The success story is Laos, a shit tier landlocked country with no development prospects has defied all sense, roughly parallelling trajectory per capita GDP gro

The success story is Laos, a shit tier landlocked country with no development prospects has defied all sense, roughly parallelling trajectory per capita GDP growth with booming Vietnam next door, who has the option of replicating maritime export led growth. There's no reason Laos should be doing better than Cambodia unless prudently aligning with PRC interests. Laos' only short/medium term potential on her own is digging rocks or low end labour. But with PRC assistance, Laos can also become trail transit hub linking region and become energy exporter (battery of IndoChina) by having the privilege/permission as first downstream Mekong country that can harness left over hydropower, using infra PRC built. And obviously serving as PRC proxy or ceding sovereignty of control over said power network to allow PRC to influnece region via electricity and water. For landlocked Laos, that's about as, in PRC parlance, "win-win" as it gets.