by Peter Church
The scale of the economic crisis forced some softening of policy as early as 1979, but hardline neo‐Stalinist opinion essentially prevailed within Vietnam's ruling group until 1985, when Gorbachev's reforms in the USSR heartened reformers in Vietnam. In 1986, the Sixth National Congress of the Vietnam Communist Party formally approved the policy of doi moi, or “renovation.”
During the mid‐to‐late 1990s, Vietnam's economy benefited from a rapprochement with its regional neighbours and even its old enemy, the United States. Washington lifted its 30‐year trade embargo in 1994, and agreed to a full normalisation of diplomatic relations in July the following year, though it was not until 1997 that Congress ratified the appointment of an ambassador. For this role, they chose Pete Peterson—a Vietnam War pilot who had spent time as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. The major sticking point in relations between the two countries had been Washington's insistence that Hanoi fully account for 1,600 US servicemen posted as missing in action during the war. Hanoi pledged full cooperation and has assisted military investigation teams with information and logistical support. In 2001 the two countries signed a bilateral trade agreement and the United States is now the country's largest export market, followed by Japan, China, Australia, and Singapore.
Vietnam entered ASEAN in 1995 and was elected its chairman in 2001, a source of considerable national pride considering that the grouping was originally set up as an umbrella organisation to oppose communist expansion in the region. Relations with China have also blossomed. The growing importance of this bilateral relationship was illustrated in 2007 when newly elected President Nguyen Minh Triet visited China one month before his first official visit to the United States. Nonetheless tensions remain, many of them historical. Both sides lay claim to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and though Vietnam signed an agreement with China in 2011 to manage the South China Sea dispute, there were reports that the Chinese navy sabotaged two Vietnamese exploration operations in 2012, which led to large anti‐China protests in Vietnam. This dispute will continue to be a source of future conflict if commercial quantities of oil are discovered.
The Asian economic crisis which rocked South‐East Asia in 1997 and the subsequent hi‐tech crash and global economic slowdown have had only an indirect impact on Vietnam, though this had more to do with the limited extent to which the economy had been opened up and integrated regionally under doi moi, than with any strong economic fundamentals working to buttress investor confidence. While many factors relevant to economic recovery are outside of its control, there are pressures on the government to implement further wide‐ranging economic reforms to counter systemic problems arising from an unwieldy bureaucracy, the persistence of widespread corruption in both Party and government, and a Soviet‐era legal system which requires reforming in order to shore up foreign investor confidence by guaranteeing private property. The government has also been urged by Western donors to increase measures to encourage the private sector, in order to ease the reliance on foreign aid. Indeed, the impressive growth of the private sector was demonstrated by the fact that by 2015 it accounted for over 60 percent of GDP and was responsible for generating 90 percent of jobs created in the last decade. When Vietnam was admitted into the World Trade Organization in 2007, it was a source of considerable pride and achievement among the leadership as membership conferred foreign recognition of the country's transition to a market‐based economy which was increasingly integrated into the global economy.
Politically, doi moi has led to the emergence of a new, younger leadership, the streamlining (relatively) of the country's administrative apparatus, reforms in the Party's structure, and moves toward the rule of law, accountable government, and greater freedom of expression. It was precisely with this in mind that in 2004, the Central Committee of the Communist Party held its major midterm conference and identified the major tasks for the next decade or so as being to privatise state‐owned enterprises, to reduce poverty, to maintain political and economic stability, and to achieve annual economic growth of 8 percent. GDP doubled between 1995 and 2005 and since 2013, the economy has grown an average of about 5 percent annually and overtook Brazil as the world's largest coffee exporter. The country is also progressing from an agricultural‐based economy toward an industrial one.
At the Tenth Party Congress in 2006, members were treated to unprecedented frankness on the corrosive effects that corruption by Party and state officials was having on popular support for the government. Such rare candour followed a series of corruption scandals involving senior officials, which the usually tightly controlled press had been encouraged to report on. The 2006 Party Congress also confirmed the appointments of Nguyen Tan Dung as the new prime minister and Nguyen Minh Triet as the new president. Both men had been the sole nominees to their respective positions and both hail from the more freewheeling south, reflecting an emphasis on continued economic (if not political) reform. Nguyen Tan Dung served as prime minister until 2016 when, during a leadership renewal exercise, Nguyen Xuan Phuc was appointed the new prime minister by the Communist Party. It also reelected the powerful incumbent Nguyen Phu Trong as general‐secretary for a second term.
Economic change has gone much further than political reform, propelled by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc's abandonment of socialism. In practical terms, this has meant the loss to Vietnam of aid which accounted for up to 30 percent of the state budget. China's example has also been a major, if unacknowledged, factor in determining Vietnamese policy. Like China, Vietnam is now a hybrid: a state under one‐party control—in theory, socialist—but with a free‐enterprise economy operating alongside state‐owned enterprises. In fact the last decade has seen increased crackdowns on criticism of the government, including, in particular, on the Internet and via social media. Journalists and pro‐democracy activists have been harshly dealt with, many receiving long jail sentences. In 2013 the government introduced a ban on online discussion of current affairs.
One issue of extreme historical and modern‐day importance, not just to Vietnam but to the whole of South‐East Asia and potentially the world, is the current dispute over China's claims to the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei all have competing claims. China claims by far the largest portion of territory—an area defined by the “nine‐dash line” which stretches hundreds of miles south and east from its most southerly province of Hainan. China says its right to the area goes back centuries to when the Paracel and Spratly island chains were regarded as integral parts of the Chinese nation, and in 1947 it issued a map detailing its claims.
Vietnam hotly disputes China's historical account, saying China had never claimed sovereignty over the islands before the 1940s. Vietnam says it has actively ruled over both the Paracels and the Spratlys since the 17th century—and has the documents to prove it. Although largely uninhabited, the Paracels and the Spratlys may have reserves of natural resources around them. There has been little detailed exploration of the area, so estimates are largely extrapolated from the mineral wealth of neighbouring areas.
The other major claimant in the area is the Philippines (see Chapter 8, Philippines), which invokes its geographical proximity to the Spratly Islands as the main basis of its claim for part of the grouping. Both the Philippines and China also lay claim to the Scarborough Shoal (known as Huangyan Island in China)—a little more than 100 miles from the Philippines and some 500 miles from China. Malaysia and Brunei also lay claim to territory in the South China Sea that they say falls within their economic exclusion zones, as defined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Brunei does not claim any of the disputed islands, but Malaysia claims a small number of islands in the Spratlys.
China has backed its expansive claims with island‐building and an aggressive naval presence. It has, for example, in recent years rapidly built artificial islands with military infrastructure, including on Mischief Reef, which is within the exclusive economic zone of the
Philippines. Its forces also took over Scarborough Shoal and barred Filipino fishermen from accessing its rich fishing grounds.
The Philippines, frustrated and infuriated with China's actions, sought international arbitration in 2013, taking the dispute to an arbitration tribunal under the auspices of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to challenge China's claims. In July 2016, judges of the tribunal backed the Philippines' case, saying that China had “no historical rights” based on the nine‐dash‐line map and had violated the Philippines' sovereign rights. China had boycotted the proceedings and called the ruling “ill‐founded.” The tribunal's decision lends weight to Vietnam's position.
This dispute is far from settled and so sensitive has the atmosphere in China–Vietnam relations become that in September 2016, not long before publication of this edition, the information screens and sound systems at Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City airports were hacked and broadcast anti‐Vietnamese and Philippines slogans.
As a final observation of the current history of Vietnam, some analysts question the long‐term stability of the Vietnamese single‐party communist system. Free‐enterprise economic activity is perhaps intrinsically pluralist. In Vietnam, the historically more pluralist south has shot ahead of the north economically since doi moi. Some are worried the country's pull‐apart tendencies could reemerge. On the other hand, Vietnam's current rulers are firmly in command as the rightful heirs of the socialist patriots who overcame France and the United States and reunited the fatherland. Despite economic achievements since doi moi, the challenge the Community Party faces is not its power, but its capacity to persist with economic reforms and to see through the myriad social and cultural, as well as political, changes needed and to maintain stability in a country where until recently stability has rarely been experienced.
Further Reading
GENERAL
Kelly, David and Reid, Anthony Asian Freedoms: The Idea of Freedom in East and Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
McVey, Ruth T (ed) Southeast Asian Capitalists. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1992.
Osborne, Milton Southeast Asia: An Introductory Illustrated History. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995.
Reid, Anthony Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Reid, Anthony Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era: Trade, Power and Belief. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963.
Steinberg, David J (ed) In Search of Southeast Asia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987.
Wang, Gungwu Community and Nation: China, Southeast Asia and Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992.
BRUNEI
Ranjit Singh, D S Brunei 1834–1983: The Problem of Political Survival. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Turnbull, C Mary A History of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989.
CAMBODIA
Chandler, David A History of Cambodia, 2nd edition. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1982.
Kiernan, Ben How Pol Pot Came to Power. London: Verso, 1985.
Osborne, Milton Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994.
INDONESIA
Booth, Anne (ed) The Oil Boom and After: Indonesian Economic Policy and Performance in the Soeharto Era. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Legge, J D Sukarno: A Political Biography. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1985.
Liddle, R William Leadership and Culture in Indonesian Politics. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996.
MacIntyre, Andrew Indonesia. Sydney: The Asia‐Australia Institute, UNSW, 1993.
MacIntyre, Andrew Business and Politics in Indonesia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990.
Ricklets, M C A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1300. London: Macmillan, 1993.
Vatikiotis, Michael Indonesian Politics under Suharto. London: Routledge, 1993.
LAO PDR
Brown, MacAlister and Zasloff, Joseph J Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930–1985. Stanford: Hoover Research Institution Press, 1986.
Dommen, Arthur J Laos: Keystone of Indochina. Boulder: Westview Press, 1985.
Stuart‐Fox, Martin and Kooyman, Mary Historical Dictionary of Laos. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992.
MALAYSIA
Andaya, Barbara & Leonard A History of Malaysia. London: Macmillan, 1982.
Crouch, Harold Government and Society in Malaysia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996.
Kahn, Joel S and Loh, Francis Kok Wah (eds) Fragmented Vision: Culture and Politics in Contemporary Malaysia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992.
Mahathir, M The Malay Dilemma. Singapore: Times Books International, 1970.
Means, Gordon P Malaysian Politics: The Second Generation, Singapore and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
MYANMAR
Aung‐Thwin, Michael Pagan: The Origins of Modern Burma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985.
Badgley, John “Myanmar in 1993: A Watershed Year.” Asian Survey 34, no. 2: (February 1994): 153–59.
Lintner, Bertil Outrage: Burma's Struggle for Democracy. Hong Kong: Far Eastern Economic Review, 1990.
Osborne, Milton Burma. Sydney: UNSW, Asia‐Australia Institute, Asia‐Australia Briefing Paper, 1994.
Osborne, Milton Southeast Asia: An Illustrated Introductory History. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990.
Silverstein, Josef (ed) Independent Burma at Forty Years: Six Assessments. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1989.
Smith, Martin Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. London: 1991.
Taylor, Robert The State in Burma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988.
PHILIPPINES
Friend, Theodore The Blue‐Eyed Enemy: Japan Against the West in Java and Luzon, 1942–1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Hawes, Gary “Marcos, His Cronies, and the Philippines Failure to Develop.” In Ruth T McVey, Southeast Asian Capitalists. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1992.
Ileton, Reynaldo Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910. Manila: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1979.
McCoy, Alfred W and d Jesus, C (eds) Philippine Social History. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1982.
McCoy, Alfred W (ed) Southeast Asia Under Japanese Occupation. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1980.
PHILIPPINES
Paredes, Ruby R (ed) Philippine Colonial Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1988.
Pinches, Michael “The Philippines: The Regional Exception.” The Pacific Review 5, no. 4: (1992): 390–401.
Reidinger, Jeffrey “The Philippines in 1993.” Asian Survey 34, no. 2 (February 1994): 139–52.
SINGAPORE
Carnegie, Georgina and Sharpe, Diana Singapore. Sydney: The Asia‐Australia Institute, UNSW, 1993.
Chua, Beng‐Huat Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London: Routledge, 1995.
Minchen, James No Man Is an Island: A Portrait of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990.
Rodan, Gary The Political Economy of Singapore's Industrialisation. Kuala Lumpur: Forum, 1989.
Siddique, S and Sholam, N Singapore's Little India. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1982.
Turnbull, C M A History of Singapore, 1819–1988, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1992.
THAILAND
Suehiro, Akira Capital Accumulation in Thailand, 1885–1985. Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1989.
Hewison, Kevin Politics and Power in Thailand: Essays in Political Economy. Manila: Journal of Contemporary Asia Publishers, 1989.
Wright, Joseph J The Balancing Act: A History of Modern Thailand. Bangkok: Asia Books, 1991.
Wyatt, David K Thailand: A Short History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
VIETNAM
Duiker, William J Historical Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989.
Jamieson, Neil Understanding Viet
nam. Berkeley: University of California, 1993.
Karnow, Stanley Vietnam: A History. London: Penguin, 1984.
Kolko, Gabriel Vietnam: Anatomy of War 1940–1975. London: Allen & Unwin, 1986.
Lockhart, Greg Nation in Arms. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989.
Porter, Gareth Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.
Turley, William S The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History. Boulder: Westview Press, 1986.
Maps
Index
* * *
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), impact
Aceh
Adulyadej, Bhumibol (Rama IX)
Agreement on the Restoration of Peace and Reconciliation (Laos)
al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr
Alkatiri, Mari
Alliance, The
al-Qaeda (AQ)-backed operatives, terrorist bombings
Ananda (Rama VIII)
Angkar padevat (revolutionary organisation) forces
Angkor region, actions
Anglo-Burmese war
Anglo-Dutch Treaty (1824)
Anh, Nguyen
Annam (French protectorate)
An-nan (Annam)
Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League, establishment
Aquino, Benigno
Aquino, Corazon (Cory)
Aquino III, Benigno (Noynoy)
Arakanese (ethnic minority)
“Asia for the Asians” (slogan)
Asian economic crisis (1997)
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Laos admittance
