Vietnam's path not taken — until recently
UNITED NATIONS — Thirty years ago on 30th April 1975, North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of Saigon’s Independence Palace — defeating the South Vietnamese government and effectively ending the last chapter of the Indochina wars. But this stunning imagery of a fallen Saigon, of a psychologically shocked U.S., and a fearful Indochina was yet to be fully appreciated. While the geopolitical ramifications would haunt the U.S. for a decade, the forcible reunification of divided Vietnam would shroud the South with rigid dictatorship and ensuing human rights nightmare.
Things did have to be that way. Thus I’m revisiting a radically different supposition; Let’s return to Spring 1975. Presuppose for a moment that following the American military withdrawal in 1973, Hanoi had abided by the Paris Peace Agreements, thus essentially stopping the clock and keeping the status quo. South Vietnam would have been able to develop its socio/economic base free not only from Viet Cong terrorism but large-scale North Vietnamese conventional invasion. Something basically similar to South and North Korea after the 1953 truce.
Economically South Vietnam was ahead of the North – in those days Hanoi's hard-liners saw to it that there would be no Market-Leninism on their side of the DMZ. Therefore so long as they could hold their own, the Saigon government could be assured of large dollops of American economic assistance and private investment.
Consider the Korean case for a moment. After the cease-fire South Korea was in shambles For the first decade rebuilding encouraged economic growth. With a stabilized situation, the per capita income jumped from $94 in 1960, to $248 in 1970, to $1,589 in 1980, to $5,569 in 1990. By the late 1990's the South Korean per capita stood at an impressive $12,400!
Clearly Seoul profited from a keen work ethic, open markets, a continuing presence of U.S. combat forces, and a U.S. Defense Treaty commitment.
South Vietnam had an anemic economy in 1975; the aftermath of a full-scale war. Had the cease-fire held, by the early 1980's Saigon could not help but ride the wave of foreign investment, opening markets and enterprise which radically transformed divided nations as Korea and China, and especially Southeast Asian states such as Malaysia, Thailand, and of course Singapore. Even taking a slower growth scenario such as Philippines, South Vietnam would have been on a modest expansion track by the early 1980's had the status quo held.
Former South Vietnam was attracting some investment, carrying out necessary land reform, and getting into exports as did South Korea a decade earlier.
Hanoi's arrogant triumphialism following reunification, assured the Socialist Republic of Vietnam that it would be bypassed by the rising tide of economic development and the waves of investment which lapped on the shores from South Korea to Singapore. Instead Hanoi's dour and dictatorial ruling class embarked on the invasion of neighboring Cambodia — admittedly upsetting the Beijing-backed Pol Pot regime — but ensuring that Vietnam would remain a political pariah, even among many non-aligned states at the United Nations.
When the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's Do Moi system of economic reforms finally opened up to foreign investments, the major surge, nonetheless followed years behind other Southeast Asian states.
Indeed foreign trade has boomed in recent years. The European Union remains Vietnam’s largest investment and trade partner — last year bilateral trade reached $7 billion. Two-way U.S. trade with Vietnam in 2004 stood at $6.4 billion up from $1 billion in 2000.
But better times may be unevenly distributed for Vietnam's 84 million people. The UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) forecast that in 2005 Vietnam’s GDP growth rate would reach 8 percent--ranking 1st in South East Asia. Last year according to ESCAP, Vietnam’s growth stood at an impressive 7.7 percent.
Despite impressive development in some sectors, investors are hamstrung by red tape and graft from government bureaucrats. And there is a still a big difference between South and North Vietnam, the former being more open and entrepreneurially oriented while the North keeps to its communist roots. In 1978, just three years after the invasion of the South, Socialist Vietnam's per capita income stood at a paltry $170; South Korea $1,200, Malaysia was $1,100, Taiwan $2,000, Thailand $500, and the Philippines at $620.
Today Vietnam's per capita income stands at only $560 as compared with South Korea at $15,000, Malaysia at $5,000, Taiwan at $14,500, and Thailand $2,600 and the Philippines at $1,000. The World Bank classifies Vietnam as a Low Income economy. That’s not an impressive legacy.
Having won the battle for reunification, Hanoi lost the war for its people’s betterment. Instead we saw the boat people, continuing political repression, and an economy still catching up for lost opportunities. So much for theories.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.  |
