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Vietnam Communists call for democracy, shift away from China
Chicago Tribune ^ | August 6, 2014 | John Boudreau

Posted on 08/07/2014 9:50:11 PM PDT by wetphoenix

HANOI, Vietnam — Anger over Vietnam's handling of a territorial dispute with China has prompted a group of senior communist party members to call on the government to jettison communism for democracy and "get out of China's orbit."

Sixty-one prominent members of Vietnam's Communist Party, including a former ambassador to Beijing, urged Vietnam's leadership in an open letter to change its political system, "develop a truly democratic, law-abiding state," allow for greater freedom of political speech and "escape" from its reliance on China.

"The Party needs to get rid of Marxism-Leninism and get out of China's orbit," Chu Hao, former vice minister of science and technology and one of the letter's three co-authors, said in a phone interview. "It is very high time for the party to make a thorough transformation.

The July 28 letter adds pressure to the government after China's moving of an oil rig into contested territorial waters set off a wave of Vietnamese nationalism and deadly anti-Chinese riots in May. The dispute has deepened the wedge between the two communist countries at a time when Vietnam's economy has become more dependent on Chinese investment and trade.

Any move away from China could provide an opening for the U.S. to serve as an economic and security hedge against Chinese influence in Vietnam, said Scott Harold, an analyst in Washington with Santa Monica-based Rand Corp. whose doctorate from Columbia University focused on China's foreign policy.

"If Vietnam were to decide the strategic future of Vietnam requires a political opening to the West akin to what Myanmar has passed through in the past three, four years, a genuine opening up -- not full democracy -- if Vietnam were to do something like that, it would be an enormous strategic loss for China," Harold said.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
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1 posted on 08/07/2014 9:50:11 PM PDT by wetphoenix
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To: wetphoenix

Eventually, all eyes are opened. I expect Cuba to do the same after the Castro brothers are in Hell.


2 posted on 08/07/2014 9:54:41 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.)
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To: wetphoenix

So Vietnamese Communists are calling for more Communism? After all, democracy is the road to socialism, and the goal of socialism is communism.


3 posted on 08/07/2014 9:56:24 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: wetphoenix

Imagine the poor guys in hue, Da Nang, the Ia Drang and Khe Sanh knowing this in advance some 50 years ago. Sheesh


4 posted on 08/07/2014 9:56:42 PM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (Stop the August Amnesty runaway train, or we will literally lose our Republic folks.)
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To: wetphoenix

and whose orbit will they join?


5 posted on 08/07/2014 9:58:53 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Well, this is really good news to me.

I have been waiting for this for some time. Frankly I assumed the Communist ideology, which was never really a Vietnamese goal to begin with, would have failed a bit earlier after the fall of the USSR.

But the Chinese probably would not let it, and now, after these incursions, the Chinese are not feared as they were.


6 posted on 08/07/2014 10:02:10 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: GeronL

We could correct a mistake that we made a long time ago when we refused to help Chang in the late 1930s and early 40s. in his revolt against the French. So he turned to Communism and Russia and China.


7 posted on 08/07/2014 10:05:53 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: Cold Heat

They had a small war during my first tour in Korea back around 1979, IIRC.


8 posted on 08/07/2014 10:08:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.)
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I will be interested to see. I will be in Hanoi on Tuesday.


9 posted on 08/07/2014 10:13:22 PM PDT by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%i)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
It's easy to Monday morning quarterback what happened during the early 1st half of the 20th century.

French Indochina, now Vietnam, was going through the same sort of things that prompted the revolts in India with Gandi.

Both of them were trying to rid themselves of a oppressive controlling statist Empire, being the British and the French.

Chiang Kai-shek tried on several occasions to get us to help them with arms or aid, indirectly of course..But we would not even entertain it until it war too late.

Neither of these turned out well, with the Vietnam war precipitating as a result in one, with the aid of some crappy border drawing by the UN, and in the other some more crappy border drawing left US with the Pakistan/India conflicts and not to forget Afghanistan, and Iraq with the Kurdish mess, and all the rest. Most of which might have been avoided with some more thoughtful borders or even a few less countries.

But it's easy to look at it now and say, if only...

10 posted on 08/07/2014 10:23:22 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: wetphoenix

“Vietnam wants democracy”

1954, Geneva Peace accords call for free elections.
Seventy years later, Vietnam finally agrees.

All that time and all those lives and all that loss.

I bet the First Lady that I could get you to say more than two words, Mr. President!

“You lose.” Calvin Coolidge


11 posted on 08/07/2014 10:26:56 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Excuse me 2nd Div...I must be past my expiration date. I meant to say Hồ Chí Minh. Not Chiang....... Chiang was later....lol, in China..
12 posted on 08/07/2014 10:28:05 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: tumblindice

Yeah, that’s what makes me sad about it..

I can imagine what todays soldiers think and feel about Iraq.


13 posted on 08/07/2014 10:29:51 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: wetphoenix

Just .... WOW.

I’m not even sure of what to say.


14 posted on 08/07/2014 10:30:06 PM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: wetphoenix
Any move away from China could provide an opening for the U.S. to serve as an economic and security hedge against Chinese influence in Vietnam ....

So we can betray them again?

15 posted on 08/07/2014 10:31:33 PM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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Now they get it...yeesh


16 posted on 08/07/2014 10:45:47 PM PDT by basalt
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To: Cold Heat

You mean Ho? I think the mistake was the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem.


17 posted on 08/07/2014 10:46:38 PM PDT by LT Brass Bancroft
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

yeah but we’re going the other direction


18 posted on 08/07/2014 10:49:38 PM PDT by tophat9000 (An Eye for an Eye, a Word for a Word...nothing more)
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To: LT Brass Bancroft

Yeah, I apologized for the blunder up the thread a bit.

Yeah that coup was a error of judgment as well. One of several actually. he was not supposed to be killed, but how they expected to control that is beyond me.


19 posted on 08/07/2014 10:56:32 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: wetphoenix

“You fools! Don’t you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don’t you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.” - Ho Chi Minh


20 posted on 08/07/2014 10:58:14 PM PDT by dfwgator
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