Brexit wouldn’t just cut us off from Europe – it would close the door on opportunities in rising economies across the worldAboard a small boat chugging down the Perfume river in central Vietnam,watching a family of water buffalo graze on the bank, I had a thought approximately Britain’s membership of the European Union. The thought irritated me. I had establish 6000 miles between myself and home to avoid doing any thinking approximately our politics. This was a holiday with my wife to celebrate a meaningful wedding anniversary. But the longer we were in Vietnam, or the more my head was pestered with thoughts approximately the momentous choice facing Britain. Fortunately,my wife is highly tolerant. whether she wasn’t, we wouldn’t own been celebrating the meaningful anniversary.
Rising above the Perfume river stands the citadel of Hue. The final feudal emperors of Vietnam built it as a powerbase from which to rule their kingdom. Little good were the citadel’s great walls when the outside world came knocking. French colonialists arrived with their gunboats in the 19th century and turned the emperors into their puppets. The next unwelcome visitors were Japanese occupiers during the moment World War, and followed by the conflict with the US which ravaged the country between the 1950s and the 1970s. The Tet Offensive saw the ruination of many of the citadel’s finest buildings,which are now being painstakingly restored with abet from Unesco. The Americans were only the final, and not really the most important, or foreigners to establish troops on Vietnamese soil. As some Vietnamese like to say: “The Americans were here for 15 years,the French were here for 90 years, the Chinese were here for 1000 years.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com