I. INTRODUCTION
II. LAND AND RESOURCES
A. Rivers and Lakes
B. Climate
C. Natural Resources
D. Plants and Animals
III. POPULATION
A. Population Characteristics
B. Political Divisions
C. Principal Cities
D. Religion
E. Language
F. Education
G. Culture
IV. ECONOMY
A. Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing
B. Mining
C. Manufacturing
D. Energy
E. Currency and Banking
F. Commerce and Trade
G. Labour
H. Transport
I. Communications
V. GOVERNMENT
A. Executive and Legislature
B. Political Parties
C. Judiciary
D. Local Government
E. Health and Welfare
F. Defence
G. International Organizations
VI. HISTORY
A. Chinese Influence
B. Independence
C. Economy Under the Ly Dynasty
D. Territorial Expansion
E. Le Dynasty
F. French Intervention
G. Colonial Rule and Resistance
H. Expulsion of the French
I. Partition
J. The Vietnam War
K. Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Description :-
I INTRODUCTION
Vietnam, republic of South East Asia, bordered by China on the north, by the South China Sea on the east and south, and by Cambodia and Laos on the west. Officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, its area is 331,690 sq km (128,066 sq mi). Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh City is the country’s largest city.The modern nation of Vietnam encompasses the historic areas of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China. More than 400 years of European control disrupted these traditional regions. France colonized Vietnam in stages during the 19th century, and nationalist groups seeking independence created turbulence during much of the 20th century. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Vietnam was the battleground of an extended war and was divided. The northern portion was closely allied with Communist nations, such as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and China, which controlled Vietnam for much of its history. The southern portion was allied with the United States and other democratic nations. The Vietnam War ended in 1975, and political unity was established the next year when the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the Republic of Vietnam in the south became one nation.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Vietnam occupies the easternmost part of the Indochinese Peninsula, a rugged, elongated S-shaped strip of mountains, coastal plains, and river deltas. Vietnam may be divided into four major regions. In the north-west is the mountainous southerly extension of China’s Yunnan Plateau. The country’s highest peak, Fan Si Pan (3,143 m/10,312 ft), is located near the border with China. To the east of the highlands is the Red River (also known as the Song Hong) delta, a triangularly shaped lowland along the Gulf of Tonkin (an arm of the South China Sea). To the south the Annamese Highlands, which run north-west to south-east, and an associated coastal plain form the backbone of central Vietnam. The fourth and southernmost region is the Mekong River delta, a depositional area of flat land. The soils of the Red River and Mekong River deltas, the two major deltas of Vietnam, are composed of rich alluvium except where damming for flood control has altered the stream flow. Soils in the uplands are poor as a result of leaching of nutrients from the ground by the abundant rainfall.
A Rivers and Lakes
The Red River in the north and the Mekong River in the south are the two major freshwater streams. The Red River flows almost directly south-east from the north-western highlands, whereas the Mekong follows an irregular path from Cambodia, crosses southern Vietnam, and empties in the South China Sea through a complex network of distributaries. Both rivers have been banked to prevent flood damage.
B Climate
Three basic climate types are found in Vietnam. In the north, especially in the interior, the temperatures are subtropical. Shifting seasonal wind patterns result in dry winters and wet summers. The central and south-eastern areas typify the tropical monsoon climate, with high temperatures and abundant precipitation. In the south-west, distinct wet and dry periods are evident, but temperatures are higher than in the north. Temperatures in Hanoi range from about 17° C (63° F) in January to about 29° C (84° F) in July; mean annual precipitation is 1,830 mm (72 in).
C Natural Resources
The northern highlands of Vietnam contain valuable minerals, including iron, anthracite coal, zinc, chromite, tin, and apatite. Petroleum and natural gas deposits lie offshore.
D Plants and Animals
Abundant vegetation exists throughout Vietnam except where the landscape has been denuded. Typical mixed stands in the rainforests contain a wide variety of pines, broadleaf trees, vines, and bamboos. Dense mangroves bordering the distributaries of the deltas often hinder access to the water’s edge.
The tropical rainforests are inhabited by large mammals such as elephants, deer, bears, tigers, and leopards. Smaller animals, including monkeys, hares, squirrels, and otters, are found throughout the country. Reptiles such as crocodiles, snakes, and lizards, as well as many species of birds, are also indigenous.
III POPULATION
Vietnamese, related to the southern Chinese, constitute the largest ethnic group in Vietnam and account for about 88 per cent of the total population; the remainder are members of some 53 ethnic minorities, mostly confined to the mountain regions. The size of the Chinese minority has decreased sharply with emigration, especially since war with China in the late 1970s.
A Population Characteristics
Vietnam has a population of 79,939,014 (2001), yielding a population density of 241 people per sq km (624 per sq mi). The southern part of the country is more urbanized than the northern part, but although urban development is proceeding, the majority still live in small villages, only 20 per cent of the population being urban. Most people live in the delta areas or along the coast. The population of Vietnam is young: in 2001 about 10 per cent of all Vietnamese were between 0 and 4 years of age while 22 per cent were aged between 5 and 14. The population growth rate was about 1.45 per cent.
B Political Divisions
Vietnam is divided into 61 provinces grouped in 7 regions: North Mountain and Midland, Red River Delta, North Central Coast, South Central Coast, Central Highlands, North Eastern South Region, and Mekong River Delta, plus the 3 municipalities of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Haiphong.
C Principal Cities
D Religion
Historically the country is mostly Buddhist, a reflection of Chinese influence. To the traditional religion of Mahayana Buddhism has been added the newer faiths of Cao Dai and Hoa Hao. The philosophical creeds of Confucianism and Daoism, along with related Chinese religion, are also important. There are an estimated 4.5 million Roman Catholics.
E Language
Vietnamese, the official language, is spoken by the majority of the population. The use of French, a remnant of colonial times, is declining. Some Vietnamese people who live in urban areas speak other languages, such as English and Russian. Khmer, Cham, and Montagnard are spoken primarily in the interior. With the exodus of the Chinese in recent years, the once-common use of their language has diminished, though it retains cultural and historical significance. See Austro-Asiatic Languages.
F Education
The long period of military conflict in Vietnam seriously disrupted educational progress and cultural programmes, especially those remnants that dated from the years of French rule. After national reunification, emphasis was placed on the re-education of the people in the south to instruct them in the Communist system.
All schools in Vietnam were nationalized following reunification, and by 1994 there were some 9,725,000 primary-school pupils attending 13,092 schools with 275,640 teachers, and 3,953,250 secondary- and technical- school pupils attending 6,215 schools with 179,165 teachers. Schooling is free and compulsory. Principal universities in Vietnam are the University of Hanoi (1956) and the University of Ho Chi Minh City (1917); in 1994 there were a total of 104 universities and higher education institutes, with 118,580 students. Around 97 per cent of the adult population is literate.
G Culture
The cultural life of Vietnam was strongly flavoured by that of China until French domination in the 19th century. At that time the traditional culture began to acquire an overlay of Western characteristics. After reunification, the government expressed its desire to rid Vietnamese life of Occidental influences, but this policy has since been eased.
Two major museums of Vietnamese culture have been established, in Hanoi in 1958 and in Ho Chi Minh City in 1977. The National Library was established in Hanoi in 1919; a counterpart was founded in Ho Chi Minh City in 1976.
IV ECONOMY
Vietnam’s modern economy evolved under the burden of military actions and political upheavals. After partition in 1954, the nations of North Vietnam and South Vietnam each had developed their own economic structure, reflecting different economic systems with different resources and different trading partners. The North operated under a highly centralized command economy, whereas the South maintained a free market economy. With the reunification of Vietnam in 1976 came the introduction of North Vietnam’s centrally planned economy into the South, leading to famine and hyperinflation across the country by the 1980s. A continuing economic reform programme, begun in 1986 and known as doi moi (Vietnamese, “renovation”), encouraged competition, open markets, and foreign investment, with the aim of restoring the country’s prosperity and emulating the “Tiger Cub” high-growth economies of Asia. A 1990 programme called for a doubling of per capita income, a 50 per cent increase in the rice crop, and a fivefold increase in the value of exports by the year 2000. Between 1991 and 1993 some 3,000 loss-making state-run businesses were closed. In 1999 Vietnam had an estimated annual gross national product of US$28,733 million (World Bank figure), equivalent to US$370 per capita. The 1997 budget comprised revenue of US$5,531 million and expenditure of US$6,061 million.
A Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing
The leading sector of the Vietnamese economy is agriculture, employing 71 per cent of the workforce in 1995; government control of the agricultural economy was abandoned in 1989. The country’s principal crops in 2000 (with output in tonnes) included rice, the staple food, 32 million (Vietnam is the world’s third-largest rice exporter, behind Thailand and the United States); sugar cane, 17.8 million; cassava, 1.81 million; and sweet potatoes, 2 million. Cash crops include coffee, 672,600; soya beans, 144,700; natural rubber, 214,800; and tea, 64,700. Livestock in 2000 included 18.9 million pigs, 4.06 million cattle, and 229 million chickens.
Although forests cover about 30 per cent of Vietnam’s total land area (a 13 per cent reduction since the 1940s), the growth of commercial forestry has been hindered by a lack of transport facilities, as well as by the mixture of different species of trees, making it uneconomical to harvest a single species. Teak and bamboo are predominant. Most of the 36.2 million cu m (1.28 billion cu ft) of roundwood harvested in 1999 was used for fuel; timber exports were prohibited in 1992 because of deforestation.
Vietnam’s extensive coastline and numerous streams are rich fishing sites. Most fish are taken from the South China Sea. Some fish-farming has been undertaken in flooded areas inland. About 1.55 million tonnes of fish, crabs, shrimps, and prawns, and shellfish were caught in 1997.
B Mining
Most mining activities are confined to the north-west, where anthracite coal, phosphate rock, copper, tin, zinc, iron antimony, and chromium are extracted. Coal and apatite, a phosphate rock, are extensively mined: production in 1999 was 10.8 million tonnes of coal and 850,000 tonnes of phosphate rock. In addition, large petroleum and natural gas deposits lie offshore. Petroleum has been extracted since 1975 and production, mostly by a state-owned company, has been increasing: 106 million barrels of crude oil were produced in 1999. The areas holding all of the petroleum and natural gas reserves are also claimed by China.
C Manufacturing
The major Vietnamese manufacturing plants, concentrated in the north, have been almost totally restored, but output has not reached planned levels. Important industries include paper, cement, textiles, food products, chemicals, and fertilizers. Output of principal products in 1993 included 4.8 million tonnes of cement and 225 million metres of textile fabrics.
D Energy
Hydroelectric power produces around 87 per cent of the country’s electricity while coal-burning plants produce about 13 per cent. Installed generating capacity in 1995 was 3,500 MW. In 1999 some 23 billion kWh of electricity were generated.
E Currency and Banking
Following the reunification of Vietnam, the piastre, the currency of the south, was abolished. The monetary unit of Vietnam is the new dông of 100 xu (14,522 new dông equal US$1; 2001). The State Bank of Vietnam (1951), based in Hanoi, is the national bank of issue. Four independent commercial banks were established by the government in 1990, and regulations were introduced to allow foreign banks to operate in Vietnam.
F Commerce and Trade
In 1999 Vietnam’s total annual exports were valued at about US$11,850 million, and its imports at about US$12,000 million. Important exports include unprocessed agricultural products (especially rice), petroleum, coal, clothing, footwear, ceramics, gemstones, and silk. Principal imports are mineral fuels, tractors, fertilizers, and transport equipment. Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, France, and Germany are Vietnam’s major trading partners. Since 1987 the government has encouraged foreign investment to promote economic growth, with a total of US$5,300 million invested between 1988 and 1993. On February 4, 1994, the United States ended a trade embargo first imposed against North Vietnam in 1964.
G Labour
The labour force of Vietnam in 1999 was estimated to be around 39.8 million people. The only legal labour federation is the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour, which had a membership of about 3.8 million in the early 1990s. A new labour law passed in 1994 gave workers the right to strike.
H Transport
The war years left a mark on the transport system of Vietnam. Since the end of the conflict, major efforts have been made to link the south and the north. Vehicular transport, easiest along the coast, employs a network (1998 figures) of about 93,300 km (57,974 mi) of roads, of which about 25 per cent is paved. In 1994 Vietnam had around 200,000 cars, trucks, and buses. Railways have (1998 figures) about 2,832 km (1,760 mi) of operable track and are concentrated in the north, except for the 1,730-km (1,075-mi) Hanoi-to-Ho Chi Minh City line. In October 2000 the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) approved plans for the Trans-Asia Railway Project, a 5,513-km (3,420-mi) rail link, costing US$2.5 billion. The link, which is scheduled for completion in 2006, will connect Vietnam and six other ASEAN countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar) with Kunming, in Yunnan Province, China. The long coastline of the country and the Mekong and Red rivers, as well as many smaller streams and canals, facilitate inexpensive water transport. The major ports used for international shipping are Haiphong, Ða Nãng, and Ho Chi Minh City. Domestic flights link several of Vietnam’s cities, and Vietnam Airlines operates both internationally and domestically. Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi (Noi Bai) have international airports.
I Communications
There are 10 national daily newspapers published in Vietnam, including Nhan Dan (“The People”), the official paper of the Communist Party, and Quan Doi Nhan Dan (“People’s Army”), the official paper of the army. Around 27 telephones per 1,000 people were in use in 1999. Two national radio stations broadcast from Hanoi and one from Ho Chi Minh City. There are an estimated 8 million radios and 4 million televisions throughout the country (1997 figures). Communications in Vietnam are under the broad control of the state.
V GOVERNMENT
A constitution enacted in 1992 assigns to the Communist Party a leading role in Vietnamese government and society. The party acts through the Vietnam Fatherland Front, which includes representatives of the nation’s political parties, trade unions, and social organizations.
A Executive and Legislature
Under the 1992 constitution, the head of state is a president, elected by the legislature from among its members; as commander of the armed forces, the president chairs the Council on National Defence and Security. The prime minister, who heads the government, appoints a Cabinet, subject to legislative approval. Real political power is located within the structures of the Communist Party, led by the Secretary-General. In 1998 the Communist Party announced the creation of a five-member Politburo Standing Board, comprising an inner core of high government officials.
The unicameral National Assembly, composed of a maximum of 450 members, is the highest legislative body in Vietnam. Governmental appointments are ratified by the legislature, which is elected for a five-year term.
B Political Parties
The Vietnamese Communist Party is the leading political institution. All legislative candidates must be approved by the Fatherland Front. A few independent candidates have stood in elections to the legislature, without success.
C Judiciary
Judges of the people’s courts are elected to their offices. Organs of Control can initiate prosecutions against governmental bodies or individuals deemed to be violating the law. The highest court in Vietnam is the Supreme People’s Court.
D Local Government
A system of people’s councils, each representing a local jurisdiction, administers local government in Vietnam. Each council has a people’s committee elected from it to serve as an executive. The country is divided into 60 provinces and 3 municipalities: Hanoi, Haiphong, and Ho Chi Minh City. The city of Ða Nãng is under central administration.
E Health and Welfare
A national social security system is in operation in Vietnam. The average life expectancy at birth in 2001 was 67 years for men and 72 years for women. Infant mortality in 2001 was 30 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 1999 the nation had 1 doctor per 2,899 people and in 1997 there was 1 hospital bed for every 598 people.
F Defence
The Vietnamese armed forces totalled 484,000 troops in 1999, comprising an army (412,000 personnel), a navy (42,000 personnel including 30,000 marines), an air force (30,000 personnel), and an air defence force (15,000 personnel). From two to three years of military service are compulsory. Much of the equipment used by the military consists of abandoned American-made matériel and arms obtained from Vietnam’s allies, particularly the former Soviet Union.
G International Organizations
Vietnam is a member of the UN and the Association of South East Asian Nations.
VI HISTORY
The Vietnamese first appeared in history as one of many scattered peoples living in what is now south China and northern Vietnam just before the beginning of the Christian era. According to local tradition, the small Vietnamese kingdom of Au Lac, located in the heart of the Red River valley, was founded by a line of legendary kings who had ruled over the ancient kingdom of Van Lang for thousands of years. Historical evidence to substantiate this tradition is scanty, but archaeological findings indicate that the early peoples of the Red River delta area may have been among the first East Asians to practise agriculture, and that by the 1st century bc they had achieved a relatively advanced level of Bronze Age civilization.
A Chinese Influence
In 221 bc the Qin dynasty in China completed its conquest of neighbouring states and became the first to rule over a united China. The Qin empire, however, did not long survive the death of its dynamic founder, Shi Huangdi, and the impact of its collapse was soon felt in Vietnam. In the wreckage of the empire, the Chinese commander in the south built his own kingdom of Nam Viet (South Viet; Chinese, Nan Yue); the young state of Au Lac was included.
In 111 BC Chinese armies under Emperor Wudi conquered Nam Viet and absorbed it into the growing Han dynasty empire. The Chinese conquest had fateful consequences for the future course of Vietnamese history. After briefly ruling through local chieftains, Chinese rulers attempted to integrate Vietnam politically and culturally into the Han empire. Chinese administrators were imported to replace the local landed nobility. Political institutions patterned after the Chinese model were imposed, and Confucianism became the official ideology. The Chinese language was introduced as the medium of official and literary expression, and Chinese ideographs were adopted as the written form for the Vietnamese spoken language. Chinese art, architecture, and music exercised a powerful impact on their Vietnamese counterparts.
Vietnamese resistance to rule by the Chinese was fierce but sporadic. The most famous early revolt took place in ad 39, when two widows of local aristocrats, the Trung sisters, led an uprising against foreign rule. The revolt was briefly successful, and the older sister, Trung Trac, established herself as ruler of an independent state. Chinese armies returned to the attack, however, and in ad 43 Vietnam was reconquered.
B Independence
The Trung sisters’ revolt was only the first in a series of intermittent uprisings that took place during a thousand years of Chinese rule in Vietnam. Finally, in 939, Vietnamese forces under Ngo Quyen took advantage of chaotic conditions in China to defeat local occupation troops and set up an independent state. Ngo Quyen’s death a few years later ushered in a period of civil strife, but in the early 11th century the first of the great Vietnamese dynasties was founded. Under the astute leadership of several dynamic rulers, the Ly dynasty ruled Vietnam for more than 200 years, from 1010 to 1225. Although the rise of the Ly reflected the emergence of a lively sense of Vietnamese nationhood, Ly rulers retained many of the political and social institutions that had been introduced during the period of Chinese rule. Confucianism continued to provide the foundation for the political institutions of the state. The Chinese civil service examination system was retained as the means of selecting government officials, and although at first only members of the nobility were permitted to compete in the examinations, eventually the right was extended to include most males. The educational system also continued to reflect the Chinese model. Young Vietnamese preparing for the examinations were schooled in the Confucian classics and grew up conversant with the great figures and ideas that had shaped Chinese history.
Vietnamese society, however, was more than just a pale reflection of China. Beneath the veneer of Chinese fashion and thought, popular mostly among the upper classes, native forms of expression continued to flourish. Young Vietnamese learned to appreciate the great heroes of the Vietnamese past, many of whom had built their reputation on resistance to the Chinese conquest. At the village level, social mores reflected native forms more than patterns imported from China. Although to the superficial eye Vietnam looked like a “smaller dragon”, under the tutelage of the great empire to the north, it continued to have a separate culture with vibrant traditions of its own.
C Economy Under the Ly Dynasty
Like most of its neighbours, Vietnam was primarily an agricultural state, its survival based above all on the cultivation of wet rice. Much of the land was divided among powerful families, who often owned thousands of serfs or domestic slaves. A class of landholding farmers also existed, however, and powerful monarchs frequently attempted to protect this class by limiting the power of landowners and dividing up their large estates.
The Vietnamese economy was not based solely on agriculture. Commerce and manufacturing thrived, and local crafts appeared in regional markets throughout the area. Vietnam never developed into a predominantly commercial nation, however, or became a major participant in regional trade patterns.
D Territorial Expansion
Under the rule of the Ly dynasty and its successor, the Tran (1225-1400), Vietnam became a dynamic force in South East Asia. China’s rulers, however, had not abandoned their historic objective of controlling the Red River delta, and when the Mongol empire came to power in China in the 13th century as the Yuan dynasty, the armies of Kublai Khan attacked Vietnam in an effort to reincorporate it into the Chinese empire. The Vietnamese resisted with vigour, and after several bitter battles they defeated the invaders and drove them back across the border.
While the Vietnamese maintained their vigilance toward the north, an area of equal and growing concern lay to the south. For centuries, the Vietnamese state had been restricted to its heartland in the Red River valley and adjacent hills. Tension between Vietnam and the kingdom of Champa, a seafaring state along the central coast, appeared shortly after the restoration of Vietnamese independence. On several occasions, Cham armies broke through Vietnamese defences and occupied the capital near Hanoi. More frequently, Vietnamese troops were victorious, and they gradually drove Champa to the south. Finally, in the 15th century, Vietnamese forces captured the Cham capital south of present-day Ða Nãng and virtually destroyed the kingdom.
For the next several generations, Vietnam continued its historic “march to the south”, wiping up the remnants of the Cham Kingdom and gradually approaching the marshy flatlands of the Mekong delta. There it confronted a new foe, the Khmer kingdom in the area of modern Cambodia, which had once been the most powerful state in the region. By the late 16th century, however, it had declined, and it offered little resistance to Vietnamese encroachment. By the end of the 17th century, Vietnam had occupied the lower Mekong delta and began to advance to the west, threatening to transform the disintegrating Khmer state into a mere protectorate.
E Le Dynasty
The Vietnamese advance to the south coincided with new challenges in the north. In 1407 Vietnam was again conquered by Chinese troops. For two decades, the Ming dynasty attempted to reintegrate Vietnam into the empire, but in 1428, resistance forces under the rebel leader Le Loi dealt the Chinese a decisive defeat and restored Vietnamese independence. Le Loi mounted the throne as the first emperor of the Le dynasty. The new ruling house retained its vigour for more than a hundred years, but in the 16th century it began to decline. Power at court was wielded by two rival aristocratic clans, the Trinh and the Nguyen. When the former became dominant, the Nguyen were granted a fiefdom in the south around 1620 centred on Huê, dividing Vietnam into two separate zones. Rivalry was sharpened by the machinations of European powers newly arrived in South East Asia in pursuit of wealth and Christian converts. Portuguese mariners had first landed in 1516, and by the 17th century a full trading port had been established. At the end of the century, however, the Vietnamese turned against European intrusion and maintained a seclusion policy similar to those operating in China and Japan. Trinh and Nguyen governed in rivalry from Hanoi and Huê, with the Le rulers maintained as Trinh puppets.
By the late 18th century, the Le dynasty was near collapse. Vast rice lands were controlled by grasping feudal lords. Angry peasants—led by the Tay Son brothers—revolted in 1777, massacring the Nyugens. After toppling the Trinh and fending off an invasion from Manchu dynasty China, the ablest of the brothers briefly restored Vietnam to united rule in 1789. He died shortly after ascending the throne; a few years later Nguyen Anh, the sole surviving heir to the Nguyen house in the south, defeated the Tay Son armies with French help. As Emperor Gia Long, he established the Nguyen dynasty in 1802.
F French Intervention
A French missionary, Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, had raised a mercenary force to help Nguyen Anh seize the throne in the hope that the new emperor would provide France with trading and missionary privileges, but his hopes were disappointed. The Nguyen dynasty was suspicious of French influence. Roman Catholic missionaries and their Vietnamese converts were persecuted, and a few were executed during the 1830s. Religious groups in France demanded action from the government in Paris. When similar pressure was exerted by commercial and military interests, Emperor Napoleon III approved the launching of a naval expedition in 1858 to punish the Vietnamese and force the court to accept a French protectorate.
The first French attack at Ða Nãng Harbour failed to achieve its objectives, but a second farther south was more successful, and in 1862 the court at Huê agreed to cede several provinces in the Mekong delta (later called Cochin China) to France. In the 1880s the French returned to the offensive, launching an attack on the north. After severe defeats, the Vietnamese accepted a French protectorate over the remaining territory of Vietnam.
G Colonial Rule and Resistance
The imposition of French colonial rule had met with little organized resistance. The national sense of identity, however, had not been crushed, and anti-colonial sentiment soon began to emerge. Poor economic conditions contributed to native hostility to the conspicuously harsh French rule. Although French occupation brought improvements in transport and communications, and contributed to the growth of commerce and manufacturing, colonialism brought little improvement in livelihood to the mass of the population, and fostered a general impression of mercantile capitalism as a foreign imposition. In the countryside, peasants struggled under heavy taxes and high rents for collaborationist landlords. Workers in factories, in coal mines, and on rubber plantations laboured in abysmal conditions for low wages. Vietnamese were excluded from almost all echelons of the colonial administration. The French frequently recruited forced labour for public works projects, and legal protection or redress for Vietnamese was virtually absent. By the early 1900s, nationalist parties began to demand reform and independence. In 1930 the revolutionary Ho Chi Minh formed an Indochinese Communist Party.
Until World War II started in 1939, such groups laboured without success. In 1940, however, Japan demanded and received the right to place Vietnam under military occupation, restricting the local French administration to figurehead authority. Seizing the opportunity, the Communists organized the broad Vietminh Front, with some covert American assistance, and prepared to launch an uprising at the war’s end. The Vietminh (short for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) emphasized moderate reform and national independence rather than specifically Communist aims. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, Vietminh forces arose throughout Vietnam and declared the establishment of an independent republic in Hanoi.
The French, however, were unwilling to concede independence, and in October drove the Vietminh and other nationalist groups out of the south. For more than a year the French and the Vietminh sought a negotiated solution, but the talks, held in France, failed to resolve differences; chiefly because of French determination to re-annexe Vietnam. In November 1946 French warships bombarded Haiphong, causing thousands of civilian casualties; Vietminh forces in Hanoi retaliated in December, and war was under way.
H Expulsion of the French
The conflict lasted for nearly eight years. The Vietminh retreated into the hills to build up their forces while the French formed a rival Vietnamese government under Emperor Bao Dai, the last ruler of the Nguyen dynasty, in populated areas along the coast. Vietminh forces lacked the strength to defeat the French and generally restricted their activities to guerrilla warfare. In 1953-1954 the French fortified a base at Ðiên Biên Phu (also known as Ðiên Biên). After months of siege and heavy casualties, the Vietminh overran the fortress in the decisive Battle of Ðiên Biên Phu. As a consequence, the French government could no longer resist pressure from a war-weary populace at home and in June 1954 agreed to negotiations to end the war. At a conference held in Geneva the two sides accepted an interim compromise to end the war. They divided the country at the 17th parallel, with the Vietminh in the North and the French and their Vietnamese supporters in the South. To avoid permanent partition, a political protocol was drawn up, calling for national elections to reunify the country two years after the signing of the treaty.
I Partition
After Geneva, the Vietminh in Hanoi refrained from armed struggle and began to build a Communist society. In the southern capital, Saigon, Bao Dai soon was toppled by a new regime under the staunch anti-Communist president Ngo Dinh Diem. With diplomatic support from the United States, Diem refused to hold elections and attempted to destroy Communist influence in the South. By 1959, however, Diem was in trouble. His unwillingness to tolerate domestic opposition, his alleged favouritism of fellow Roman Catholics, and the failure of his social and economic programmes seriously alienated key groups in the populace, especially Buddhist groups, and led to rising unrest. The Communists decided it was time to resume their revolutionary war.
J The Vietnam War
In the fall of 1963, Diem was overthrown and killed in a coup d’état launched by his own generals. In the political confusion that followed, the security situation in South Vietnam continued to deteriorate, putting the Communists within reach of victory. In early 1965, to prevent the total collapse of the Saigon regime, US President Lyndon Johnson approved regular intensive bombing of North Vietnam and the dispatch of US combat troops into the South, marking the overt entry of the United States into the Vietnam War.
The US intervention caused severe problems for the Communists on the battlefield and compelled them to send regular units of the North Vietnamese army into the South. It did not persuade them to abandon the struggle, however, and in 1968, after the bloody Tet offensive shook the new authoritarian Saigon regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu to its foundations, the Johnson administration decided to pursue a negotiated settlement. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 and was succeeded by another leader of the revolution, Le Duan. The new US president, Richard Nixon, continued Johnson’s policy while gradually withdrawing US troops. In January 1973 the war temporarily came to an end with the signing of a peace agreement in Paris. The settlement provided for the total removal of remaining US troops, while Hanoi tacitly agreed to accept the Thieu regime in preparation for new national elections. The agreement soon fell apart, however, and in early 1975 the Communists launched a military offensive. In six weeks, the resistance of the Thieu regime collapsed, and on April 30 the Communists seized power in Saigon. The Vietnam War had left more than 15 per cent of the Vietnamese population killed or wounded.
K Socialist Republic of Vietnam
In 1976 the South was reunited with the North in a new Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. The conclusion of the war, however, did not end the country’s troubles. The exodus of refugees (especially ethnic Chinese), the so-called “boat people” who were willing to escape via hazardous sea crossings or less dangerous overland routes to other states, accelerated as socialization policies progressed in the south: almost 200,000 left in 1979. Border tension with the Communist government in Cambodia escalated rapidly after the fall of Saigon, and in early 1979 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in support of elements opposed to the Khmer Rouge, and installed a pro-Vietnamese government. The virtual occupation brought widespread international protests, and a few weeks later, Vietnam was itself attacked by its Communist neighbour and erstwhile benefactor, China, which had become jealous of Vietnamese encroachment on its regional interests. Chinese forces caused severe damage in the border region, but sustained heavy casualties. In the mid-1980s about 140,000 Vietnamese troops were stationed in Cambodia and another 50,000 troops in Laos. Vietnam substantially reduced its forces in Laos during 1988 and withdrew virtually all its troops from Cambodia by September 1989.
Within Vietnam, post-war economic and social problems were severe, and reconstruction proceeded slowly. Efforts to collectivize agriculture and nationalize business aroused hostility in the south. Disappointing harvests, the absorption of resources by the military, and US embargoes on global assistance and investment further retarded Vietnam’s recovery. By 1986 the annual rate of currency inflation was 700 per cent. Following the death of the veteran party chief Le Duan in 1986, economic reformists backed by a younger generation of Communist Party cadres took power, proclaiming a new policy of doi moi (renovation) modelled on Russian perestroika. The process accelerated in 1988, when poor harvests, famine, and bureaucratic mismanagement led to a mass dismissal of conservative party cadres under unprecedented reformist pressure. However, reaction to the events of 1989 in Europe and China led to the reinforcement of Communist primacy. The end of aid from the former Soviet Union in 1991 with the collapse of Soviet Communism further accelerated economic reform.
The new constitution of Vietnam adopted in 1992 reinforced the Communist Party’s central role, but sought to give legal guarantees to foreign investors (along with the introduction of bankruptcy legislation, to force moribund state enterprises to close). Vigorous restructuring policies had by the early 1990s reduced inflation and government debt to acceptable levels. European and Asian heads of state hastened to restore diplomatic ties with Vietnam, as companies hastened to invest. The United States finally ceased opposition to International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) reconstruction loans and aid for Vietnam in July 1993. Vietnam’s rush for growth was partly in response to the rapid growth of China, and the resultant threat to Vietnamese security. The United States lifted its embargo on trade with Vietnam in February 1994. In January 1995 a US diplomatic liaison office was opened in Hanoi and in July the US extended full diplomatic recognition to Vietnam.
In May 1997 the United States and Vietnam appointed ambassadors to each other for the first time since the fall of South Vietnam, and in June Madeleine Albright became the first US Secretary of State to visit Vietnam since the war. In the July 1997 National Assembly elections, some non-Communist candidates (albeit heavily vetted) were allowed to stand. Vietnam was forced by the Asian financial crisis to devalue its currency in October 1997. In December 1997 General Le Kha Phieu, a conservative figure, was elected as the new Communist Party Secretary-General. In February 1998 the government devalued Vietnam’s currency again, and announced economic reform plans, including the creation of a stock exchange, which was launched in July 2000. The United States opened a consulate on the site of its former embassy in Ho Chi Minh City in August 1999. On November 16, 2000 Bill Clinton became the first United States president to visit Vietnam since the conflict between the two countries ended over two decades earlier. It was hoped that the visit would further the process of reconciliation and lead to increased trade. Further efforts to strengthen relations with other nations were made by Vietnam during 2000 and 2001, with government representatives from Russia, India, China, Singapore, and the United Kingdom making official visits to the country.
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