Driven from Yunnan at the close of China’s civil war, Chiang Kia-shek’s defeated Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) armies retreated into Northeast Burma’s remote Shan State in early 1950. Supported briefly by the American CIA and Thailand’s military government, General Li Mi led those armies in an unsuccessful 1951 invasion of Yunnan. Back in Burma, they brought chaos that destabilized the new nation by allying with the Karen tribes and other armed insurgent groups to dominate the Golden Triangle narcotics trade.