Headed off to cross Burma, China and its northeast (9)
I believe the answer is:
manchuria
'northeast' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both locations as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'headed off to cross burma china and its' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'china' could be 'ch' and 'ch' is present in the answer.
'and' could be 'n' (common abbreviation for 'and') and 'n' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for manchuria that I've seen before include "Region forming NE portion of China" , "far eastern region" , "Region of northeastern China" .)