 |
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509 
| ||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
| ||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Vietnam goes to market
By Faiza RadyAppearing exuberant and basking in the spotlight, Bill Clinton was cheered last weekend by thousands of young Vietnamese who lined the streets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to catch a glimpse of the American president. A buoyed and energised Clinton then went out of his way to charm the youthful crowds in this nation of 78 million people, half of whom were born after the final exodus of United States troops in 1975.
In an effort to downplay the ill-fated US role in Vietnam and relegate the war to the dusty bins of history, Clinton fell short of apologising for US war crimes against the Vietnamese, instead he eulogised on the "staggering sacrifice of the Vietnamese people on both sides of that conflict."
Using the politically expedient strategy of equating the aggressor with the "aggressed" -- an attempt to erase the legacy of a universally defamed imperialist war -- Clinton was quick to displace the past with glossy prospects for a bright future. Prospects were embellished with all the conventional and symbolic trappings of the market economy and rounded off with the alluring promises of freedom, democracy and prosperity for all.
"Imagine how much more you will achieve as even more young people gain the freedom to shape the decisions that will affect their lives," Clinton told his youthful audience. Clinton was banking on the strength of his rapprochement with Vietnam, which began in 1994, when his administration lifted the US trade embargo. A year later, Clinton re-established diplomatic relations and in July, he signed a sweeping trade agreement between the two countries. Clinton was probably feeling confident that his "free trade" message would come across without a hitch.
But Clinton had overestimated how wide Vietnam was willing to open its arms. Despite the American president's record and his mass street appeal, his neo-liberal rhetoric -- replete with his unapologetic stand on the Vietnam War -- hit a brick wall with the communist leadership. Dismissing Clinton's efforts to bypass the legacy of the past, Communist Party Secretary-General Le Kha Phieu duly lectured the US president on the dialectics of history. Rather than "leaving the past behind," Phieu stressed that "the question was to properly understand the nature of the past" -- particularly the war of resistance that the Vietnamese were forced to wage against the US. "Vietnam waged the resistance war to end the country's occupation by imperialists," said Phieu. "But why did the US forces invade Vietnam, which did not seek to invade the US?"
Vietnam has indeed paid a heavy price for the US-waged war. Former US President Lyndon Johnson escalated the war in 1964 when his administration launched the "Rolling Thunder" air assault that alone dropped more bombs on the tiny country than were used in World War II. Over the following five years, Vietnam received the equivalent of 22 tons of explosives for every square mile of territory, or 300 pounds for every man, woman and child. Seven million tons of bombs and defoliants were dropped in total and an estimated three million Vietnamese were killed.
US President Bill Clinton surrounded by cheering schoolchildren during his historic visit to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Clinton's was the first visit by an American president in more than 25 years
(photo: AP)
Against all odds and despite tremendous losses, the party's secretary-general reminded Clinton that it was the Northern-based communist guerrilla army -- the Vietcong -- who fought and ultimately defeated the most powerful army in the world, and raised the banner of national liberation and ultimate unification between the North and the South. Besides lauding the Vietcong's achievements, Phieu also stressed that it was the wars of resistance that had propelled Vietnam on the path to socialism.
Phieu then flatly rejected Clinton's terms of neo-liberal globalisation as a vision for the future, emphasising that socialism was here to stay. "Socialism has persisted and will certainly further develop. The future of the Vietnamese nation is independence and socialism," asserted the secretary-general.
Although Phieu publicly stood his ground against a US invasion of a different kind, the future of socialism appears compromised in Vietnam. Since the late 1980s, the socialist-planned economy has in fact gradually shifted to a Chinese-style mixed economy. Following the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Socialist bloc, Vietnam was left with no option but to partially liberalise its economy. Euphemistically designated Doi Moi ("renovations" -- in lieu of the publicly-decried free market "reforms"), the changes have transformed the country's economy. Besides expansion of the private sector, reforms included decentralisation of state credit in favour of private banking and the establishment of a foreign banking sector. In addition, public enterprises were partially privatised into joint ventures with direct foreign investment capital.
Considering the ravages of war and the economic stranglehold imposed by 19 years of US trade embargo, Vietnam has done well in terms of macro-economic indicators. Considered one of the fastest growing economies in the region until the Asian financial crisis took its toll in 1998, the country's economy grew at an annual rate of eight per cent between 1992 and 1997, but fell to four per cent in 1998. Nevertheless, starting off as an importer of rice after the war, Vietnam has become the world's third-largest exporter of the Asian staple.
Membership in the prestigious Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1995 consecrated the country's recent success story, but Vietnam remains one of the world's poorest countries. The average per capita annual income is $372. Economic growth is, at best, uneven -- and limited to sprawling urban centres. Vast tracts of rural land, which US forces heavily bombarded with deadly defoliants, are virtual wastelands. An estimated 50 per cent of the people live under the poverty level.
While in the early 1990s direct foreign investment poured into the country at a rate exceeding $4 billion a year, foreign investment trickled down to $1.4 billion in 1999 and is expected to fall further this year. Estimated at 25 per cent, unemployment is rampant, and the country is suffering from the familiar symptoms of dire poverty: corruption, prostitution, racketeering and crime. Designated as "mixed", rather than capitalist or socialist, the Vietnamese economy is steering an uncharted course and it is one that will not be determined by the belated visit of a lame-duck US president.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
