This book is organized into three cohesive themes addressing GMS transborder issues. The first theme focuses on regional cooperation and transborder conflicts. An important observation emerging from the papers is that since the latter half of the 1990s, most of the countries in the GMS (Vietnam, Laos PDR, Cambodia, and Myanmar) have pursued aggressive economic and social reform, liberalizing their economies and integrating with the global capitalist economy. There is rising awareness among nations in the GMS that to attain economic progress, economic and political cooperation policies between the countries must be adopted. However, from the 1990s and into the new millennium, the relations among the countries and ethnic groups within the region remain relatively unstable. The second theme draws attention to issues of labor migration, gender, and human rights. Highlighted in the papers is the juxtaposition of extensive economic development with pervasive rural poverty. The final theme discusses transborder trades and border townships and includes six essays addressing the changing patterns of crossborder trade and border townships. The papers show that preexisting crossborder trade and border towns have been heavily affected by the development of transport routes, regional market economy, changing border regulations and customs, and the overall political vision that promotes regional integration. This entails impacts on the traditional ways in which local people conduct trade, run their businesses and earn their livings. - from Amzon