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Vietnam

Country in Southeast Asia, on the South China Sea, bounded north by China and west by Cambodia and Laos.

Government

Vietnam is a one-party socialist state. The dominating force in Vietnam is the Communist Party. It is controlled by a politburo, and is prescribed a ‘leading role’ by the constitution. The legislature is the 498-member National Assembly, the Quoc Hoi, directly elected every five years by universal suffrage. It meets twice a year and elects a state president, to head a council of state, and a council of ministers, headed by the prime minister, which forms the government.

History

Originally settled by Southeast Asian hunters and agriculturalists, Vietnam was founded in 208 BC in the Red River delta in the north, under Chinese overlordship. Under direct Chinese rule 111 BC-AD 939, Buddhism became established as the dominant religion. Thereafter, at times nominally subject to China, it annexed land to the south and defeated the forces of Mongol emperor Kublai Khan in 1288. European traders arrived in the 16th century. The country was united under one dynasty in 1802.

Under French colonial rule

France conquered Vietnam between 1858-84, and it joined Cambodia, Laos, and Annam as the French colonial possessions of Indochina. Under French colonial rule, Christianity and Western education spread and a plantation economy developed, based around exports of tobacco, tea, and coffee. France ignored calls for self-government, despite a developing nationalist movement within the country, led by Ho Chi Minh. French Indochina was occupied by Japan 1940-45.

First Indochina War 1945-54 and north/south division

Ho Chi Minh, who had built up the Vietminh (Independence) League to fight for independence and a communist state, overthrew the Japanese-supported regime of Bao Dai (1913-1997), the former emperor of Annam, in September 1945. France attempted to regain control and restore Bao Dai. This led to bitter fighting with the Vietminh 1945-54 in the First Indochina War, culminating in the final defeat of French forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu.

A peace conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1954, which resulted in the country's division along the 17th parallel of latitude into communist North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh, with its capital at Hanoi, and pro-Western South Vietnam, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, with its capital at Saigon. Under the Geneva Accords, this division was meant to be temporary, pending the holding of democratic elections.

Vietnam War

Reunification did not occur because the division took place against the backcloth of the growing cold war rivalry between the USA and the communist Soviet Union and China. In South Vietnam, the communist guerrilla National Liberation Front, or Vietcong, gained strength, being supplied with military aid by Soviet-backed North Vietnam and China. The USA gave strong backing to the government in South Vietnam and, following North Vietnamese attacks on US destroyers in the August 1964 Tonkin Gulf Incident, became actively embroiled in the Vietnam War. US involvement escalated 1964-68 to 500,000 troops, fighting against Vietcong guerrillas.

In 1968, the North Vietnamese launched a Tet Offensive in an attempt to overrun the south. This did not succeed, but it spread the war to involve neighbouring Cambodia and Laos. From 1969, as a result of mounting casualties - over 50,000 US soldiers were killed in the Vietnam war - and domestic opposition, the USA gradually began to withdraw its forces and sue for peace and also sought to build up South Vietnam's army. A ceasefire agreement negotiated in Paris in January 1973 (Paris Peace Accords) recognized the sovereignty of each state and US combat forces withdrew in March 1973. However, the Accords were breached by the North Vietnamese, who invaded the south, surrounding and capturing Saigon (which they renamed Ho Chi Minh City) in April 1975. The south was placed under the north's military occupation.

Reunification as a socialist republic in 1976

In July 1976, a Socialist Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed, and a programme launched to integrate the south. However, the new republic faced considerable problems. The economy was in ruins, the two decades of civil war having claimed the lives of more than 2 million; it had maimed 4 million, left more than half the population homeless, destroyed 70% of the country's industrial capacity, and there remained many unexploded mines in rural areas. The new communist regime banned opposition political activity, imprisoned opponents, and launched a drive to collectivize farms and factories.

Invasion of Cambodia and border war with China 1978-79

In December 1978 Vietnam was at war again, toppling the pro-Chinese Khmer Rouge government in Kampuchea (now Cambodia) led by Pol Pot and installing a puppet administration led by Heng Samrin. A year later, in response to accusations of maltreatment of ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam, China mounted a brief, largely unsuccessful, punitive invasion of North Vietnam in February-March 1979. These actions, coupled with campaigns against private businesses in the south, induced the flight of about 1 million Chinese and middle-class Vietnamese from the country 1978-79, often by sea (the ‘boat people’). Economic and diplomatic relations with China were severed as Vietnam became closer to the Soviet Union, being admitted into the Eastern-bloc economic organization Comecon in 1978.

Doi moi economic reform from 1986

Despite considerable economic aid from the Soviet Union, Vietnam did not reach its planned growth targets in 1976-85. From the mid 1980s, with reform underway in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, Vietnam received less aid and came under pressure to make its own economic liberalization reforms. This occurred from 1986, following the death of Le Duan (1907-1986), who had been the country's effective leader since 1969. Under the pragmatic Nguyen Van Linh, a doi moi (‘renovation’) programme was launched. Private marketing of agricultural produce and formation of private businesses were now permitted, agricultural cooperatives were partially dismantled, foreign ‘joint venture’ inward investment encouraged, and more than 10,000 political prisoners were released. This economic reform had most success in the south. However, from 1988, the country suffered economic problems, with inflation, rural famine, and rising urban unemployment, which induced a further flight of ‘boat people’ 1989-90, predominantly to Hong Kong, some of whom were forcibly repatriated.

In 1991 Do Muoi replaced Nguyen Linh as communist party leader, as part of a ruling triumvirate which included Vo Van Kiet as prime minister and Le Duc Anh as president (from 1992). They continued with economic reform, while maintaining firm communist party control over the political process, on the Chinese model. A new constitution in 1992 guaranteed economic freedoms and citizens' right to own property, while still emphasizing the Communist Party's dominant role. Economic growth averaged 8% per annum in 1990-97.

Improved foreign relations

In 1989 Vietnam withdrew the last of its troops from Cambodia and the peace agreement in October 1991 helped improve Vietnam's external image. Relations with China were normalized, after a 12-year breach, as were relations with anticommunist South Korea, in 1992. Commercial links were also established with members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), with Vietnam becoming a full member of ASEAN in 1995.

In 1994 the USA formally lifted its 30-year-old trade embargo, as a prelude to re-establishing full diplomatic relations in 1995 and opening a consulate in Ho Chi Minh City in 1999. With effect from 2000, the USA reached a trade agreement with Vietnam which lowered export duties, encouraged US companies to invest in Vietnam, and opened up the USA, the world's largest market, to Vietnamese products.

Leadership change and economic recession in 1997

In 1997, the country's ruling triumvirate, who were in their seventies and eighties, retired to be replaced by a younger generation in their sixties: Gen Le Kha Phieu, as communist party leader; Tran Duc Luong, as president; and Phan Van Khai, as prime minister. They took power at a time of financial crisis and recession in Southeast Asia, leading to declining foreign investment and exports, industry losses, and devaluation of the dong (Vietnamese currency). There was also growing evidence of corruption among Vietnam's bureaucrats. In 1998, the government placed new emphasis on agricultural development to address growing poverty in rural areas; in December 2000, a UN report revealed that more than 2.6 million Vietnamese children under five were malnourished.

Do Muoi retires

In October 1997 it was reported that, since military withdrawal from Cambodia in 1989, Vietnam's standing army had been reduced by two-thirds to around 500,000. In December the 80-year-old Do Muoi, the communist party's general secretary and controlling power in Vietnam, announced his retirement. He was replaced by 66-year-old Gen Le Kha Phieu, who was viewed as more ideologically hardline and conservative than the pragmatic Muoi.

In August 1998 Pham The Duyet, one of the five most senior members of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), faced allegations of corruption. Meanwhile, the country's currency was devalued by a further 7% in the same month.

In November 1998 the government placed new emphasis on agricultural development, after export growth had slumped to 3% (against 24% in 1997), as a result of the Asian economic crisis. Inflation had increased to around 10% and the World Bank predicted that GDP growth would be only 3% in 1998. In December 2000, a UN report revealed that more than 2.6 million Vietnamese children under five were malnourished.

In 2001, the 61-year old Nong Duc Manh became the new leader of the ruling Communist party. A modernizing reformist, he proposed to tackle bureaucracy, corruption, and wastefulness and make Vietnam an industrialized country by 2020. As a Tay, he was the first member of a Vietnamese ethnic minority to hold a senior party post. In 2006, the 63-year old Nguyen Minh Triet became president and the 56-year old Nguyen Tan Dung became prime minister. Both were economic reformers. Economic growth accelerated again from 2000 to about 7% per annum, but there remained high seasonal unemployment in urban areas.

Hanoi Ho Chi Minh City

Ngo Dinh Diem Paris Peace Accord 1973

Tonkin United States of America

Vietnam War