Laos, between the West and China (PART 1)

laos

What was the first thing I noticed when I took a bus from the border to the capital city Vientiane? Well, the Japanese flag on the bus, showing the great care Japan has for his fellow Asian country once totally destroyed by the terrorist US Empire.

At that time they did nothing to counter the US aggression of this defenseless Asian nation; nowadays they offer buses and bridges. Great.

But the second thing I noticed was far more interesting. Almost all adds inside the bus were of Huawei mobile phones, the Chinese company threatening to overtake the world market of mobile phones, until recently controlled by companies from the imperial West (and westernized South Korea). Yes, that company from that other fellow Asian country building today in Laos what the US totally destroyed, and much more.

So I started to pay attention, and yes, not only Huawei ads are everywhere but, moreover, many Laotians now own Huawei mobile phones. They and many more people all over the world.

Good news for the Chinese economy, bad news for Huawei’s CFO, Miss Meng Wanzhou, illegally arrested in Canada (a shameless US client state) in what was clearly a politically motivated decision. As Christopher Black pointed out:

The pretext for her arrest is that Huawei has violated US sanctions against Iran. But the “sanctions” imposed on Iran by the US recently are illegal under international law, that is under the UN Charter that stipulates that only the Security Council can impose economic sanctions on a nation. The latest American sanctions are not approved by the Security Council. Sanctions imposed unilaterally by one nation against another are not legal and are violation of international law. There is, therefore, no law that she or Huawei is violating. There is no legal justification for her arrest by the Canadians who detaining her without legal justification.

So I say, as many others are saying: free Meng Wanzhou! Well,  “a Canadian court released Ms Meng on bail on Tuesday, confining her to Vancouver and its suburbs while she awaits a decision over her extradition”, as I read on ABC Australia. Good, but not enough. So I insist, free Meng Wanzhou!

In the meantime, the Chinese Government already reacted, confirming “it has detained two Canadians, entrepreneur Michael Spavor and former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig, over suspicion of ‘endangering national security'”, says ABC Australia in the same article. Who would expect such a move from the Chinese Government?

*

Before taking that bus, and while waiting for my visa to enter Laos, I accidentally heard a conversation between a German man and his Laotian “guide”. The German was outraged with the tremendous “injustice” westerners are now facing in Laos. This German citizen was complaining the fact that, nowadays, it is very easy for Chinese citizens to enter Laos, while for westerners it is “a big problem”.

Well, it is not. You fill in 2 papers with basic personal information; you pay 26.5 €; and you wait the 5 minutes I waited while listening this absurd complaints. Where is the problem? I don’t know how easy is for a Chinese to enter Laos, probably no visa is required, I will check it later.

Anyways, how comes Chinese citizens easily entering Laos poses “a big problem” for a German guy? The poor “guide” was speechless, and good for him that his English was very poor too. No need to pretend he was interested in this German nonsenses.

If I was Laotian, I would say that a big problem was and still is what the US (Germany’s big brother) did to Laos. Not big, huge, immeasurably big! US totally obliterated the country and its people and its nature, for having dared to be communist and give refugee to hopeless Vietnamese human beings runway away from similar US terror.

It still is a huge problem today, with so many bombs and mines spread all over the country. And, besides the genocide, the US also committed a cultural genocide. US wiped out, line by line, Laos from the map, like in a gruesome video game, while pushing the remaining population southwards, towards the “refugee camps” near the capital where an Orwellian future was waiting for them: be “helped” and “educated” by the aggressors.

So Laos is today this hopeless nation where I really do not like to travel, both for the culturally destroyed Laotians and for the crowds of Western drunk cattle. Personal feelings, but this article is not about me.

China did nothing similar. China supported Laos in the past, and support is the opposite of military aggression. The least Laos can do now is to give free visa entrance to Chinese people, no?

And in the present, China is building hundreds of bridges, roads, railways, power plants and tunnels, rebuilding the little the French imperialist built (then destroyed by the US) and building an immense amount of brand new infrastructure, as André Vltchek recently reminded us of:

This is the biggest project in the history of Laos, and it is often described as a mammoth engineering task: with 154 bridges and 76 tunnels, as well as 31 train stations.”

From the West, only alcoholic new-agers and hipsters, willingly ignorant of Laos’ history and fans of that crime against humanity and against nature called “mass tourism”.

*

And how much pays a German to enter France, the Netherlands or even Indonesia? Nothing! So, the wise move would be to stop complaining or, even better, to move back to Germany.

I wonder if he knows how complicated is to a Laotian or a Thai to get a visa to enter the Schengen space. They do have “problems”, huge ones, when they try to visit Europe. For a German to enter Laos, the “big problem” is to spend the equivalent of a single hour working in his homeland!

Sure he does not work in Germany. As many, including myself, he works in Thailand. But “falang” (very racist word Thais use to refer to “whites” or Caucasian} for salaries are far from being low in Thailand. On the contrary, many westerns earn far more than Thais without even having proper qualification (neither do Thais). They earn European salaries in Thailand. And they, we, often are paid simply for our “white faces”, and paid far more than locals, and life in Thailand is much cheaper than in Europe.

There’s definitely many negative aspects about Thailand; socially and psychologically it is not easy to be a “white face” in Thailand; but, on the other hand, life is made easier for us just because we are “white”. I call this “positive racism”, not because I consider it to be a positive thing, no, not at all, but because it is the opposite of (negative) racism.

On the other hand, there’s plenty of Thais working in my motherland (Portugal) for much lower prices than the ones the Portuguese get, precisely because they do not have “white faces”. Many work hard in Portuguese greenhouses and fishing boats, and work more hours than their Portuguese colleagues, and they must me grateful for the “privilege” we give them to be our slaves in “white” soil. And for them yes, it is in fact “a big problem” to get the visas required to be enslaved in Europe.

Worst, it is a big problem for an Indonesian to work for 30 hours in a factory, with no pauses, pissing and shitting his/her underwear, in order to meet the Christmas demands from the same West responsible, in the first place, for the implementation of the Orwellian terror state that Indonesians are victims of.

Even worst, it is a big  problem to be a Pakistani or Bangladeshi slave in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Bahrain (our dear undemocratic states to who we the West sell endless amounts of military equipment, then used to ravish Syria, Libya or Yemen). It is a very big problem to be a slave constantly raped and whipped, unable to escape from her nightmare because her passport is retained by her enslaving owner.

Those are big and real problems. Pay 26.5 euro and wait 5 minutes is not a problem at all.

*

In the evening I went to the street market near the Mekong River. I had a plan: to buy a t-shirt with Che Guevara face or any symbol related with socialism, communism or China.

I found plenty of t-shirts, caps and jackets with the US flag, the UK flag, with names of cities like New York and, of course, with images of the Eiffel Tower. No shortage on flags and symbols of the main 3 western criminal nations: USA, UK and France.

But to find Che Guevara face printed in a t-shirt? Good luck. Actually, I found one, but I really do not like to wear yellow, so didn’t buy it. I found also a t-shirt with a hammer and a sickle, but it was really too big for me.

Yes, it is incredibly hard to buy, in a street market of the communist Laos, t-shirts with socialist or communist messages. I guess the (western) demand is just too low.

Incredibly hard to find socialist or communist messages? Sure. But there’s worst, in my opinion. It is impossible, of course, to find a t-shirt with the Chinese flag, the country now rebuilding and modernizing Laos and many other countries all over the planet.

And what about finding the Russian flag, the flag of that country daring to protect Syrian (and other nations) from western imperial aggressions? No way, even in my wildest dream I would not find myself buying a t-shirt with a flag of great Russia. The demand is simply nonexistent. Westerns are too brainwashed about “evil” Russia or “evil” Iran. So most Asians are, unfortunately.

*

Great surprise (or not), there’s plenty of Chinese tourists and plenty of tourist businesses with information written in Chinese. Chinese characters are not new here, of course not. They are easy to find in non-touristic districts, where there’s plenty of Chinese shops, Chinese companies and Chinese businesses.

Written in Latin alphabet, we usually find English or French inscriptions. Most of these inscriptions are found in bars, restaurants and shops, but there’s more. We can also find European languages in buildings owned or rented by that arrogant, ignorant, lazy and pathetic western mafias called NGO’s. I will talk about some of them in the second and third parts.

Chinese characters yes, but not yet Chinese flags. Those who already visited Laos have surely seen many South Korean and Japanese flags. We can find this 2 flags in “friendship” roads, in “friendship” bridges or in “friendship” buses. Wonderful.

But then I wonder: what about the Chinese flags? What China is doing now in Laos is even not comparable with what Koreans or Japanese did. Koreans and Japanese offered drops, China is bringing an ocean of progress and prosperity.

Why don’t Laotians paint some Chinese flags here and there? Too brainwashed with anti-Chinese propaganda paid by the destructive forces of the western empire? Probably.

Why don’t Chinese paint or pay to paint some Chinese flags here and there? Surely too busy with real work, as I witnessed during my bicycle tour around Vientiane. While lazy westerns (and Asian allies like South Korea and Japan) cover their crimes with their own flags and propaganda, the Chinese work hard to build, to rebuild and to modernize Laos.

China is a peaceful nation, an incredibly positive force focused on progress and prosperity for human kind (Laotians included). We, the West, we are the very opposite of it.

Luís Garcia, Vientiane, Laos

 Luis Garcia is a self-made independent writer and traveler, focused specifically on Syria and Venezuela. He also writes about Latin America and the Middle East, and about the propaganda machine of what he calls Western Economic Dictatorship. His articles can be read in English here, in French here and in Portuguese here. Lui­s Garcia traveled in 55 countries and lived in 10 of them, currently living in Thailand where he works as a teacher. He is also an amateur photographer, with his best photos published here.

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