Sean Cronan traces the origins of the late imperial tuguan system to the Ming Dynasty’s conquest of Yunnan in 1382, demonstrating how Ming generals actively remade relationships of local cooperation by displacing the old elite of the Dali Kingdom (938–1253)—who had collaborated with the Mongol Empire to rule the region—and elevating new collaborators. Willingness to cooperate with the Ming, rather than ethnic or territorial “nativeness,” became the decisive criterion for appointment. Joey Low demonstrates that the tuguan exercised a complex form of sovereignty grounded in mandala-style rule akin to mainland Southeast Asian monarchs. Through personal vassals, control over trade, tribute relations, and cross-border alliances, native officials maintained autonomy while remaining embedded in collaborative relationships with the Ming and Qing states. This collaboration paradoxically strengthened both imperial influence and the power of indigenous potentates.

Hanli Zhou’s study of Jinggu (Tai: Möeng Bò) in southwest Yunnan reframes gaitu guiliu, or the replacement of indigenous rulers with imperial appointees, as a negotiated and contingent governing process, showing that the formal abolition of hereditary tusi did not dismantle local power but instead intensified fiscal extraction and coercion, provoking resistance among Tai, Yi, and Lahu communities. In response, Qing authorities adopted hybrid arrangements that continued to rely on native intermediaries, revealing an adaptive frontier governance. Similarly, Xiaoyan Long’s analysis of the Cheli chieftaincy (Tai: Sipsong Panna) during the Yongzheng reign (1722–1735) rejects the notion of a clear institutional divide between direct rule and native chieftaincy along the Lancang (Mekong) River. The Qing administration was superimposed upon an existing mandala polity centered on Cheli, with both banks remaining embedded in shared political and ritual structures. The key distinction lay in fiscal mediation, not political subordination, and Qing rule depended on the very chieftaincy system it sought to restructure.

Collectively, the panel reconceptualizes tuguan/tusi not as transitional institutions on a path toward replacement by imperial administration, but as central actors in frontier governance whose authority was continually reworked through negotiation, collaboration, and regional political logics.