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LIFE> Travel
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Good morning Vietnam
By Wen Jiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-05 10:33
A young Chinese army bomb-disposal expert carefully removes a landmine along the China-Vietnam border. It is the only cold reminder of past conflict in an area now bustling with trade in Chinese antiques, Vietnamese jade ware and even French perfume, conducted in a mix of Mandarin, Chinese provincial dialects and the Vietnamese language. Shops with bilingual signboards are everywhere. The Chinese minesweeping team removed 6,800 landmines ahead of last week's border ceremony, marking the completion of land border demarcation and the erection of markers over nearly 1,400 km. More than 800 government officials from China and Vietnam celebrated the occasion, punctuated by speeches, folk music and talk of a bright future for two of Asia's oldest neighbors.
For more than two years, China has been Vietnam's largest trade partner with trade hitting $19.46 billion last year, a 28.8 percent increase year on year. In 2007, Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization - six years after China - and the Vietnamese Communist Party continues to look to the Chinese Communist Party as a model for opening up its economy. At almost every border gate and border city, trade is flourishing. Carrying shoulder poles, gunnysacks and bamboo baskets, thousands of Vietnamese merchants stand in long lines every morning, anxiously awaiting Customs clearance into Southwest China's Yunnan province. As soon as the border gate opens at 8 am, they begin running as fast as they can towards China's Customs building. Behind the pedestrians are hundreds more merchants with their rattling bicycles, tricycles and long flat-bed carts. |
