I WENT to Vientiane in Laos for the 9th Asean Traditional Textiles Conference. Laos is the only landlocked country in Asia. It is large, mountainous and has natural resources like forests, minerals, waterfalls and other hydropower assets, which produce electricity that it can sell to nearby countries. It is considered a poor country, but the reasons for that are in the past, and it is now on its initial modernization path.
Today, Laos is a communist country, one of the five official communist countries in the world. It has close relations with China, which is heavily invested in the country, together with Vietnam and Thailand, its prosperous neighbors. Amazingly, it has a bullet train, courtesy of China. It is moving toward modernity through their own efforts, with help from its friends.
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