"Shops, hotels and restaurants in Panghsang, the unofficial capital of Myanmar’s northeastern area controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), display signs in three languages: Wa, Chinese and Bamar. But while Wa, Chinese and other ethnic dialects are widely spoken in the city, very few residents can speak or read, Bamar. Other social and political influences from the country’s largest ethnic group are also largely non-existent. The UWSA and its political wing, the United Wa State Party (UWSP), have what the country’s many ethnic armed organizations crave: an autonomous region with no interference from central authorities, armed forces equipped with sophisticated weapons and, most significantly, bilateral ceasefire agreements with the Myanmar military, one of which has held firm for three decades. Now, however, the UWSA is under pressure to also sign the government’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), an initiative launched by the previous military regime that the current elected administration has made a pre-condition for political talks on the fractious nation’s future as a unitary state or federal union. “The government wants us to give up our weapons, but we can do that only when a political agreement has been reached, and when there is peace in the whole country. Only then, not now,” said Zhao Guoan, a member of the UWSP’s politburo’s standing committee tasked with handling foreign affairs, in an Asia Times interview..."