Posted on 06/24/2024 9:53:11 AM PDT by airdalecheif
Vietnam considers the United States its strategic partner in economic and investment matters, says Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
They fought a war with Chine after the US conflict was over. They also put the Khmer Rouge down while the West wrung its hands over the killing fields.
Exactly. It was never about what political system Vietnam had. It was a proxy war.
You know, after we left Vietnam... They went into Cambodia and took out pol pot. While most of their regular troops were down south, China invaded Vietnam in the north. The Vietnamese reserves were called up. They were experienced combat veterans from the last decade of war. They beat the crap out of China. This was 1979 I think. There is no love of China in Vietnam.
Remember that after North Viet Nam won, and reunited with the South, their “Buddies” the ChiComs invaded the North.
The Vietnamese handed the Chinese their collective heads.
Likely nothing really. Việt Nam may have gotten some sort of concessions but only because the American officials don’t understand and Vietnamese reps knew they could. Vietnemese know where their interests lie, the necessities of existence even, and they are not with the Russians whom they despise personally, industrially, and politically. Relations with China are a delicate balancing act with some judicious kowtowing required and that increases with Democrat administrations because Việt Nam can never be sure that a Democrat USA will not abandon them abruptly or actively sell them out.
Việt Nam doesn’t need the foreign aid and absolutely doesn’t want the Woke strings that come with it.
HCM wasn’t dumb though he declined mentally in the last years. Neither was Giáp.
So long as Trump is perceived to have a better than even chance of winning in November, VN will stay out of BRIC. If Trump does not replace the Democrat nihilists Việt Nam will enthusiastically join. It is a matter of economic self defense.
Việt Nam is not socially capable of a Western style Republic or of dangerous Democracy. The society is traditional and totally family/clan based. In an election as we envision it the ;people will vote for the candidates closes to their families regardless of ideology and policy. Can’t run a Republic like that. Related officeholders are expected to concentrate on getting the most possible for their families first and foremost. Regardless of the formal nomenclature and official structure, Việt Nam has as good a government now as it could expect.
Inside every Vietnamese is an American trying to kick his way out.
Looks like they made it out.
Russians are Russians. A few years ago I was in Nha Trang which had become a tourist mecca for Russians and saw many of them and interracted with a few. They seem to be generally unpleasant people all around. The walked about sneering at; the locals and being very impolite in a polite society. When I was walking on the beach with my friend’s wife and his little girl- my goddaughter- we got a lot of disapproving looks and bad English insults. Trang and I thought it amusing.
Việt Nam has a population that resembles South Koreans in that they seem to be born doing business. They are very entrepreneurial and the Vietnamese economic advance has been similar to the Korean “miracle” since the government got out from under the old guard and let this naturally entrepreneurial people do what they do best.
We got into that war with some very bad policy decisions after Edward Lansdale had accomplished pretty much what he had already done in the Philippines with Ramon Magsaysay. We were in the Democracy building phase which we never have got out of. That is trying to build out idea of society in places with very different social organization. It does not work.
I heard that phrase many times in Việt Nam a few; years ago.
Visit. It is an inexpensive vacation and the Vietnamese love Americans, even those Vietnamese who lost family and fought on the other side. I know a man who was drafted in the far north and fought in the jungle for years before he found out the enemy was not China. He was one of the ones who. on entering Sài Gòn decided the wrong side had won.
They still trust them somewhat.
Well, I'm glad that killing Americans soldiers for all those years taught them something.
“ Việt Nam has been trying to maintain a de facto alliance with the USA since the last of the old revolutionaries died off and the younger men with no real connection to the Ideology took over the direction of the state.”
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That has been my general impression of Vietnam. I think that in most countries, and Vietnam certainly qualifies in this regard, the people have a far different view of the rest of the world than those who are in power. Also, succeeding generations of leaders with a different set of experiences usually have a different view than old revolutionaries. I am very glad to hear that this is actually the case in Vietnam. The truth of the matter is, and I believe that the Vietnamese people and their newer leadership realize this, that the people of the United States never had anything against the people of Vietnam. What happened was that our involvement was a byproduct of the Cold War with the Soviet Union (and, to a not insignificant degree, the wishes of our military-industrial complex). It was, most definitely, a tragedy for millions of people. That is almost always what happens when ideology (and money for the powerful) gets in the way of practical policy making. The people always suffer.
If I may be so bold, my own background is probably not that much different than yours, though I am probably about 50 years ahead of you. Let me explain: my paternal grandfather ran away from Communist Russia in 1923. He had one brother here in the US, but the rest of his family was trapped in the old country. His father lost almost all of his property to seizures by the Communists in the 1920s, property that he had worked a lifetime to accumulate, and with which he employed roughly 50 men. In 1937, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the NKVD murdered my great grandfather. Roughly 3/4 of his descendants were trapped in the USSR for three generations, and it was only in the early 1990s that all of them left our old homeland. One or two went to Germany, several to Israel, and the rest to the United States. I do not know you, but it seems like your family probably went through very similar things, though I hope it wasn’t quite so bad for all of you. I can tell you that my grandfather was still alive in 1975, and he, my father and I were all very glad to see lots of Vietnamese , taking great risks to come here to live as free people, similar to what my grandfather did roughly 50 years earlier. I am supremely happy to see the vast majority of the Vietnamese-descended population in this country being loyal and productive citizens. That is the kind of immigration that we need, not those who come here merely seeking a handout. Your people thoroughly understand the value of having personal liberties, and defend the principles and policies that created, preserved and enhance those liberties.
Best of luck FRiend.
Việt Nam has been pretty serious about business and free enterprise. There are some restrictions but in practice they donư’t restrict much at all. A Party member has to be on any corporation’s board of directors but he is mostly just collecting a paycheck. Việt Nam had a pretty sharp lesson in how Socialism works when their war ravaged economy was NOT recovering after the war. When Việt Nam went into Cambodia China cut off food supplies and after a bit ơ did a major border incursion in ‘79. The Party/government people realized that they themselves were getting short rations even as the population came to the edge of famine and there was real starvation in some places. That was when they began loosening up. By ‘84 and Đời Mới the farmers were producing without government “help” and were soon exporting rice in great quantities. Backing off controls on industry took a little longer while the bureaucracy absorbed the new policy but Việt Nam now is looking more and more like Korea twenty years ago and is catching up fast. Vietnamese are practical people, even the nominal Communists, and understand remaining outside of the Empire to the North requires wealth and socialism in practice does not offer any hope of that.
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