The Blue-Eyed Shan — Stephen Becker

The battle between East and West explodes in a remote corner of Burma in this electrifying saga from master storyteller Stephen Becker

In the years before World War II, Harvard-trained anthropologist Greenwood journeyed to the Shan States in eastern Burma to study the people of Pawlu, an isolated mountain village. He fell in love with Loi-mae, a local woman, and fathered a daughter, but when war erupted across the globe, Greenwood left his family behind to fight for the Allied cause.
 
In 1949, he returns to Pawlu to help an old friend on the run from China's Red Army -- a friend who claims to be in possession of the missing bones of the Peking Man. But Greenwood isn't welcomed back to Burma with open arms. Loi-mae has a new husband who doesn't take kindly to the return of her former lover, and the village is preoccupied by attacks from the wild Wa, a fearsome, headhunting tribe. When a band of refugee Chinese soldiers arrives, the stage is set for a dramatic showdown in which Greenwood risks everything to save the people he loves.
 
The Blue-Eyed Shan is the 3rd book in the Far East Trilogy, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.