SE 65.9kg, South 63.1kg; p&amp;lt;0.001) and had a higher prevalence of past history of stroke or transient ischemic attack (East 44.2%, NE 31%, SE 42%, South 31.1%; p&amp;lt;0.001) than those of other regions. The median times in therapeutic range with warfarin varied widely by regions in Asia (NE 62.5%, SE 60.1%, East 57.1%, South 48.6%; p&amp;lt;0.001). Compared to East Asia, regional differences for several clinical outcomes were observed (Fig 1). NE Asia had a lower risk of stroke/systemic embolic events (SEE)(adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 0.70), ischemic stroke (0.73), intracranial hemorrhage (ICH)(0.62) and net clinical outcome (NCO: stroke/SEE, major bleeding [MB], or death)(0.79) compared to East Asia (all p values &amp;lt;0.05). SE Asia had a higher risk of NCO (aHR 1.27), while South Asia had a lower risk of stroke/SEE (0.73), ischemic stroke (0.68) but a higher risk of NCO (1.57) compared to East Asia (all p values &amp;lt;0.05). Compared to warfarin, standard-dose (SD) DOACs significantly reduced the risks of stroke/SEE, MB, ICH, CV death and the NCO to a similar degree across Asian regions (each Pint &amp;gt;0.1, Fig 2). SD DOACs significantly reduced the risk of ischemic stroke in SE and South Asia, but not in East and NE Asia (Pint 0.013). The risk of GI bleeding with SD DOAC and warfarin were similar in Asia regions, with no heterogeneity (Pint 0.13). Conclusions Although the adjusted risks of clinical events in AF patients of Asian race differed significantly between Asian regions, the reductions in stroke/SEE, MB, ICH, and CV death with SD DOACs compared to warfarin were consistent across Asian regions.

In forensic genetics, utilizing massively parallel sequencing (MPS) to analyze short tandem repeats (STRs) has demonstrated several advantages compared to conventional capillary electrophoresis (CE). Due to the current technical limitations, although flanking region polymorphisms had been mentioned in several previous studies, most studies focused on the core repeat regions of STRs or the variations in the adjacent flanking regions. In this study, we developed an MPS system consisting of two sets of multiplex PCR systems to detect not only the STR core repeat regions but also to observe variants located at relatively distant positions in the flanking regions. The system contained 42 commonly used forensic STRs, including 21 autosomal STRs (A-STRs) and 21 Y-chromosomal STRs (Y-STRs), and a total of 350 male individuals from a Chinese Han population were genotyped. The length and sequence variants per locus were tallied and categorized based on length (length-based, LB), sequence without flanking region (core repeat regions sequence-based, RSB), and sequence with flanking region (core repeat and flanking regions sequence-based, FSB), respectively. Allele frequencies, Y-haplotype frequencies, and forensic parameters were calculated based on LB, RSB, and FSB, respectively, to evaluate the improvement in discrimination power, heterozygosity, and effectiveness of forensic systems. The results suggested the sequence variations have more influence on A-STRs and could improve the identification ability of MPS-STR genotyping. Concordance between MPS and CE methods was confirmed by using commercial CE-based STR kits. The impact of flanking region variations on STR genotype analysis and potential factors contributing to discordances were discussed. A total of 58 variations in the flanking regions (53 SNPs/SNVs and 5 InDels) were observed and most variations (48/58) were distributed in A-STRs. In summary, this study delved deeper into the genetic information of forensic commonly used STR and advanced the application of massively parallel sequencing in forensic genetics.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12864-024-10762-9.

Treatments of the Southeast Asian linguistic area are usually restricted to the Mainland area roughly covering present day Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, with southwestern and southern China, as well as the peninsular and insular regions seen as partly belonging to the area (e.g. Bisang 1992; Enfield 2005). Modern Myanmar, i.e. the region from the Salween to the Irrawaddy and Chindwin valleys, is not usually covered in studies of Southeast Asia, or treated as marginal or transit area. This may have different reasons, including the dearth of reliable data from this region, and the surface structure of verb-final Tibeto-Burman languages dominant in the area, which is superficially radically different from the verb-medial languages of core Southeast Asia. The languages of Myanmar indeed seem to have more in common with languages of northeast India. On the other hand, languages such as verb-medial Mon, Palaung and Shan basically are well integrated in the SEA area, while at the same time sharing many features with their neighboring languages. With intensive language contact for several centuries, it is not surprising that also Tibeto-Burman languages of the region show similarities with languages of SEA. Karenic varieties, which changed from verb-final to verb-medial, are probably only most extreme outcome of this contact, but smaller scale contact phenomena can be observed in many places. &#13;\n\tBased on published sources and original material collected during numerous field trips to Myanmar over the past more than ten years, the present study looks at the presence and absence of a number of common features of SEA languages (Comrie 2007; Enfiled 2005) in a sample of languages spoken in present-day Myanmar. The main languages used in this study are Burmese varieties, Mon, and Shan, representing the three major language families of the area, namely Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, and Tai-Kadai, respectively. Additional data will be adduced from Karenic languages, as well as other languages where data are available and relevant to the argument.&#13;\n\tOne of the striking features of Southeast Asian languages is the grammatical use of verbs, usually called serial verbs or secondary verbs (V2). These V2s range in function from modal to directional and aspectual, and also express secondary concepts such as manner, attitude, and more. Very often these V2s are difficult, if not impossible, to catch in traditional grammatical terms. One case in point is the verb ‘get’, which occurs in either pre-verbal or post-verbal position in many languages of SEA, with different functions. Post-verbal ‘get’ usually expresses general ability or the absence of obstacles, while in pre-verbal position it indicates that an event occurs because of some prior event (see Enfield 2003), often translated as ‘get to’ or ‘have a chance to’, or analyzed as past tense. This second function seems to be closely related to the use of (mostly pre-verbal) ‘give’ to express permissive and/or jussive causative function, present in the majority of languages of SEA and spreading into Myanmar. In verb-final Burmese, where auxiliaries are commonly placed after the main verb, ‘get’ occurs only post-verbally, though with different syntactic behavior for the meanings ‘can, be able’ and ‘have to, get to; have done’. The former, corresponding to SEA post-verbal ‘get’ is a free auxiliary, the latter, which corresponds to SEA pre-verbal ‘get’ is a bound morpheme (see Jenny 2009). This example shows that the similarity of expression is often hidden behind differences in syntax, especially in languages with diverging basic word order. &#13;\n\tThe aim of this study is to show to what extent Burmese, including its dialects, and other languages of Myanmar are part of the SEA linguistic area, thereby extending the notion of SEA to the northwest, beyond the Salween.&#13;\n

An RSC covering all of East Asia is a recurrent pattern. Before and during the Second World War, Japanese power and imperial ambition linked Northeast and Southeast Asia together into a single security region. Earlier still, periodic waxings of Chinese power also brought these two regions into the same security sphere. But before the rise of imperial Japan in the late nineteenth century, and during waning periods of Chinese power, Northeast and Southeast Asia sometimes had largely separate regional security dynamics. During the Cold War, the patterns of regional security in East Asia were heavily penetrated by, but not completely subordinate to, the two superpowers. Although somewhat masked by Cold War patterns, this chapter will tell their story as separate Northeast and Southeast Asian RSCs, albeit with some interregional crossover by China (Buzan 1988a, 1988b, 1994). After the Cold War, penetration from the global level diminished substantially and altered in form, and the regional level story is best told on an East Asian scale. That will be the approach of chapter 6.