Abstract Previous tectonic models (escape tectonics, topographic ooze) for SE Asia have considered that Himalayan–Tibetan processes were dominant and imposed on cool, rigid SE Asian crust. However, present-day geothermal gradients, metamorphic mineral assemblages, structural style and igneous intrusions all point to east Myanmar and Thailand having hot, ductile crust during Cenozoic–Recent times. North to NE subduction beneath SE Asia during the Mesozoic–Cenozoic resulted in development of hot, thickened crust in the Thailand–Myanmar region in a back-arc mobile belt setting. This setting changed during the Eocene–Recent to highly oblique collision as India coupled with the west Burma block. The characteristics of the orogenic belt include: (1) a hot and weak former back-arc area about 200–300 km wide (Shan Plateau) heavily intruded by I-type and S-type granites during the Mesozoic and Palaeogene; (2) high modern geothermal gradients (3–7 °C per 100 m) and heat fl ow (70–100 mW m −2 ; (3) widespread Eocene–Pliocene basaltic volcanism; (4) Late Cretaceous–earliest Cenozoic and Eocene–Oligocene high-temperature–low-pressure metamorphism; (5) c . 47–29 Ma peak metamorphism in the Mogok metamorphic belt followed by c . 30–23 Ma magmatism and exhumation of the belt between the Late Oligocene and early Miocene; (6) a broad zone of Eocene–Oligocene sinistral transpression in the Shan Plateau, later reactivated by Oligocene–Recent dextral transtension; (7) diachronous extensional collapse during the Cenozoic, involving both high-angle normal fault and low-angle normal fault (LANF) bounded basins; (8) progressive collapse of thickened, ductile crust from south (Eocene) to north (Late Oligocene) in the wake of India moving northwards; and (9) the present-day influence on the stress system by both the Himalayan orogenic belt and the Sumatra–Andaman subduction zone.