Vietnam

Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (L) chats with senior Politburo member Truong Tan Sang while attending the closing ceremony of the 11th National Congress of the Party in Hanoi January 19, 2011. (Nguyen Huy Kham/Courtesy Reuters) With the completion of Vietnam’s 11th Party Congress, which was overshadowed by Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States, we can assess the results. And the answer is: Not exactly a step forward. As General Secretary, the party picked Nguyen Phu Trong, known as a relative hard-liner, a man who previously worked as an editor at one of the main Communist Party publications and was known, as Asia Times reported, as an “enforcer of Marxist thought.” Other senior military and security officials gained promotions, while more moderate officials hailing from diplomatic backgrounds and economic reform backgrounds did not fare so well at the Party Congress. Trong himself is not known as an advocate of economic reform, of fostering foreign investment, and of cutting away at the maze of regulations and opaque state ownerships that characterize Vietnam’s economy and can frustrate both local entrepreneurs and foreign investors. Further reforms might help address some of the serious economic problems Vietnam is facing, including a morass of debt at inefficient state companies, a current account deficit, and questions about the viability of the dong. But, more likely, these problems will allow hard-liners, after the Party Congress, to apply the brakes even more in terms of economic reforms. On security issues, Vietnam will continue to strengthen its relationship with the United States – even hard-liners in the Party have a healthy fear of China, given Vietnam’s history. But though some Vietnamese advocates of reform had hoped that the political climate, which has been increasingly harsh over the past year, in the run-up to the Congress, would slacken off slightly afterward, that doesn’t look too likely. (Vietnam has fallen, in recent years, in Freedom House’s rankings of political openness.) That tightening/slackening trend had been apparent around other Party Congresses (and also can be witnessed in China), but don’t expect it now. Besides the ascension of hard-liners connected to the security forces, Nguyen Tan Dung, the prime minister, is hard-line on domestic political reform, even though he is somewhat more open on economic issues. After the Congress, Nguyen Phu Trong told reporters that it had been an exercise in "straightforwardness and true democracy." Actually, expect just the opposite.

Shawn Xiong and thousands of Hmong protest the case against Gen. Vang Pao in Sacramento, California May 11, 2009. (Max Whittaker/Courtesy Reuters) Last week, Vang Pao, who led the Hmong forces in the “secret war” in Laos during the Vietnam conflict, passed away near his home in Fresno, California. Vang Pao was a complicated figure – a truly brave fighter whose men helped American forces significantly during the Vietnam War, and during his time in the United States after he emigrated to America, a leader of the Hmong community, which faced as many obstacles in adjusting to American society as any immigrant group ever has. But, especially later in his life, Vang Pao also became an extremely divisive figure within the Hmong community in the United States, as Hmong-Americans, like many émigré communities, fought within themselves over whether to keep a dream alive of returning to Laos, and as Vang Pao, wittingly or not, allowed himself to be used for all number of schemes. I had a chance to interview Vang Pao several years ago, during Hmong New Year celebrations in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can find the article from the New Republic here (unfortunately for subscribers only).

Several months ago, after writing an article complaining about the Obama administration’s lack of a coherent Asia policy, I got a fair amount of angry responses, pointing out the ways in which the administration’s Asia policy was beginning to emerge and would soon pay dividends. So, let me now give the administration credit, and also offer some worries. In the past two months, the administration has both shown much greater and more nuanced attention to Southeast Asia and has staked out clearer lines on where it stands on the region’s critical future issues. The question now is, can it back up its stances? To review--after coming into office with a somewhat muddled China policy that seemed to please neither the Chinese nor many American opinion leaders, the administration has taken a tougher and firmer approach – and there is evidence from the past that, although Beijing may protest a tougher U.S. policy, it does appreciate consistency from Washington above all. The administration also has begun making good on its promises to be “back” in Southeast Asia, by weighing in on the South China Sea issue, by deciding to play a role in the East Asia Summit, and – possibly – by making Vietnam, not Indonesia, its most transformed foreign policy relationship in the region, not only through nuclear cooperation and joint exercises but also, in the longer run, the kind of security partnership the US now shares with Singapore.  And, a more nuanced policy toward Burma, which mixes continued engagement with a willingness to back a UN inquiry into Burmese war crimes – shows an ability to rethink sanctions and also a desire not to get fooled by the junta. The question is, what now? Having decided to join the EAS, is the administration going to really commit resources and top officials’ time to a forum that makes APEC look like a model of efficiency? Is Washington now going to support the ASEAN nations’ desire that ASEAN be in the driver’s seat of Asian integration, even though it clearly does not have the skills, resources, and ability, whereas Northeast Asia really is the locus of the region? Similarly, having increasingly committed to the relationship with Vietnam, U.S. policy now could eventually go farther, once Vietnam’s war-era generation passes away. It’s one thing to build a much closer relationship with Vietnam, but it’s another to have a security relationship on the level of the bilateral with Singapore, or even eventually a treaty alliance – neither of which China could easily accept. And then there is the South China Sea. Certainly, the Obama administration has drawn a necessary line, and taken a step quietly applauded by most ASEAN countries. But can Washington back up its stance?  What is the next step, down the line, if China increasingly treats the South China Sea in the almost-hysterical manner with which it handles other supposed “core interests” like Taiwan and Xinjiang? Can military to military ties between the U.S. and China ever include serious discussions of the South China Sea? And if pushed, what ASEAN states would publicly stand behind a tough U.S. stance on the South China Sea? Those are just questions. The administration’s policy seems to have shifted for the better, but real shifts will have long-term consequences to be anticipated now. (Photo: Jason Lee/courtesy Reuters)

All the finger-pointing and analysis about the Obama administration’s decision to wade more deeply into disputes over the South China Sea seems to have focused on whether Washington or Beijing have gained from this new, harder-edged approach. By taking note of ASEAN nations’ concern that Beijing is potentially expanding its  “core national interests" in this area,  and then having Secretary of State Clinton state that the resolution of competing claims to the Sea is a “national interest” of the United States during the ASEAN Regional Forum, Washington may have shored up its relations with Southeast Asian states, showing them the United States will not back down to China--well, that’s one analysis at least. The other analysis is that by just putting on the table that the Sea is now a “core national interest” of China like Taiwan, Tibet, or Xinjiang, Beijing has set the bar so that it can shoot down any future discussion of its actions in the South China Sea. But the real winner of this diplomatic saber-rattling? Vietnam. As the United States firmly stands up to China’s claims in the Sea, Hanoi is showing Beijing that the rapidly expanding U.S.-Vietnam relationship has real steel, especially when added to the apparent decision by the White House to expand U.S.-Vietnam nuclear cooperation. Vietnam already has far more installations in the disputed islands than any other country save China and has been the most aggressive in pushing back against Chinese claims in the Sea. Yet, unlike other ASEAN nations whose dependence on the United States for backup clearly infuriates China, and sometimes results in vicious Chinese responses, Vietnam has thus far avoided such a response from Beijing. Sure, Chinese foreign ministry spokespeople publicly affirm China’s sovereignty over disputed areas in the sea, allegedly negating Vietnam’s claims, and Beijing has pressured U.S. oil companies not to partner with Vietnam in exploring oil and gas deposits in the South China Sea. However, Chinese diplomats do not vilify Vietnam the way that they do U.S. actions in the South China Sea, or even the actions of other Sinophobic ASEAN members like the Philippines, Malaysia, or Singapore. Indeed, Vietnam seems to have been able to build much closer ties to the United States without being forced to sacrifice longstanding diplomatic links to China, growing economic ties to Beijing, and close security cooperation between Hanoi and Beijing on a range of issues. In part, of course, Hanoi has achieved this balance because China and Vietnam officially enjoy the close party-party relations of brother communist countries. In part, it’s because trade between the two countries is so significant that neither side wants to damage ties. In part, it’s because the history of relations between the two countries was so poisoned by conflict that both Hanoi and Beijing know to tread lightly. But it’s also because Vietnam has played China extremely skillfully. Before launching the potential nuclear cooperation with the United States, Hanoi had discussed boosting nuclear imports from China, and still seems to suggest that it might increase nuclear cooperation with Beijing. And Hanoi has shown Beijing that, when necessary, it can protect China’s interests: When protests in Vietnam against Chinese spiraled in 2008 and 2009, Hanoi cracked down on the activists. Perhaps, if tensions over the South China Sea go even higher, Vietnam will no longer be able to play both sides. But for now, it’s pursuing a strategy other ASEAN countries surely must envy. (Photo: Stringer Vietnam/courtesy Reuters)

Vietnam’s stock market has plunged and its economic growth has dwindled since 2006, when it was seen as a model for emerging country growth. The country’s experience highlights the problems confronting emerging markets in the 2008 financial crisis.  

Robert Dallek, a prominent historian on the American presidency, says that historians will remember President Gerald R. Ford as “a distinctly minor figure,” in part because he was in office for such a short period and “one cannot point to any great initiatives that changed the course of history, in my judgment, in that time.”

Vietnam’s economy is booming as the World Trade Organization prepares to welcome the communist country as a full member after eleven years of accession negotiations.

Don Oberdorfer, an expert on Asian affairs who wrote a major book on the Tet offensive, Tet!, says even though support for the Iraq war is ebbing in the United States, the current mood lacks “the domestic passion” the Tet Offensive produced against the Vietnam War in 1968.