$Unique_ID{COW04042} $Pretitle{232} $Title{Vietnam Chapter 4D. Relations with Non-Communist Countries} $Subtitle{} $Author{Ronald J. Cima} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{vietnam states united vietnamese war asean hanoi relations vietnam's cambodia} $Date{1987} $Log{} Country: Vietnam Book: Vietnam, A Country Study Author: Ronald J. Cima Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1987 Chapter 4D. Relations with Non-Communist Countries The United States The Communist victory in South Vietnam in 1975 abruptly concluded three decades of United States intervention in Vietnam and brought to a close a painful and bitter era for both countries. The war generated considerable social and political discord in the United States, massive disruption in Vietnam, and was enormously costly to both sides. Vietnam endured physical destruction--ravaged battle sites, leveled factories and cities, and untold numbers of military and civilian casualties. The United States escaped physical devastation, but it suffered the loss of 58,000 lives (2,400 unaccounted for) and spent roughly $150 billion in direct expenses to sustain the war. The war also divided and confused American society. To the Vietnamese communists, the war against the United States simply extended the war for independence initiated against the French. In Hanoi's view, when the United States displaced the French in Indochina, it assumed the French role as a major-power obstacle to Vietnam's eventual reunification. For the United States, intervention was derived from considerations that largely transcended Vietnam. In the closing months of World War II, the United States had supported the idea of an international trusteeship for all of Indochina. Subsequently, in spite of misgivings in Washington about French intentions to reimpose colonial rule in Indochina, the United States eventually tilted in support of the French war effort in the embattled region. Anticolonial sentiment in the United States after World War II thus failed to outweigh policy priorities in Europe, such as the evolving North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) relationship. The formal creation of NATO and the communist victory in China, both of which occurred in 1949, led the United States to support materially the French war effort in Indochina. The perception that communism was global and monolithic led the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower to support the idea of a noncommunist state in southern Vietnam, after the French withdrawal under the Geneva Agreements of 1954. Although this goal arguably ran counter to two key features of the Geneva Agreements (the stipulation that the line separating North and South Vietnam be neither a political nor territorial boundary and the call for reunification elections), it was based on the United States assessment that the Viet minh--which, contrary to the agreements, had left several thousand cadres south of the demarcation line--was already in violation. The first United States advisers arrived in the South within a year after Geneva to help President Ngo Dinh Diem establish a government that would be strong enough to stand up to the communist regime in the North. Although Washington's advisory role was essentially political, United States policy makers determined that the effort to erect a non- communist state in Vietnam was vital to the security of the region and would be buttressed by military means, if necessary, to inhibit any would- be aggressor. Defending Vietnam's security against aggression from the North and from southern-based communist insurgency was a mission Washington initially perceived as requiring only combat support elements and advisers to South Vietnamese military units. The situation, however, rapidly deteriorated, and in 1965, at a time when increasing numbers of North Vietnamese-trained soldiers were moving in South Vietnam, the first increment of United States combat forces was introduced into the South and sustained bombing of military targets in North Vietnam was undertaken. Nearly eight more years of conflict occurred before the intense involvement of the United States ended in 1973. An "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" was signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, by Washington, Hanoi, Saigon, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government, representing the Vietnamese communist organization in the South, the Viet Cong (see Glossary-- contraction of Viet Nam Cong San). The settlement called for a cease- fire, withdrawal of all United States troops, continuance in place of North Vietnamese troops in the South, and the eventual reunification of the country "through peaceful means." In reality, once United States Forces were disengaged in early 1973 there was no effective way to prevent the North from overwhelming the South's defenses and the settlement proved unenforceable. Following the fragile cease-fire established by the agreement, PAVN units remained in the South Vietnamese countryside, while Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN-- see Glossary) units fought to dislodge them and expand the areas under Saigon's control. As a result, the two sides battled from 1973 to 1975, but the ARVN, having to fight without the close United States air, artillery, logistical, and medevac (medical evacuation) support to which it had become accustomed, acquitted itself badly, losing more and more ground to the communists. The surprisingly swift manner in which the South Vietnamese government finally collapsed in 1975 appeared to confirm that the Paris agreement had accomplished little more than to delay an inevitable defeat for the United States ally, South Vietnam, and that Washington had been impotent to avert this outcome. Following the war, Hanoi pursued the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, initially in order to obtain US $3.3 billion in reconstruction aid, which President Richard M. Nixon had secretly promised after the Paris Agreement was signed in 1973. Under Article 21 of the agreement, the United States had pledged "to contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the DRV . . ." but had specifically avoided using terminology that could be interpreted to mean that reparations were being offered for war damages. Nixon's promise was in the form of a letter, confirming the intent of Article 21 and offering a specific figure. Barely two months after Hanoi's victory in 1975, Premier Pham Van Dong, speaking to the National Assembly, invited the United States to normalize relations with Vietnam and to honor its commitment to provide reconstruction funds. Representatives of two American banks--the Bank of America and First National City Bank--were invited to discuss trade possibilities, and American oil companies were informed that they were welcome to apply for concessions to search for oil in offshore Vietnamese waters. Washington neglected Dong's call for normal relations, however, because it was predicated on reparations, and the Washington political climate in the wake of the war precluded the pursuit of such an outcome. In response, the administration of President Gerald R. Ford imposed its own precondition for normal relations by announcing that a full accounting of Americans missing in action (MIAs--see Glossary), including the return of any remains, would be required before normalization could be effected. No concessions were made on either side until President Jimmy Carter softened the United States demand from a full accounting of MIAs to the fullest possible accounting and dispatched a mission to Hanoi in 1977 to initiate normalization discussions. Although the Vietnamese at first were adamant about United States economic assistance (their first postwar economic plan counted on the amount promised by President Nixon), the condition was dropped in mid- 1978 when Hanoi made additional gestures toward normal relations. At that time, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach and the United States government reached an agreement in principle on normalization, but the date was left vague. When Thach urged November 1978, a date that in retrospect is significant because he was due in Moscow to sign the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union, Washington was noncommittal. During this period, United States officials were preoccupied with the question of the Indochinese refugees, and they were in the process of normalizing relations with China. This was an action that could have been jeopardized had Washington concurrently sought a rapprochement with Vietnam, a nation whose relationship with Beijing was growing increasingly strained. Policy makers in Hanoi correctly reasoned that the United States had opted to strengthen its ties with China rather than with Vietnam, and they moved to formalize their ties with the Soviets in response. Their original hope, however, had been to gain both diplomatic recognition from the United States and a friendship treaty with Moscow, as a double guarantee against future Chinese interference. In the United States, the issue of normalizing relations with Vietnam was complicated by Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, the continuing plight of Vietnamese refugees, and the unresolved MIA issue (see Ethnic Groups and Languages, ch. 2). In 1987, under President Ronald Reagan, the United States continued to enforce the trade embargo imposed on Hanoi in 1975 and barred normal ties as long as Vietnamese troops occupied Cambodia. Any efforts to improve relations remained closely tied to United States willingness to honor its 1973 aid commitment to Vietnam and to Hanoi's failure to account for the whereabouts of more than 2,400 MIAs in Indochina. From the signing of the Paris agreements in 1973 until mid-1978, the Vietnamese had routinely stressed the linkage between the aid and MIA issues. Beginning in mid- 1978, however, Hanoi dropped its insistence that the MIA and aid questions be resolved as a precondition for normalization and stopped linking the MIA question to other unresolved matters between the two countries. Vietnamese leaders contrasted their restraint on the MIA issue with its alleged political exploitation by the United States as a condition for normal relations. As additional signs of goodwill, Hanoi permitted the joint United States-Vietnamese excavation of a B-52 crash site in 1985 and returned the remains of a number of United States servicemen between 1985 and 1987. Vietnamese spokesmen also claimed during this period to have a two-year plan to resolve the MIA question but failed to reveal details. Although Vietnam's Sixth National Party Congress in December 1986 officially paid little attention to relations with the United States, the report of the congress noted that Vietnam was continuing to hold talks with Washington on humanitarian issues and expressed a readiness to improve relations. Although ambivalent in tone, the message was more positive than the 1982 Fifth National Party Congress report, which had attributed the stalemated relationship to Washington's "hostile policy." The improved wording was attributable to the influence of newly appointed Party General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh, who was expected to attach high priority to expanding Vietnam's links with the West. Within a few months of the Sixth National Party Congress, however, Hanoi began to send conflicting signals to Washington. In mid-1987 the Vietnamese government, having determined that cooperation had gained few concessions from the United States, reverted to its pre-1978 position linking the aid and MIA issues. The resumption of its hardline stand, however, was brief. A meeting between Vietnamese leaders and President Reagan's special envoy on MIAs, General John W. Vessey, in August 1987 yielded significant gains for both sides. In exchange for greater Vietnamese cooperation on resolving the MIA issue, the United States agreed officially to encourage charitable assistance for Vietnam. Although the agreement fell short of Hanoi's requests for economic aid or war reparations, it marked the first time that the United States had offered anything in return for Vietnamese assistance in accounting for the MIAs and was an important step toward an eventual reconciliation between the two countries. ASEAN The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was formed in 1967 as a regional, economic, cultural, and social cooperative organization. The original five member nations--Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand (the sixth member, Brunei, was admitted in January 1984)--had little in common in their culture, history, or politics. Nevertheless, after a slow start the organization flourished; by 1987 it had the fastest growing GNP of all economic groups in the world and was a key force for regional stability. ASEAN's charter declares that membership is open to all states in the region--a gesture toward Vietnam that Hanoi repeatedly rebuffed. Before Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in December 1978, integration of the three Indochinese states and ASEAN into a larger regional organization was discussed within the ASEAN community as a possible solution to regional problems. The proposal surfaced at an ASEAN summit meeting held in Bali in January 1976, when, following reunification, Vietnam requested observer status at ASEAN meetings. It was understood at the time, however, that the inclusion of communist states within a grouping of free-market countries was unprecedented, and the idea was interpreted to be more a goodwill gesture than a serious proposition. From 1976 to 1978, ASEAN's differences with Vietnam were both symbolic and real. ASEAN, for example, proposed establishing Southeast Asia as a zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality and invited Vietnam to support the proposal. Hanoi refused but countered with its own proposal, calling instead for a region of peace, independence, and neutrality. Apparently, the Vietnamese objected to the term freedom because of their vulnerability to criticism on human rights issues. The term independence, on the other hand, was promoted by the Vietnamese as a concept opposing all foreign military bases in Southeast Asia, an idea that many of the ASEAN nations did not share. During the Second Indochina War, each ASEAN state pursued its own Vietnam policy. Malaysia and Indonesia maintained strict neutrality, whereas Thailand and the Philippines contributed personnel and materiel to South Vietnam. Perceptions of Vietnam as a possible threat to the region also varied among member nations. Indonesia and Malaysia viewed Vietnam as a buffer against Chinese expansionism, whereas Thailand, wary of possible repetition of historic patterns of confrontation with Vietnam, turned to China for protection following the war's end and the subsequent withdrawal of United States forces from Thailand. Following the 1978 invasion of Cambodia, however, the ASEAN nations were united in their condemnation of Hanoi. They took the lead in mobilizing international opinion against Vietnam, and, in the UN General Assembly, they annually sponsored resolutions calling for withdrawal of Vietnamese troops and for internationally supervised elections. The ASEAN nations also were instrumental in preventing the Vietnam- sponsored Heng Samrin regime in Phnom Penh from taking over Cambodia's UN seat. In June 1982, ASEAN was instrumental in persuading three disparate Cambodian resistance elements to merge into a coalition resistance government (see Laos and Cambodia, this ch.). ASEAN's position on Cambodia was important to Hanoi, because it was through ASEAN's efforts at the UN that the world's attention continued to focus on Cambodia in the late 1980s. The Vietnamese thus saw ASEAN as having the power to confer upon them or to deny them legitimacy in Cambodia. Vietnamese diplomats sought to convince the ASEAN countries that the invasion of Cambodia was intended to eliminate the threat posed by Pol Pot's alignment with China. Rather than have its activity in Cambodia perceived as potentially damaging to ASEAN's security, Vietnam wanted to assure ASEAN members that it was in the group's interest to join with Vietnam in countering the Chinese threat to the region. Cultivating goodwill with key ASEAN members was an important part of this strategy. Thus, in 1978 Vietnam and the Philippines agreed to negotiate but failed to settle their conflicting claims to the Spratly Islands. Foreign Minister Thach, during a late-1982 visit to Indonesia, took a conciliatory position in discussing Vietnam's and Indonesia's competing claims to the Natuna Islands, and in 1984 Hanoi made a similar gesture to Malaysia in order to help resolve their conflicting claims over Amboyna Cay. In 1987, however, resolving the war in Cambodia remained the key to any further resolution of differences between Vietnam and ASEAN. Thailand As the ASEAN member most vulnerable to a Vietnamese attack, Thailand was foremost among the ASEAN partners opposing Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia. Thailand's suspicion of Vietnamese long-term objectives and fear of Vietnamese support for an internal Thai communist insurgency movement led the Thai government to support United States objectives in South Vietnam during the Second Indochina War. In 1979, after Vietnam's military occupation of Cambodia had raised these same concerns again, Bangkok was compelled once again to ally with an adversary of Vietnam and looked to Beijing for security assistance. In both instances, Thailand's actions hardened Hanoi's attitude toward Bangkok. In 1973 a new civilian government in Thailand created a chance for some degree of reconciliation with Vietnam, when it proposed to remove United States military forces from Thai soil and adopt a more neutralist stance. The Vietnamese responded by sending a delegation to Bangkok, but talks broke down before any progress in improving relations could be made. Discussions resumed in August 1976. They resulted in a call for an exchange of ambassadors and for an opening of negotiations on trade and economic cooperation, but a military coup in October 1976 ushered in a new Thai government that was less sympathetic to the Vietnamese. Contact was resumed briefly in May 1977, when Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos held a conference to discuss resuming work on the Mekong Development Project, a major cooperative effort that had been halted by the Second Indochina War. Beginning in December 1978, however, the conflict in Cambodia dominated diplomatic exchanges, and seasonal Vietnamese military offensives that included incursions across the Thai border and numerous Thai casualties particularly strained the relationship. Other Noncommunist Nations Relations with noncommunist nations were still in the early stages of development in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. Noncommunist aid, nevertheless, was a significant part of Hanoi's budget prior to Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in December 1978. In 1976 and 1977, for example, aid from noncommunist nations amounted to US $438.5 million, of which Sweden, France, Japan, and UN-related organizations accounted for 78 percent. With the exception of aid from Sweden, however, such aid was either significantly curtailed or terminated following the invasion. Trade ties, after the invasion, suffered similarly. In 1976 four noncommunist trading partners--Japan, Hong Kong, France, and Sweden-- accounted for 44 percent of Vietnam's imports, and more than half of Vietnam's exports went to noncommunist buyers such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and France. A decade later, in 1986, only 20 percent of Vietnam's imports were of noncommunist origin, and 40 percent of its exports were reaching noncommunist markets. By the mid-1980s, however, Vietnam was actively seeking to improve its economic and political ties with the noncommunist world community in order to stimulate aid, trade, and investment. With few exceptions, noncommunist nations were prepared to reciprocate. The one obstacle preventing their doing so remained Hanoi's continued occupation of Cambodia and the absence of a resolution to the conflict. International Organizations In 1976 Vietnam was admitted to the UN and gained membership in a number of the organization's affiliated agencies, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF, see Glossary), the World Bank (see Glossary), and the Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin (see Glossary). Hanoi also successfully claimed the seat formerly occupied by South Vietnam in the Asian Development Bank (see Glossary). In the 1980s it was a member of Comecon, the Colombo Plan (see Glossary), the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT, see Glossary), and actively participated in the Nonaligned Movement (see Glossary) and the Group of 77 (see Glossary). The Media Although an official description of the press, offered by the Sixth National Party Congress, defines the media's role as being "the voice of the party and of the masses," and identifies its task as being to "propagate the party's lines and policies," as well as to report and analyze the news, the Vietnamese press is much more a medium for educating the public and filtering information, than for reporting news. It is controlled by the VCP Central Committee's Propaganda and Training Department in accordance with guidelines established by the Ministry of Culture, and both agencies act to ensure that it reflects the policies and positions of the party. In mid-1987, however, there emerged increasing evidence within the media that a movement might be underway to change the character of the press. Articles stressing the importance of investigative reporting, calling for more journalistic freedom to report accurately, and defending the right of the people to be heard appeared in many of the leading newspapers. The movement appeared to be led by a small but influential group of journalists seeking to make the press more assertive by emphasizing accurate reporting and a more balanced reflection of public opinion. In the late 1980s, there were approximately 350 national or local newspapers, magazines, journals, news bulletins, and newsletters published in Vietnam. Some local newspapers were published in the languages of tribal minorities and one, in Ho Chi Minh City, was published in Chinese. In addition, there were a small number of publications intended for distribution outside Vietnam. The national press included publications intended for the general public (e.g. Tap Chi Cong San, Communist Review) as well as those aimed at specific audiences, such as women (Phu Nu Vietnam, Vietnamese Women) or trade union members (Tap Chi Cong Doan, Trade Union Review). Separate journals and newspapers covered sports, culture, economics, social sciences, the military, and science and technology. Each of the thirty-six provinces and the three autonomous municipalities, as well as the special zone, published a newspaper and one or more journals dealing with culture, education, and science and technology. Local newspapers covered local events and did not compete with national publications. Party control of the press ensured the political correctness of a story and determined in which publication it would appear. Rarely was the same story covered in more than one national newspaper or magazine. Nhan Dan (People's Daily)--the VCP daily--and Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Army)--the armed forces daily--were normally limited to national and international stories. Articles on subjects like sports or art appeared in newspapers or journals devoted to those subjects. Nhan Dan, the leading national newspaper and the official organ of the VCP Central Committee, began publication in 1951. By 1987, as a four-page daily reporting domestic and international news, it published the full texts of speeches and articles by party and government leaders and included feature articles on the government, party, culture, and economy. Quan Doi Nhan Dan, published daily except Sunday by PAVN, was also four pages in length and included international and national news, but with an emphasis on military activities and training. The principal national magazine was Tap Chi Cong San (Communist Review), a monthly journal. Formerly called Hoc Tap (Studies), its name was changed in January 1977, after the Fourth Party Congress. It was a theoretical and political journal and was considered to be the voice of the VCP. In 1987 its table of contents was published for international dissemination in English, French, Spanish, and Russian. Publications intended specifically for foreign audiences in the 1980s were Vietnam Courier, in English and French--a monthly with articles on current events as well as Vietnamese culture and history; Vietnam, in Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, Russian, English, French, and Spanish--a monthly with pictorial essays on all aspects of Vietnamese life; Vietnam Foreign Trade, in English; Vietnam Social Sciences, in English, French, and Russian; Vietnam Youth, in English and French; Vietnamese Scientific and Technical Abstracts, in English; Vietnamese Studies, in English and French; Vietnamese Trade Unions, in English, French, and Spanish; Women of Vietnam, in English and French; and Informado El Vjetnamio (Information on Vietnam) in Esperanto. The country's wire service, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA), was the principal source of domestic and international news for the nation's domestic and international media in 1987. It published, on a daily basis, a twelve-to-sixteen-page English-language compendium, Vietnam News Agency, which provided standard press-service coverage of the day's news events. By 1986 international shortwave news reports were broadcast by the Voice of Vietnam in eleven languages (Cambodian, Chinese--both Mandarin and Cantonese, English, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Lao, Russian, Spanish, and Thai) as well as Vietnamese. The broadcast sites for these programs included five in Hanoi and fifteen in other locations throughout the country. Transmissions reached neighboring Southeast Asian countries and regions as distant as Latin America, Africa, and Europe. Domestic service was provided from fifty-one AM transmission sites, of which five were located in Hanoi, three in Ho Chi Minh City, and the rest in other cities and districts. In addition an FM station was located in Ho Chi Minh City, and an unspecified number of other FM stations were located elsewhere in Vietnam. The Central Television network was created in 1970. By the mid-1980s, five channels were known to broadcast from twenty-one transmission sites in Vietnam. Viewers were served by two channels in Hanoi, one in Ho Chi Minh City and one in Da Nang; Hue, Can Tho, and Qui Nhon were served by another channel. There may have been broadcasts from Nha Trang and Vinh as well. Television Vietnam offered programs in color and in black and white. Black and white daily national programming was broadcast from Hanoi, on Monday through Friday, for ninety minutes a day and, on Saturday and Sunday, for three hours a day. * * * Recent books on the political process in Vietnam are comparatively few in number, and even fewer detail the structure and the inner workings of the party and the government. Among works that are extremely informative, however, are Vietnam since the Fall of Saigon and Vietnam: Nation in Revolution, by William Duiker, and Vietnamese Communism in Comparative Perspective, the assembled views of a number of leading Vietnam scholars, edited by William Turley. Nguyen Van Canh's Vietnam under Communism, 1975-1982 is useful because of its discussion of party and government structure both at the national and local level. A legal discussion of the 1980 Constitution is provided in Chin Kim's article on "Recent Developments in the Constitutions of Asian Marxist-Socialist States." Party congresses are discussed in Ralph Smith's "Vietnam's Fourth Party Congress," Carlyle Thayer's "Development Strategies in Vietnam: The Fourth National Congress of the Vietnam Communist Party," An Tai Sung's "The All-Vietnam National Assembly: Significant Developments," and Thai Quang Trung's "The Fifth Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party." Vietnam's foreign relations, particularly the war in Cambodia and the Sino-Vietnamese conflict, have prompted a number of useful books and articles. First among these on the subject of the war in Cambodia is Nayan Chanda's Brother Enemy, a work also useful for its discussion of postwar United States-Vietnamese relations. The Third Indochina Conflict, edited by David Elliott, includes a number of informative chapters on the subject. The Chinese-Vietnamese border war in 1979 is discussed in a historical context in G.D. Loescher's "The Sino-Vietnamese Conflict in Recent Historical Perspective," and in Eugene Lawson's The Sino-Vietnamese Conflict. Vietnam's relations with Southeast Asia are covered in David Elliott's "Vietnam in Asia: Strategy and Diplomacy in a New Context," and Soviet-Vietnamese relations are discussed in Robert Horn's "Soviet-Vietnamese Relations and the Future of Southeast Asia," Douglas Pike's "The USSR and Vietnam: into the Swamp," and Leif Rosenberger's "The Soviet-Vietnamese Alliance and Kampuchea." An overview of Vietnam since the end of the Second Indochina War is presented by Carlyle Thayer and David Marr in Vietnam since 1975--Two Views from Australia and by William Turley in "Vietnam since Reunification." Additional articles focusing on Vietnam's domestic problems following unification include Carlyle Thayer's "Vietnam's New Pragmatism," William Turley's "Hanoi's Domestic Dilemmas," Stephen Young's "Unpopular Socialism in United Vietnam" and "Vietnamese Marxism: Transition in Elite Ideology," and Jayne Werner's "Socialist Development: The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in Vietnam." To follow Vietnam's politics and government on a daily basis, some of the most useful reference sources are the Daily Report: Asia & Pacific, published by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, and Southeast Asia Report, published by the Joint Publication Research Service. The Indochina Chronology, a quarterly published by the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley, is also invaluable. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)