It's hard to summarize the recent economic, political and social turbulence in Vietnam in a couple of pages. However, one can easily recognize that the Vietnam of 2008 is not the same one that American helicopters took off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on April 30 1975. The new Vietnam, at least after July 11, 1995, the day that President Clinton announced his intention to restore full diplomatic relation with is far more complicated than that.
In order to understand the Vietnam of 2008, one probably needs to see further beyond Vietnam up to Japan and the relations of the later with China and the Korean Peninsula. The potential of Vietnam has long been highly regarded by the Japanese. The integration of Vietnam into the Southeast Asian community has been a central objective of Japanese foreign policy since the announcement of the Fukuda Doctrine in 1977. At that time, tension between Vietnam and China had been building up continuously before it resulted in the brief but bloody border war between the two countries in 1979.
Policy options for the United States, Japan, and China in Vietnam along with political, economic, and security issues had deeply divided the communist party. How the communist state can capitalize its economic system without weakening the dictatorship of the Party is a central question facing the government of Vietnam.
Another sensitive issue is how to deal with China, the global bully which has repeatedly asked Vietnam for redefining borders. In year 2000 alone, Vietnam lost 700 sq.km of its land area for China. Recently, China's renewed assertion of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea - waters between Vietnam and the Philippines and stretching down to Indonesia - have stirred popular outrage at home and across the diaspora due to Hanoi's mute reaction to Beijing's stance and its disgraceful border land concession to China in 1958.
Fifty years ago, China issued a declaration essentially claiming the entire South China Sea as an inland lake. Within days, on Sep. 14, 1958, prime minister Pham Van Dong of North Vietnam sent a diplomatic note to his counterpart Chou En-lai, acknowledging China's claim. The motivation of the Hanoi communists was absurd but for obvious reason: they needed China's military support badly during the war against the US-backed South Vietnam.
While all Vietnamese, including the ruling communists, are keenly aware of centuries of domination by their powerful northern neighbor, within the Hanoi regime there is a conflict in how to deal with Beijing. It relies on China for political support, photocopying Beijing's model of open economics and closed politics. It is reluctant to openly criticize China, fearing that to criticize China is to condemn itself.
Those two issues are enough to divide the party, let alone the land and the corruption quagmires.
In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city (formerly known as Saigon) hundreds of peasants protest daily to plead for the requisition of their land.
In a letter to the President and the PM of Vietnam, Bishop Michael Hoang Duc Oanh of Kontum diocese wrote "In this country numerous of the farmers and the poor have pleaded for years for the requisition of their properties but all in vain, as the authorities chose to persecute rather than to take care of them!"
"If the government considers returning the lands to Thai Ha parish and the Hanoi Diocese, this would set precedent for other Catholic organizations and individuals across the country to follow their footsteps. It would become extremely dangerous for the regime," Nguyen Van Trung, a lawyer whose specialty is in land law, told the BBC Vietnamese Service.
In the era of open market, when there is plenty of opportunities for government officials to get rich overnight, the danger of corruption would also be looming as the rich of the same socio-political interest need to form an alliance of those who would do anything to buy out the heart and souls of the public officials whose thickness of their wallet seems more important than the welfare of the public, even the security of the country.
The scandal PMU18 can serve as an example. It started out with a few bets on soccer games - $7 million worth of bets - and it raised such a ruckus here that even the leader of the Communist Party joined in, saying that corruption "threatens the survival of our system."
The bets were reportedly placed by the head of PMU18, a government agency that handles hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign development aid for construction projects.
The amount of money at stake was an eye-opener over the audacity of the corruption that seems to pervade Vietnam. In just one bet, according to the local press, $320,000 was lost on a match in Britain between Manchester United and Arsenal on Jan. 3.
The discovery of the bets set investigators on a trail of mansions, mistresses, luxury cars and protection money that led to the resignation in early April of the transport minister and the jailing of his deputy. Three men implicated in the scandal had been on a list of nominees to join the Communist Party Central Committee later that month.
Ironically, investigators reached to somewhere and stopped. All people involved were found not guilty. The two reporters who brought to light the scandal were jailed.
Since Dec. 18, 2007, Hanoi Catholics have been organizing daily prayer vigils outside the former nunciature in Hanoi, pleading for the return of the building that had been confiscated unlawfully by the communist regime since 1959. The protests only came to a halt when the government agreed to return the property on Feb. 1, 2008. As understood by both sides, this returning process by the Vietnamese government was to be carried out in steps. Regrettably, it managed to delay the process through various bureaucratic maneuvers.
Without warning, on Sept. 19, 2008, the government announced the demolition of the nunciature to "make room for a playground" and the plan was immediately carried out with the back of its armed forces.
Why all in a sudden, things go that way? It's another dramatic testimony of the power struggle inside the Vietnamese communist regime that has escalated into a life and death battle between factions. The Priests and parishioners of Thai Ha, unwillingly have been caught in the crossfire of the two factions of which none would refuse to take advantage of the situation to blame the other for causing the social unrest.
While the Vietnamese government seems to be totally incompetent toward the socio-political downfall as well as their dealing with the ambitious Chinese in the border land dispute, it surely shows its mighty grip in dealing with the unarmed, vulnerable parishioners, their priests, as well as thousands of ordinary people who lost their land to the very "liberators" who made countless of empty promises to their sympathizers and supporters before winning the war but until this day, turn out to be nothing but a sleazy, cunning opportunists rather than true leadership. Thus the slogan "Independence, Freedom, Happiness" on the title of the country would only become the subject of ridicule for ordinary folks at the neighborhood cafe or on the Net as an old, famous comment about communism said by the late president of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu has become increasingly prophetic "Not to believe in what the communists say, just look at what they're doing."
In order to understand the Vietnam of 2008, one probably needs to see further beyond Vietnam up to Japan and the relations of the later with China and the Korean Peninsula. The potential of Vietnam has long been highly regarded by the Japanese. The integration of Vietnam into the Southeast Asian community has been a central objective of Japanese foreign policy since the announcement of the Fukuda Doctrine in 1977. At that time, tension between Vietnam and China had been building up continuously before it resulted in the brief but bloody border war between the two countries in 1979.
Policy options for the United States, Japan, and China in Vietnam along with political, economic, and security issues had deeply divided the communist party. How the communist state can capitalize its economic system without weakening the dictatorship of the Party is a central question facing the government of Vietnam.
Another sensitive issue is how to deal with China, the global bully which has repeatedly asked Vietnam for redefining borders. In year 2000 alone, Vietnam lost 700 sq.km of its land area for China. Recently, China's renewed assertion of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea - waters between Vietnam and the Philippines and stretching down to Indonesia - have stirred popular outrage at home and across the diaspora due to Hanoi's mute reaction to Beijing's stance and its disgraceful border land concession to China in 1958.
Fifty years ago, China issued a declaration essentially claiming the entire South China Sea as an inland lake. Within days, on Sep. 14, 1958, prime minister Pham Van Dong of North Vietnam sent a diplomatic note to his counterpart Chou En-lai, acknowledging China's claim. The motivation of the Hanoi communists was absurd but for obvious reason: they needed China's military support badly during the war against the US-backed South Vietnam.
While all Vietnamese, including the ruling communists, are keenly aware of centuries of domination by their powerful northern neighbor, within the Hanoi regime there is a conflict in how to deal with Beijing. It relies on China for political support, photocopying Beijing's model of open economics and closed politics. It is reluctant to openly criticize China, fearing that to criticize China is to condemn itself.
Those two issues are enough to divide the party, let alone the land and the corruption quagmires.
In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city (formerly known as Saigon) hundreds of peasants protest daily to plead for the requisition of their land.
In a letter to the President and the PM of Vietnam, Bishop Michael Hoang Duc Oanh of Kontum diocese wrote "In this country numerous of the farmers and the poor have pleaded for years for the requisition of their properties but all in vain, as the authorities chose to persecute rather than to take care of them!"
"If the government considers returning the lands to Thai Ha parish and the Hanoi Diocese, this would set precedent for other Catholic organizations and individuals across the country to follow their footsteps. It would become extremely dangerous for the regime," Nguyen Van Trung, a lawyer whose specialty is in land law, told the BBC Vietnamese Service.
In the era of open market, when there is plenty of opportunities for government officials to get rich overnight, the danger of corruption would also be looming as the rich of the same socio-political interest need to form an alliance of those who would do anything to buy out the heart and souls of the public officials whose thickness of their wallet seems more important than the welfare of the public, even the security of the country.
The scandal PMU18 can serve as an example. It started out with a few bets on soccer games - $7 million worth of bets - and it raised such a ruckus here that even the leader of the Communist Party joined in, saying that corruption "threatens the survival of our system."
The bets were reportedly placed by the head of PMU18, a government agency that handles hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign development aid for construction projects.
The amount of money at stake was an eye-opener over the audacity of the corruption that seems to pervade Vietnam. In just one bet, according to the local press, $320,000 was lost on a match in Britain between Manchester United and Arsenal on Jan. 3.
The discovery of the bets set investigators on a trail of mansions, mistresses, luxury cars and protection money that led to the resignation in early April of the transport minister and the jailing of his deputy. Three men implicated in the scandal had been on a list of nominees to join the Communist Party Central Committee later that month.
Ironically, investigators reached to somewhere and stopped. All people involved were found not guilty. The two reporters who brought to light the scandal were jailed.
Since Dec. 18, 2007, Hanoi Catholics have been organizing daily prayer vigils outside the former nunciature in Hanoi, pleading for the return of the building that had been confiscated unlawfully by the communist regime since 1959. The protests only came to a halt when the government agreed to return the property on Feb. 1, 2008. As understood by both sides, this returning process by the Vietnamese government was to be carried out in steps. Regrettably, it managed to delay the process through various bureaucratic maneuvers.
Without warning, on Sept. 19, 2008, the government announced the demolition of the nunciature to "make room for a playground" and the plan was immediately carried out with the back of its armed forces.
Why all in a sudden, things go that way? It's another dramatic testimony of the power struggle inside the Vietnamese communist regime that has escalated into a life and death battle between factions. The Priests and parishioners of Thai Ha, unwillingly have been caught in the crossfire of the two factions of which none would refuse to take advantage of the situation to blame the other for causing the social unrest.
While the Vietnamese government seems to be totally incompetent toward the socio-political downfall as well as their dealing with the ambitious Chinese in the border land dispute, it surely shows its mighty grip in dealing with the unarmed, vulnerable parishioners, their priests, as well as thousands of ordinary people who lost their land to the very "liberators" who made countless of empty promises to their sympathizers and supporters before winning the war but until this day, turn out to be nothing but a sleazy, cunning opportunists rather than true leadership. Thus the slogan "Independence, Freedom, Happiness" on the title of the country would only become the subject of ridicule for ordinary folks at the neighborhood cafe or on the Net as an old, famous comment about communism said by the late president of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu has become increasingly prophetic "Not to believe in what the communists say, just look at what they're doing."