The final death toll stood somewhere between , and 3. Post-war Vietnam was plagued by economic and social woes. The two factions were still not coming to a reunified state, and millions of people were imprisoned for their views. To top off the economic woes, the Khmer empire from Cambodia began to attack, followed by a Vietnamese counter. This was followed by an invasion from China, which did not like Vietnamese policies nor the fact that the Soviet Union was such a close ally.
Seeing that its policies were not pragmatic or helpful, a series of more progressive leaders began to move Vietnam toward gradual change in the opposite direction. They worked to combine divergent views of pragmatists and communist traditionalists. The economy then began to turn around and diplomatic and trade channels with western nations were re-opened. Tailored to You. Tell us your travel interests, dreams and desires, then let our experts tailor the perfect trip for you!
Peace of Mind. Responsible Travel. We are fully committed to low impact travel that not only preserves but gives back to the amazing places we visit. Later, hundreds of thousands of other Vietnamese nationals fled as well, seeking temporary refuge in camps throughout Southeast Asia.
The continuing grave condition of the economy and the alienation from the international community became focal points of party debate. In , at the Sixth Party Congress, there was an important easing of communist agrarian and commercial policies.
A new state constitution was approved in April , reaffirming the central role of the Communist Party of Vietnam CPV in politics and society, and outlining government reorganization and increased economic freedom. Though Vietnam remains a one-party state, adherence to ideological orthodoxy has become less important than economic development as a national priority. The most important powers within the Vietnamese Government--in addition to the Communist Party--are the executive agencies created by the constitution: the offices of the president and the prime minister.
The Vietnamese President, presently Nguyen Minh Triet, functions as head of state but also serves as the nominal commander of the armed forces and chairman of the Council on National Defense and Security. The Prime Minister of Vietnam, presently Nguyen Tan Dung, heads a cabinet currently composed of three deputy prime ministers and the heads of 26 ministries and commissions, all confirmed by the National Assembly. Notwithstanding the constitution's reaffirmation of the central role of the Communist Party, the National Assembly, according to the constitution, is the highest representative body of the people and the only organization with legislative powers.
It has a broad mandate to oversee all government functions. Once seen as little more than a rubber stamp, the National Assembly has become more vocal and assertive in exercising its authority over lawmaking, particularly in recent years. However, the National Assembly is still subject to party direction. The assembly meets twice yearly for weeks each time; elections for members are held every 5 years, although its Standing Committee meets monthly and there are now over "full-time" deputies who function on various committees.
There is a separate judicial branch, but it is still relatively weak. Overall, there are few lawyers and trial procedures are rudimentary. The present member Politburo, elected in April and headed by Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, determines government policy, and its Secretariat oversees day-to-day policy implementation.
In addition, the Party's Central Military Commission, which is composed of select Politburo members and additional military leaders, determines military policy. A Party Congress, which most recently was comprised of 1, delegates at the Tenth Party Congress in April , meets every 5 years to set the direction of the party and the government. The member Central Committee with an additional 21 alternate members , was elected by the Party Congress and it usually meets at least twice a year.
Politburo Tenth Party Congress Politburo, named April 25, ; listed in the order it was announced, including the individuals? Vietnam maintains an embassy in the U. Land reform, de-collectivization, and the opening of the agricultural sector to market forces converted Vietnam from a country facing chronic food shortages in the early s to the second-largest rice exporter in the world.
Besides rice, key exports are coffee, tea, rubber, and fisheries products. Paralleling its efforts to increase agricultural output, Vietnam? Industry contributed State-owned enterprises are marked by low productivity and inefficiency, the result of a command-style economic system applied in an underdeveloped country. Foreign direct investment FDI is a dynamic feature of Vietnam's industrializing economy.
Vietnam has successfully increased exports of manufactured goods, especially labor-intensive manufactures, such as textiles and apparel and footwear. Subsidies have been cut to some inefficient state enterprises. The Government is also in the process of "equitizing" e. However, to date the government continues to maintain control of the largest and most important companies. Trade and Balance of Payments From the late s until the s, Vietnam was heavily dependent on the Soviet Union and its allies for trade and economic assistance.
To compensate for drastic cuts in Soviet-bloc support after , Vietnam liberalized trade, devalued its exchange rate to increase exports, and embarked on a policy of regional and international economic re-integration. Vietnam has demonstrated its commitment to trade liberalization in recent years, and integration with the world economy has become one of the cornerstones of its reform program.
Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization will further integrate Vietnam into the global economy. During the second Indochina war , North Vietnam balanced relations with its two major allies, the Soviet Union and China. By , tension began to grow as Beijing increasingly viewed Vietnam as a potential Soviet instrument to encircle China. Vietnamese-Chinese relations deteriorated significantly after Hanoi instituted a ban in March on private trade, mostly affecting Sino-Vietnamese.
Following Vietnam's December invasion of Cambodia, China launched a retaliatory incursion over Vietnam's northern border. Faced with severance of Chinese aid and strained international relations, Vietnam established even closer ties with the Soviet Union and its allies in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Comecon.
However, Soviet and East bloc economic aid ceased after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Vietnam did not begin to emerge from international isolation until it withdrew its troops from Cambodia in China reestablished full diplomatic ties with Vietnam in , and the two countries continue their joint efforts to demarcate their land and sea borders, expand trade and investment ties, and build political relations. In the past decade, Vietnam has recognized the increasing importance of growing global economic interdependence and has made concerted efforts to adjust its foreign relations to reflect the evolving international economic and political situation in Southeast Asia.
The country has begun to integrate itself into the regional and global economy by joining international organizations. Vietnam has stepped up its efforts to attract foreign capital from the West and regularize relations with the world financial system. In the s, following the lifting of the American veto on multilateral loans to the country, Vietnam became a member of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank. The country has expanded trade with its East Asian neighbors as well as with countries in Western Europe and North America.
Vietnam is seeking to join the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member for the and term. While Vietnam has remained relatively conflict-free since its Cambodia days, tensions have arisen in the past between Vietnam and its neighbors especially China. Vietnam and China each assert claims to the Spratly Islands as does Taiwan , an archipelago in a potentially oil-rich area of the South China Sea. Over the years, conflicting claims have produced small-scale armed altercations in the area; in more than 70 people were killed during a confrontation between China and Vietnam.
China's assertion of control over the Spratly Islands and the entire South China Sea has elicited concern from Vietnam and its Southeast Asia neighbors. The territorial border between the two countries is being definitively mapped pursuant to a Land Border Agreement signed in December , and an Agreement on Borders in the Gulf of Tonkin signed in December Vietnam and Russia declared a strategic partnership in March during the first visit ever to Hanoi of a Russian head of state, largely as an attempt to counterbalance the People's Republic of China's P.
After a year hiatus of severed ties, President Clinton announced the formal normalization of diplomatic relations with Vietnam on July 11, Subsequent to President Clinton's normalization announcement, in August , both nations upgraded their Liaison Offices opened during January to embassy status.
The two countries have broadened their political exchanges through regular dialogues on human rights and regional security. In , the two countries signed a Counternarcotics Letter of Agreement amended in , a Civil Aviation Agreement, and a textile agreement. As of November 2, , the U. Government listed 1, Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, including 1, in Vietnam.
Since , Americans have been accounted for, including in Vietnam. Additionally, the Department of Defense has confirmed that of the individuals who were "last known alive" LKA , the U. Government has determined the fate of all but The United States considers achieving the fullest possible accounting of Americans missing and unaccounted for in Indochina to be one of its highest priorities with Vietnam. Since entry into force of the U.
The greatest of these was the Le , established when Le Loi - who still has a street named after him in every city - expelled the latest set of Chinese oppressors. The Le dynasty expanded south to take over the Champa kingdom, inhabited by people of Malay origin, and establish the boundaries of modern Vietnam. The first French were missionaries who dabbled in politics.
The Vietnamese emperor s execution of the more troublesome of these prompted Napoleon Ill to send troops. They attacked in and eventually established the colony of Cochinchina in the south of Vietnam, with Saigon as capital.
The French gradually eroded the power of the emperors further north, while keeping them as puppet figureheads. The French justified their rule of Indochina by the idea that they were bringing into light and liberty the races and peoples still enslaved by ignorance and despotism'.
In reality Vietnam was treated as a huge plantation fuelling French industrialization. Many thousands of Vietnamese died labouring in appalling conditions on rubber plantations; rice was exported despite the starving local people. There were periodic revolts - but the resistance was notorganized enough to succeed against a ruthless French security system. Vietnamese nationalism awaited a rallying force.
After three years at sea he worked in New York and London, beginning a lifetime habit of changing his name to mark each new phase. In Canton for the next three years he was Ly Thuy, a mobilizer of Vietnamese students. In he was with Vietnamese dissidents in Thailand, wearing the shaven head and saffron robes of a Buddhist monk and the name Thau Chin. He was arrested and imprisoned but escaped by persuading a prison guard to report him dead. He spent the s drifting between China and the Soviet Union, awaiting the right moment.
The Second World War provided it. In Japan occupied Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh founded the Vietminh the League for the Independence of Vietnam as a broad-based nationalist movement to fight the Japanese - and he returned home for the first time in 30 years to organize resistance from a cave in the northern hills.
Japan surrendered in August and Allied leaders agreed that Britain would occupy the south of Vietnam and China the north.
But the Vietminh marched down from the hills to liberate Hanoi before the Chinese arrived. But even Moscow failed to recognize the new republic.
The British ruthlessly suppressed the Vietminh in the south and helped the French to re-establish their old colonial system. The French return forced the Vietminh back into the hills and a long war ensued.
Ho's guerillas were backed after by newly Communist China while the French war effort was paid for by a US now agonizing about Communist expansion. But the Vietminh mobilized an army twice as big as expected and hauled heavy artillery to the top of steep hills surrounding the valley, something the French had considered impossible. After 55 days of intense bombardment Vietminh troops over-ran Dien Bien Phu and the French colonial period was over.
The Conference specified that free elections were to be held before and the country reunited. But the US never ratified the agreement. President Eisenhower said in his memoirs: 'I have never talked Elections were ruled out and the US began bolstering up the Diem regime in South Vietnam, which tortured and executed thousands of Vietminh supporters.
Many reform plans were proposed, yet rejected by the Nguyen Dynasty. Subsequently, the country was driven into backwardness and deadlock and became a semi-feudal colony for nearly years from to The founding of the Communist Party of Viet Nam on 3 February was an important milestone in the Vietnamese history.
In August , under the leadership of the Communist Party headed by President Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese people successfully launched an uprising to seize power and the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam came into being on 2 September The newly founded Viet Nam had to go through another year-long struggle for national liberation and reunification.
Dien Bien Phu victory and Geneva Accord in put an end to the war of resistance against the French colonialists. According to the Accord, the country was temporarily separated along the 17th Parallel North into two territories, North Viet Nam and the South Viet Nam, which were expected to be reunified two years later with a general election.
Though Saigon regime attempted to prevent reunification, it failed to subdue peace and national reunification campaigns. Between and , Viet Nam had to stand up for national liberation and unification. The war came to an end in spring as the patriotic armed forces launched an offensive against the Saigon regime, liberated southern Viet Nam and reunified the country.
Since then, the unified Viet Nam has ushered into a new era of peace, unification and national construction.
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