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EPILOGUE
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399 EPILOGUE AS VIET NAM COMMEMORATES THE twenty-fifth anniversary of its reunification, the economy is in serious disarray, plagued by a huge bureaucracy, rampant corruption and money-losing state enterprises . On the greater geopolitical scheme, twenty-five years after the “Great Spring Victory,” Viet Nam, ironically, will become the battlefield for a new Cold War against its one-time Communist comrade to the north. A major obstacle to Viet Nam’s economic development is that its aging Communist leaders, who honed their military skills during the war, lack the necessary economic experience and management skills to rebuild the country. In the view of Viet Nam watchers, the Communists may have won the war, but they have lost the peace. Further, the collapse of the former Soviet Union deprived them of a socio-ideological model and shattered their belief in the success of the socialist revolution. A character in Duong Thu Huong’s award-winning novel Nhung Thien Dang Mu (or The Blind Paradises) fittingly describes Viet Nam Communist rulers as “people who have spent almost their entire life designing a paradise on earth, but their limited experience has not allowed them to understand the nature of this paradise nor the road leading to it. . . .” The novel, by Viet Nam’s best known post-war writer, was published in Hanoi in 1988, during the regime’s period of cultural liberation.84 Today, after fourteen years of Doi Moi (or “renovation”), a mixture of free market capitalism and command economy, Viet Nam remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of US $350 and more like $60 in rural areas. (Even when their economies hit the bottom during the 1998 Asian economic crisis, Thailand and South Korea registered a per capita income seven and twenty-two times higher.) Other indicators point to an 400UUU THE TWENTY-FIVE YEAR CENTURY imminent economic downturn. Net foreign investments for 1999 decreased by thirty percent from the previous year. The budget deficit rose from 1.7 percent to five percent of GDP, the official unemployment rate stood at 4 million—not counting millions of part-time or unemployed farm workers. In today’s global economy, emerging nations need to provide an environment of fair competition and safe investment if they want to attract the foreign capital necessary for economic growth. This requires the institution of the rule of law, the eradication of corruption and bureaucracy and, most of all, the dissolution of government -subsidized state enterprises. In other words, in an age where innovation and pluralism have become interdependent, economic reform, to succeed, must be implemented concurrently with political reform. But for authoritarian regimes, political reform means the erosion of the government’s grip on power and its ultimate demise . In the face of this insoluble dilemma, Viet Nam’s leaders have adopted a “wait and see” attitude, hoping that the problem somehow will go away. Meanwhile, anger over high taxes, rampant corruption , and a widening gap between the cities and rural areas have triggered protests and popular uprisings in some of the most impoverished provinces in the Red River Delta. A worsening economy will likely trigger further unrest and possible social upheaval. On the geopolitical front, Viet Nam, sadly, is caught in the middle of a concerted U.S. effort to contain China, which has emerged as the new Asian threat. Despite the Western powers’ professed commitment to active cooperation with Russia and “constructive engagement ” with China, the post-World War II policy of “containment” remains a popular ploy. And Viet Nam has, once again, become a pawn in this global political chess game. “History is an eternal recommencement,” wrote a French historian . This is painfully true for Viet Nam. Containment, in fact, means establishing relations with surrounding countries and Viet Nam is not only China’s neighbor but also its traditional enemy. (In 1979, Viet Nam engaged in a border war with China and subsequently had skirmishes with the Chinese Navy in the contested Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.) Thus, Viet Nam has re- [3.91.19.28] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:21 GMT) EPILOGUE 401 gained its strategic value in U.S. eyes as a counter-balance to the ever-greater threat of Chinese expansionism. If the unusually warm reception given to U.S. government officials in recent years is any indication, Viet Nam appears only too willing to accommodate its new role as the outpost for a new version of containment...