Copyright by Nhu Quynh-Thuy Truong 2009

Renewing Political Legitimacy: Pragmatic Reforms and Doi Moi

by

Nhu Quynh-Thuy Truong, B.A.

Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts in Asian Studies

The University of Texas at Austin May 2009

Renewing Political Legitimacy: Pragmatic Reforms and Doi Moi

Approved by

Supervising Committee:

Abstract

Renewing Political Legitimacy: Pragmatic Reforms and Doi Moi

Nhu Quynh-Thuy Truong, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2009

Supervisors: Huaiyin Li & William Hurst

The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) first launched Doi Moi [Renovation] in 1986— 10 years after the VCP officially assumed power in 1976 of the Socialist Republics of Vietnam. As the VCP describes, Doi Moi is a comprehensive economic reform package with new initiatives toward building ―a mixed economy‖ that introduces ―market mechanism with state management and a socialist orientation‖ to Vietnam‘s economy. With Doi Moi, pragmatism has evidently taken center stage in place of dogmatic concerns for ideological correctness. The thesis seeks to first examine the conditions and factors that gave impetus for the economic reforms in Vietnam. These conditions and factors are especially evident when they are examined in a comparative context with the Soviet Union and China‘s experiences with similar reforms as they are done here in the thesis. Moreover, the change of orientation from a centrally planned economy to market-oriented economy is reflected in Doi Moi‘s decentralization and economic liberalization reforms as well as the VCP‘s opening up to international reintegration and reconciliation with namely the United States.

From this examination, it is apparent that at the crux of the VCP‘s decision to pursue reforms and the Vietnamese people's support for reforms are fundamental considerations of self and political interests—the VCP's to stay in power and the people's to subsist and prosper. Whether reforms are socialist or capitalist—in form or in practice—are thus of lesser importance to the VCP and Vietnamese people than whether reforms work or do not work.

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Table of Contents

List of Tables ...... vi

List of Figures ...... vii

List of Illustration ...... viii

Chapter One: Comparing Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union ...... 1

Chapter Two: Impetus for Economic Reforms in Vietnam ...... 10

Chapter Three: Economic Decentralization and Liberalization ...... 24

Chapter Four: Opening Up and Its Paradox ...... 32

Chapter Five: Conclusion ...... 47

Bibliography ...... 55

Vita ...... 61

v

List of Tables

Table 1: Aims of Country ...... 50 Table 2: First choice of most important goal ...... 50 Table 3: Confidence in Government ...... 51 Table 4: Rating of Current Political System of Governing Country ...... 52

vi

List of Figures

Figure 1: Growth rates for national income and industrial production in the USSR, 1975- 1990...... 29

vii

List of Illustration

Illustration 1: Nước Mỹ Có Trá ch Nhiêṃ Nó i Lên Sự Thâṭ (The United States Duty to Speak the Truth) ...... 41

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Chapter 1: Comparing Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union

Long before the introduction of Doi Moi, Gaige Kaifeng and Perestroika, Vietnam,

China and the Soviet Union had shared a common ideological orientation that directly shaped each country‘s political and economic configurations. To provide the historical context for the cross-country comparison in the rest of the thesis, this chapter discusses the early transmission of

Marxist-Leninist doctrines as well as the historical connections and interstate relations among the three countries. With these common links, there were also evident differences in perspectives and national strategic interests that had often overshadowed the elements which they had shared.

I. Common Ideological Foundation: Marxism-Leninism

At the core of Karl Marx's political ideas is his view of human history as a struggle for human fulfillment of incessant physiological and material needs, and, henceforth, the base upon which all other aspects of the rest of society and its economic and political superstructure rest.

Accordingly, historical transitions occur as society becomes more progressively advanced in forms of interactions between raw materials and human labor or modes of production that thus create different productive relations, inequalities, and conflicts among groups and individuals.1

As Marx and Frederic Engels described, upon achieving socialism, ―when, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, in place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.‖2 Marx's ideas thus offered not only an attractive paradigm for explaining the dimensions of human society, politics, economics, and history, but also provided a solid grounding for the sowing of revolutionary hopes and promises.

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Prior to becoming the Soviet Union, in Russia, Marx's ideas became the source of a new consciousness that fueled the Bolshevik revolutionary movement. In a speech made in November

7, 1917, Vldimir Ilich Ulianov, also known as Lenin, announced:

[The revolution's] significance is ... that we shall have a social movement, without the participation of the bourgeoisie of any kind. The oppressed masses will of themselves form a government. The old state machinery will be mashed into bits and in its place will be created a new machinery of government by the soviet organizations. From now on there is a new page in the history of Russia, and the present ... Russian revolution shall in the final result lead to the victory of socialism.3

The message in Lenin‘s speech adamantly placed Marxist thoughts at the forefront of the revolutionary movement. For Lenin, the anticipated end goal was not only the toppling of tsarist

Russia for a new Bolshevik-led regime, but a victory that was intended to challenge and fundamentally alter class structures, social relations and the very core of Russian society.

For China, Marxism was first widely unknown and irrelevant among Chinese. It wasn't until after the Bolshevik Revolution demonstrated the serious outcome of their ideas and actions and leading Chinese intellectuals such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu began writing and publishing on Marxism that Chinese began to pay special attention to Marxist ideas and the

Soviet Union as a model example of how those ideas were put in practice. Arif Dirlik saw this change as a change in Chinese politics and intellectual attitudes toward the problems in China in the late 1920s and 1930s. Adopting a Marxist schematization of Chinese history, Dirlik wrote, was both ―functional and eminently practical.‖4 As Dirlik further explained, ―To the generation that came of age after 1911 and spearheaded the New Culture movement, what was most conspicuous was the failure of modern institutions in the Chinese environment ... They put blame squarely on Chinese social structure and its underlying values, in particular, the value system of

Confucianism.‖5 In Marxism, however, Chinese intellectuals found a different understanding of

2 political change—political change as a function of social forces, not institutions—and henceforth a new approach to change for China.

Marxist ideas' foothold in Vietnamese society, on the other hand, was inseparable from

Lenin's later doctrines on international socialism and anti-imperialism. Lenin explained imperialism as essentially the last stage of capitalism in conquest of weaker nations for new markets and wealth, and that colonized nations and proletariats everywhere must rise up and unite against this intolerable oppression. 6 In promoting this view, Lenin had in effect increased the appeal of Marxist ideas by extending its applicability to other contexts and nations. As

Vietnam‘s nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh wrote, ―Lenin was the first to realize and assess the full importance of drawing colonial peoples into the revolutionary movement.‖7 For this reason,

Ho Chi Minh came to strongly believe that a socialist revolution with the Soviet Union's support was Vietnam‘s only path to achieving national independence.8

Chronologically, of the three countries, the Soviet Communist Party (SVC) was the most established Communist Party that first emerged, followed by the Chinese Communist Party

(CCP), and the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP)9. The historical contexts, factional struggles, and periods of revolutionary and civil war that underwent in each country varied case by case. However, overall, in each of the three cases, Marxist-Leninist doctrines did not take roots by chance or were embraced simply for their ideology. Part of the doctrines‘ greatest appeals was their functionality as alternative revolutionary strategies made suited to the needs of revolutionary factions seeking for effective approaches and viable solutions to the problems and conditions specific to their own nations and societies.

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II. Strategic Considerations: Chinese and Soviet Involvement in Vietnam (1954-

1975)

In Party‘s rhetoric, Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union ought to be linked arms to arms.

However, while ideology was often called upon by Vietnamese, Chinese and Soviet leaders as the bond that bound the people and interest of all three nations, Chinese and Soviet involvement between 1954 and 1975 in Vietnam‘s national conflicts showed that the triangular relations among the three Communist powers were constantly shifting. Ideological ties visibly waned in significance next to consciousness of strategic individual and national interests of power by each country.

After the partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel in 1954, the Soviet Union had hoped to thwart a military outbreak by trying to convince Ho Chi Minh and the DRV to compromise and seek peace with a U.S.-backed Southern Vietnamese administration. As Marie Olsen explained, one of the reasons for the Soviet Union‘s initial policy toward Vietnam was directly tied to its position as both ―a world' senior communist power‖ and as a co-chair with the United Kingdom at the Geneva Conference in 1954.10 Moreover, after Joseph Stalin passed away in 1953, the

Soviet Union under the new leadership of Nikita Khrushchev became more interested in

―peaceful coexistence‖ with capitalist states than hostile conflicts. After Khrushchev fell from power in 1964 at the outbreak of an escalated military confrontation between North and South of

Vietnam, convinced that peace was no longer possible, the Soviet Union then began to generously supply the DRV with ample military and economic support.

Contrary to the Soviet Union, China‘s position and agenda for supporting Ho Chi Minh and the DRV remained persistent during the course of conflicts. As Abul Kalam pointed out, the

4 key motives for China were (1) to retain and advance influence over the areas and states along

China's frontiers, (2) to diminish and, if possible, exclude French and American influences, (3) and to promote the theory and practice of Mao's doctrine of protracted war so as to create a friendly buffer along China's frontiers.11 Moreover, Mao Zedong also saw China‘s support for

North Vietnam as a validation of its own rise to the world and socialist stage. As Xiaoming

Zhang stated, ―the center of world revolution had shifted to Beijing.‖12 These motives helped to explain why China persistently stepped up its efforts to equip and train North Vietnamese forces since as early as 1958.

In addition, China's support of Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese administration could also be understood in the context of Sino-Soviet deteriorating relations at the time. After

Stalin's death, Mao's own consciousness to free China from overdependence on the Soviet Union and sharp differences in perspectives between Mao and Soviet new leaders reached a boiling point in 1960. As a result, on July 18, 1960, the Soviet Union ordered a sudden and immediate withdrawal of all Soviet specialists from China.13 Vietnam then became like a playground for this Sino-Soviet rivalry over their influences on Vietnam.

Vietnamese Communist leaders were well aware of Soviet and Chinese motives for their support of the DRV. As Priscilla Roberts commented on a reflection by Luu Doan Huynh, a mid- level North Vietnamese cadre during the war, ―He clearly feels that on more than one occasion ... both great communist powers often consulted their own interests first and those of North

Vietnam second.‖14 The schism in Sino-Soviet relations often placed Vietnamese Communist leaders in a difficult position where the DRV could not freely seek nor accept aid from one side without risking facing diplomatic backlash from the other. For Ho Chi Minh and the DRV, a cooperative and joint alliance with both China and the Soviet Union to support North Vietnam's

5 unification goal would have been the ideal. External aid from China and the Soviet Union was indisputably indispensable for their goals of developing North Vietnam as a Communist revolutionary base, then to expand, reclaim and ultimately unify Vietnam.

III. Vietnam-China Relations

Among the three Communist powers, Vietnam and China have had a long history and ties that entail a more detailed discussion here. As Roberts observed, ―Persistence and pervasiveness of conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations (between 1954 and 1975), reinforced two central truths: that the histories of these two countries were inextricably intertwined; and that the expressions of eternal ideological solidarity uniting Beijing and Hanoi loudly proclaimed during the Vietnam

War masked a far more complex reality.‖15 Even while China had made conscious efforts to win over Ho Chi Minh and the DRV with its aid provision, their relations remained constrained by mutual skepticism and distrust.

A source of this skepticism and distrust is due to Vietnam and China‘s ―inextricably intertwined‖ history of more than a thousand years of Chinese annexation of Vietnam since 111

B.C. until 1428 A.D.16 The nature of Vietnam-China relations since could be understood as an

―asymmetric‖ relations. As Brantly Womack proposed, ―asymmetric‖ relations is composed of two different sub-relations between A → B and B → A where, despite the disparities that create systemic differences in interests and perceptions between the stronger and weaker sides of the relationship, A and B are in constant but static tensions since neither side is likely or able to eliminate the weaker power.17 The sustained condition or ―asymmetric normalcy‖ of this relation, Womack concluded, is what differentiates the politics of asymmetry from temporary disequilibrium international relations theory where it is assumed that either the weaker or

6 stronger side will seek to balance the disparity by overcoming its vulnerability and dominating the other.18

Based on the theory of politics of asymmetry, Vietnam-China relations can be perceived in different phases. In summary, Vietnam‘s (the DRV‘s) ―dependent‖ relation with China from

1950 to 1975 aid turned ―hostile‖ from 1975 to 1991 over political cross-fires over Vietnam‘s preferential ties with the Soviet Union, its policy toward ethnically Chinese-Vietnamese after

1975, its encroachment into Cambodia in 1978, and its territorial claim of offshore island groups near Hainan Island. After 1991, relations between Vietnam and China were formally

―normalized‖ for ―a [more] stable one based on the general expectation of mutual benefits.‖19

In today's context, while Vietnam and China have chosen similar paths of market- oriented reforms with Doi Moi and Gaige Kaifeng, both sides have remained watchful of one another. On one hand, as Womack illustrated, ―In general, there is no country more similar to

China than Vietnam, and there is no country more similar to Vietnam than China.‖20 On the other hand, disparities of scale and capacities, historical conflicts, and sharp differences in perspectives have created an asymmetrical Vietnam-China relation where, despite their similarities, Vietnam would rather model its stock markets, per se, after New York or Tokyo than after Shanghai or

Shenzen.21

IV. Conclusion

As the chapter suggests, Marxism-Leninism as an ideology connected Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union only on a basic, theoretical level. This shared ideological grounding did not override the strategic individual and national interests considered by each power such as over the extent of their support of Ho Chi Minh and the DRV during the Vietnam War. It is not

7 ideological blindness but careful observations and strategic calculation that determines their views of and interactions with one another.

1 Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 34-36 2 Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 34-36; Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (New York: International Publishers: 2001). 3 Quoted in, Theodore Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev?: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet System (New York, NY: HarperCollins College Publishers 1993), 88-89. 4 Arif Dirlik, “Mirror to Revolution: Early Marxist Images of Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 23, no. 2 (1974): 194. 5 Dirlik, p. 222. 6 Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev?, 88. 7 Ho Chi Minh, “Lenin and the Colonial People,” Ho Chi Minh Selected Writings (1920-1969), Ho Chi Minh (Ha Noi, Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers, 1994), 37. 8 France officially established a colonial regime in Vietnam in 1896 after a long conquest starting in Da Nang, Vietnam on August 31st, 1858. During colonization, Vietnam experienced drastic economic transformations that fundamentally altered Vietnam’s societal structures and created a restless peasantry class accounted for over 90 percent of the Vietnamese population at the time. As the gap between Vietnamese peasants and landlords— proletariats and feudal capitalists—widened during French colonization, so did tensions among Vietnamese and their foreign rulers. See, Nguyen Khac Vien, Vietnam: A Long History (Hanoi: Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers, 2004), 384. 9 In June 1925, in Guangdong, Ho Chi Minh founded the first Vietnam's Revolutionary Youth Association (Hoi Viet Nam Cach Mang Thanh Nien). Their objectives were to transmit Marxism-Leninism into Vietnam and to readily train a generation of future Communist cadres. The Association functioned from then on as an active, mobilizing force in Vietnam. Soon after in March 1929, members of the Association set up cells for the first Communist Party in Ha Noi, Vietnam. The Communist Party of Indochina (Dong Duong Cong San Dang), the Communist Party of Annam (An Nam Cong San Dang), and the Communist League of Indochina (Dong Duong Cong San Lien Doan) were later established after 1925. 10 Marie Olsen, “Forging a New Relationship: The Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1955,” Behind the Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam, and the World beyond Asia, Priscilla Roberts, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, 2006.) 11 Abul Kalam, The Communist Triangle Foreign Policy Interactions. (Dhaka: University Press, Ltd., 1987), 23. 12 Zhang Xiaoming, “Communist Powers Divided: China, the Soviet Union and the Vietnam War,” International Perspectives on Vietnam, Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger, eds. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000.) 83. 13 Lorenz M. Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 157-193. 14 Priscilla Roberts, ed. Behind the Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam, and the World beyond Asia (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, 2006), 29. 15 Roberts, Behind the Bamboo Curtain, xii. 16 In 111 B.C., Northern Vietnam was officially annexed by the Han Dynasty. At first, local leadership and indigenous ways of life in the plains of Northern Vietnam largely remained intact. Starting in the 1st A.D. century, Chinese administrators became more demanding of Vietnam for more conformity to Chinese ways of ruling, thus, sparking dauntless series of local and national revolts. Vietnam first regained territorial control from China in 939 A.D. but was soon subjugated again by the Ming Dynasty in 1407 A.D. Under King Le Loi, in 1428 A.D., Vietnam ultimately won back territorial control of the country for good. See, Nguyen Khac Vien, Vietnam: A Long History (Hanoi, Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers, 2004).

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17 Brantly Womack, China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 17-18. 18 Womack, China and Vietnam, 2. 19 Womack, China and Vietnam, 246. 20 Womack, China and Vietnam, 10. 21 Womack, China and Vietnam, 10.

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Chapter 2: Impetus for Economic Reforms in Vietnam

By 1986, when the VCP announced its decision to ―doi moi‖ or ―renovate‖, discussions of reforms in China, which were later coined as Gaige Kaifeng or Reform-and-Opening-Up policies, already began in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping came to power. The Soviet Union also promulgated its own Perestroika or Restructuring later under Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. As this chapter shows, at the time when the VCP was considering reforms, there was already support for such wave of reforms that the VCP could cite from the preceding examples of China and the Soviet Union. More importantly, there were also social, economic and political conditions specific to Vietnam which demonstrated to the VCP that a traditional, socialist path to post-war reconstruction and economic development was simply not working, and that pragmatic reforms were necessary for the survival and stability of both the country and society as well as the Vietnamese Communist Party.

I. Challenges to Post-War Reconstruction in Vietnam

Many of the challenges faced by the VCP after it officially rose to power in 1976 were consequences that had directly come about under the impacts of successive warfare in Vietnam since 1946. From 1946 to 1954, Vietnam was fighting against France for national independence.

Although France officially seceded in 1954 after Vietnam‘s victory at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam was subsequently divided at the 17th parallel into North and South under two opposing administrations. The war which followed, involving the United States, lasted until 1975. The

VCP officially came to power in 1976 and declared Vietnam a new Socialist Republics of

Vietnam.

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Due to wartime destruction, Vietnam as a whole was physically devastated. According to

Vietnamese historian Nguyen Khac Vien, three-quarters of villages in the South, two-thirds of villages and all cities and bridges in the North were destroyed. An estimate of 26 million bomb craters and 14 million tons of bombs and shells dropped on Vietnam had also taken down any infrastructure there was. Physical damages from wartime and a crippled infrastructure had practically placed Vietnam in a condition unfit for any grand-scale socialist production or industrialization that the VCP had previously planned.1

As expected, the VCP‘s first serious attempt at post-war economic reforms with an overly ambitious Second Five Year Plan failed. Immediately launched in 1976, the Second Five Year

Plan vowed to transform Vietnam‘s small-scale production to a fully expanded national socialist production economy in twenty years.2 The plan included initiatives to reallocate lands regained in North and South of Vietnam to create work exchange teams, pilot cooperatives, and new state enterprises. However, in practice, the Second Five Year Plan never achieved its preset goals. As

Vietnam‘s former Prime Minister Phan Van Khai summarized, for example, industrial fields‘ growth rate stayed at a dismal 0.1%; only 1.75 million meters of fabrics were produced against a

450 million meters target; and, only 3.68 billion kilowatts in electricity were yielded against an expected 5 billion kilowatts target.3 Actual numbers of production visibly lagged far behind the projected goals.

Looking at the larger picture, from 1976 to 1980, the country‘s GDP grew at an average rate of only 0.4% per year. The average rate of population development was spurting instead at a rate of 2.24% per year. Population growth, in particular, augmented by 92.7% while food production only increased by 6.45%.4 The disparity between these two numbers points to the severe food shortage in Vietnam that, at its worst, resulted in national, widespread starvation.

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Vietnam simply could not produce enough to support the country's growing population, nor to extract enough venues from its exports to afford alternative sources of food, fuel, and other basic necessities. The shortages thus forced Vietnam to rely heavily on foreign aid, which amounted to

38.2% of the state's budget from 1976 to 1980.5

Economic failures occurred under the implementation of the Second Five Year Plan were attributed to various factors. In Nguyen Khac Vien's view, the VCP made the huge ―errors in thinking that socioeconomic backwardness could be overcome by directly shifting to ‗large-scale socialist production‘ by skipping the stage of capitalist development, and in consequence, liquidating as quickly as possible all forms of private, family, and capitalist economic activity.‖6

At the time when the Second Five Year Plan was initiated, Vietnam‘s industrial infrastructure was almost non-existent due to the physical devastation accumulated from wartime. Agriculture remained as the country's main and nearly only productive base. Serious disruptions to the circulation of goods as a result of embargo by the United States and extensive withdrawal of foreign aid from China and the Soviet Union further encumbered the VCP‘s post-war reconstruction effort. Put simply, Vietnam did not have the resources or capacity necessary for any credible attempt at achieving the ambitious goals that the VCP's Second Five Year Plan had outlined.

The harsh post-war economic conditions had a multiplying effect on an already politically, socially, and psychologically traumatized society of Vietnamese. After the war, tens of thousands of people were relocated from urban areas to vastly uncultivated ―new economic zones‖ in the countryside. By 1987, approximately 3 million Vietnamese were relocated.7 Hoang

Van Cuong, a Southern Vietnamese photographer who later became a fugitive in his own country reflected on the disillusion that he had felt from these early post-war experiences, ―I

12 thought peace would now last forever in my country. We would stand shoulder to shoulder to rebuild the country and a permanent peace.‖8 However, the reality of his experience had forced him to question what ―unification‖ really meant. After several attempts to escape, Hoang was placed in ―reeducation‖ camp where he spent the next seven years of his life. ―Reeducation‖ camps, he explained, were not ―schools‖; ―they were psychological/spiritual boot camps places where human beings were to be literally transformed to be made over into new people whose beliefs and values and personalities would be better suited to the new socialist society being designed for them in Hanoi.‖9 These sentiments of disillusionment and anger resounded in the voices of not only those having fought under the Southern Vietnam's administration during the war but also in the voices of ―victors‖ from the North. ―I believe in Socialism but what I‘ve seen after the war, breaks my heart,‖ said an acclaimed member of the VCP who asked to remain anonymous. ―The society that we have now is not what I fought and risked my life for during those years. After the war, the victory we got was a victory for morons. Call civilization and progress? Garbage!‖10

Against this backdrop, a debate was taking place among Party's political elites between political conservatives and economic liberals. The debate centered on the question of whether

Vietnam should continue its attempt to build a model command economy or to pursue economic liberalization like China and the Soviet Union had decided to do. The Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam convened in December of 1986 to conduct an assessment of the situation. At the convention, Congress came to the conclusion that renovating the structure of the economy, its management apparatus, the country's legal foundations, and roles of the state and the Party in the operation of the economy were necessary reforms to curb the current problems.

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In 1986, Vietnam had also undergone an important change in leadership that clearly factored in the VCP's decision to pursue and commit to reforms. Le Duan, the de facto party leader since Ho Chi Minh‘s death, had been the anchor of a conservative first-generation of party members since 1969. This first generation of Vietnamese party leaders, as Gareth Porter portrayed, was ―still in the grip of ideological orthodoxy‖ and ―deeply imbued with orthodox

Soviet view [of] ‗commodity relations‘… [as] merely remnants of prerevolutionary society.‖11

When Le Duan died in 1986 in midst of worsened social and economic crisis, Nguyen Van Linh, known as the Party's economic liberal, became the new General Secretary.

Under the new leadership of Nguyen Van Linh, the VCP made an important gesture that reflected the Party's seriousness for renovation and moving forward. At the Sixth National

Congress, the VCP publicly admitted to the serious errors in economic methods and leadership that the failures of the Second Five Year Plan and its experiments with the old socialist model had demonstrated. Doi Moi was soon launched by the Communist Party of Vietnam at the Sixth

National Congress later that year in 1986.12

II. Crisis as Impetus for Reforms

As it was with Vietnam, to different extents, the impetus for economic reforms in China and the Soviet Union was also a consequent response to the escalation of chronic crises in each country. In the case of the Soviet Union, a deteriorating economy with steep decline and steady slowdown in annual economic growth rate likewise prompted Mikhail Gorbachev to promulgate

―restructuring‖ or Perestroika in 1985 along with various social and political campaigns, including his call for ―political openness‖ or glasnost. According to historian John Thompson, industrial growth in the Soviet Union, for example, slipped from 6%, 5% in the 1950s to 4%,

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3% in the 1960s, to 2%, 1%, and finally dropped to a mere 0% in the early 1980s.13 As a result of the decline in industrial growth, availability and quality of consumer goods had greatly diminished. Most consumers henceforth came to depend largely on an otherwise thriving

―second economy‖ or black markets. Periodic shortages, longer lines, endless complaints, and an increasingly hostile population of consumers placed the entire economic-political system under stress. Soviet spending at the time for the arms race against the United States further added to an already strenuous situation.14 Cumulatively, all of these factors were like fuel to a conflagration of disillusionment and anger that already was already burning up inside many individuals in

Soviet society.

A comparatively more favorable condition for the VCP in its wake of reforms was that, despite the dire socio-economic crisis during 1976-1986 in Vietnam, the VCP had nonetheless retained power over the public image of the Communist Party and steadfastly depicted Ho Chi

Minh and the Party as the vanguard of Vietnam‘s national liberation and the legitimate reunification Party of Vietnam. As historian Nguyen Khac Vien affirmatively asserted, ―No one, not even the most inveterate anti-communist, can deny that Ho Chi Minh is acknowledged as the founding father of an independent Vietnam, and that the CPV (Communist Party of Vietnam) is recognized as the principal architect of victory.‖15

On the contrary, the years of purges under Stalin however had permanently scarred the faith that people first had in the Soviet regime and its ideology. Evgenia Ginzburg, author of Into the Whirlwind, was once a loyal Communist. As she wrote, prior to the Great Terror, ―Had I been ordered to die for the party, not once but three times…I would have obeyed without a moment‘s hesitation.‖16 However, while she spent eighteen years in various prisons and Siberia‘s labor camp under false accusations, her steadfast commitment to the party wavered. ―During

15 these years, I experienced many conflicting emotions, but the one that predominated was amazement,‖ Ginzburg reflected. ―Could this be possible? Was it really happening?‖17 The same sentiment of ―amazement‖ also echoed in poet Robert Rozhdestvensky‘s commentary on the

1987 Soviet film Repentance.18 ―And so, ‗Once upon a time…‘ No, no more make believe and pretending that nobody understands and remembers anything!‖ Rozhdestvensky wrote. ―Yes, all this happened in our country! Our country, mine and yours.‖19 This sentiment reflects the breach between state and society, ideology and reality that made the increased socio-economic problems in the post-Stalinist years even more intolerable for many individuals in Soviet society.

The Soviet Union desperately needed to recover its status and regain people‘s support.

―As ideology eroded and the vision of a future communist society faded, [only] pragmatism predominated,‖ Thompson explained, ―what counted was what worked.‖20 As it was in the case of Vietnam, whether the Party was able to regain, maintain, or consolidate its power and legitimacy to rule therefore depended on not the ideals, promises, or hopes that it could promulgate, but on the results and improvements that it could actually deliver in response to people‘s needs and demands. In both cases, what worked and what didn‘t work was the basis of

Party leaders‘ consideration of reforms and, respectively, the people‘s perception of, support for, and reception of continued rule by the Communist Party.

In the case of China, the period from 1949 to Mao‘s death in 1976 could be termed as an evidently ―era of Mao Zedong.‖21 The expansive changes and events taken place during this period varied in their impacts—positive and negative—on China. As an overview, from the perspective of a political scientist, Kenneth Lieberthal, for example, had characterized the period in six divisions as periods of (1) economic and political recovery and basic socialist transformation from 1949 to 1956, (2) contradictions and rethinking the Soviet model from 1956

16 to 1957, (3) the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961, (4) recovery and growing elite divisions from 1962 to1965, (5) Red Guard phase of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to1969, and (6) final phases of the Cultural Revolution and the struggle for succession from 1970 to1976.22 As an economist, Barry Naughton, on the other hand, saw the period as junctures of (1) economic recovery from 1949-1952, (2) the twin peaks of the First Five Year Plan from 1953 to 1956, (3) the Hundred Flowers from 1956 to 1957, (4) the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1960, (5) crisis and 'readjustment' from 1961 to 1963, (6) ―a new expansion hijacked by radicalism‖ from

1964 to 1966, (7) the Cultural Revolution from 1967 to 1969, (8) ―the Maoist model: A new leap‖ in 1970, and (9) ―consolidation and drift‖ from 1972 to 1976; Naughton called 1978 ―the leap outward‖, ―the end of Maoism‖, and ―a final turning point‖ to the beginning of economic reform.23

Of the junctures cited by both authors above, the period which immediately preceded

China‘s orientation to reforms was the Cultural Revolution. Different experiences under the

Cultural Revolution had yielded different perspectives and judgments of the Revolution itself.

Economically, it had halted development but did not devastate China‘s economy. However, after the Cultural Revolution, people and the Party shared a desire for rehabilitation as well as a return to the accelerated economic growth that China had experienced by reestablishing and expanding central planning organs in China. Similar to Vietnam, China first adopted an overambitious and infeasible Ten Year Plan in 1978. However, as Naughton described, ―the Ten Year Plan was built on sand.‖24 What failures to achieve goals set out by the Ten Year Plan effectively showed was the weakness in Chinese planning and incompetence to fully navigate and carry out long- term and sustainable economic development in China as it had confidently believed it could. The collapse of grandiose economic plans following the end of the Cultural Revolution and death of

17

Mao were factors that helped to change Chinese leaders and people‘s economic outlook, and created the potential for more flexible and pragmatic economic reform policies in China.

III. Lack of Macroeconomic Stabilization as Impetus for Reforms

What is worth nothing, at the same time, is the fact that the post-war conditions and crises which had created impetus for reforms in Vietnam were also byproducts of the particular

―historical starting-point‖25 from which the economic transition in Vietnam commenced.

Different form China or the Soviet Union, the length of time from which the VCP came to power in 1976 to when it decided to launch Doi Moi in 1986 was a relatively short period of only ten years, during which no kind of macroeconomic stabilization or concerted national economic system was achieved.26 The VCP's initial effort to extend its model in the North of a planned economy to South of Vietnam during post-unification could be seen, at best, as an experimental and ambitious effort. Not only did the VCP quickly learned from the failed results of its attempts that changes and reforms were urgent and necessary, this lack of a strong, macroeconomic structure had also created a favorable condition for the VCP‘s tinkering with the weak economic structure that did exist. At that particular ―historical starting-point‖ in Vietnam, a post-war economy and society were largely still in transformations and were therefore more readily adaptable to changes; reforms thus were quicker to come about and promptly took effects in

Vietnam.

These factors are reflected in the process and pace at which initiatives for agrarian reforms and decollectivization took place in Vietnam. Generally speaking, as Vietnam specialist

Benedict Kerkvliet and China specialist Mark Selden described, similar to China, agrarian reforms in Vietnam were a series of changes and events over two principal periods: 1945 to the

18 end of 1970s and late 1970s to present. During the first period, agrarian transformations began in

Vietnam with land redistribution then collectivization. In the second period, households began to reemerge as independent producers under reforms to decollectivize and introduce diverse forms of private and mixed ownership enterprises and market pricing mechanism.27

From comparing to China, it is apparent that while the CCP was quick to push for national collectivization after it came to power in 1949, collectivization was intermittently introduced to only parts of Vietnam by the DRV between 1955 and 1957 and was never thoroughly implemented even in the North. As Kerkvliet and Selden stated, ―While the consequences of land reform (in Vietnam and China) were very much alike, the subsequent collectivization in China appears to have penetrated far more deeply and to have had more profound economic and social consequences than in Vietnam.‖28 And, because collectivization was not as pervasive in Vietnam as it was in China and, as a result, the household economy in

Vietnam was never entirely eliminated, Vietnam thus was more willing and quicker to seek reforms and decollectivization in 1986 than China was in 1978.

In addition, the different economic systems implemented in North and South of Vietnam under two polar administrations during 1954 and 1975 had created vastly disparate economic and social structures that made the VCP's initial post-unification effort to create a national planned economy even more challenging. It was first thought by the VCP that socialist industrialization could be achieved by simply extending the model of collectivization from the North to the South.

Explanation of the VCP's failure to achieve this goal is often attributed to ―mere technicalities‖ such as the lack of inter-region transport facilities and chronic postwar shortages. However,

Melanie Beresford argued, a more serious challenge to the Party‘s socialist construction effort was actually the lack of incentives and social resistance among Southern Vietnamese peasantry

19 against the Party‘s reform measures. Between 1955 and 1975, South Vietnam had undergone land reforms and policies which made land and new modern mechanization available to Southern

Vietnamese farmers without collectivization. A much stronger privately-based agricultural system thus had already emerged in the South by 1975. After 1975, the problem henceforth was how to continue developing Southern Vietnam‘s agricultural production base while also promoting the reorganization of labor through large-scale collectives and state-farms as it was done in the North after 1956.29 Compared to North Vietnam where collective reorganization and mobilization of labor had helped farmers to achieve increased yields in production despite poorly cultivated condition and the lack of labor-saving mechanization, farmers in the South did not see the same immediate economic benefits of collectivization as their Northern counterparts.

Furthermore, as Kerkvliet had argued, not only was it due to the failures of the collective system to fulfill the basic living necessities of villagers after reunification that prompted the collapse of the collective system from within, decollectivization in Vietnam must also be understood as a case where ―everyday politics‖30 had clearly won the day. In other words, ―put simply, decollectivization started locally, in the villages, and was largely initiated by villagers; national policy followed.‖31 Likewise, based on Daniel Kelliher‘s observation of a similar phenomenon in China during 1979 and 1989, it was the ―intertwined acts of the complex state apparatus and millions of peasants‖ and the ―peasants demonstrated greater capability for influencing state policy ... despite living under a state-socialist system‖ that had fundamentally transformed rural China.32 Kelliher pointed in his work to the creation of family farming in

Anhui and Hubei as evidences of this argument, that once the state opened the way for reforms,

Chinese peasants were able to seize reform initiatives, make up new ways, and reinvent old ways of agricultural production and organization to accommodate their own needs and conditions.33

20

A key difference between the two cases of Vietnam and China, however, would be that, in the case of agrarian reforms in China, ―peasant power‖ didn‘t actively come into play until after the state had allowed and indirectly opened ways for peasants to take parts in shaping the reforms. From Kelliher‘s perspective, ―peasant innovation‖ was seen as a case made possible first by the ―benign, wait-and-see attitude‖ from key provincial and central figures toward local experiments, and secondly by the central leadership‘s loss of control of the ―creative process‖ from the beginning.34 The degree to which peasant innovation could be exercised was still contingent on the ―determination of the state to assert its power.‖35

For Vietnam, however, the case is the reverse. Among the greatest challenges faced by the VCP before turning to Doi Moi, as our analysis suggested, it was not the lack of developed

'economic link' between North Vietnamese industry and agriculture (in the South) but resistance from farmers concentrated in the South of Vietnam and Mekong River delta that had thwarted the state‘s initiatives. In other words, Southern farmers‘ unwillingness to let go of their private- based agricultural systems and household economy for collectivization effectively directly impacted the VCP to gradually adjust and respond. Increased push for reforms from 1976 to

1986 in Vietnam thus could also be understood in the light of this process as spontaneous, gradual and bottom-up.

IV. Conclusion

The social, economic and political conditions discussed in this chapter are important for understanding the impetus and factors leading to the VCP's decision to ultimately pursue reforms. By considering these conditions in comparative perspective with the Soviet Union‘s and

China‘s, we are reminded of several important differences unique to Vietnam: the division of

21

North and South of Vietnam during 1954 and 1975, the brief legacy of the VCP and its failed post-unification attempt at instituting a socialist command economy, and the role in which grassroots, bottom-up initiatives had in urging the state and the Party to take up reforms. The absence of an entrenched legacy, set economic practices, or macroeconomic stabilization in

Vietnam had further effectively contributed to the VCP‘s comparatively more prompt and fluid transition in 1986 to abandon and dismantle any elements of a planned economy that did exist prior to the latter reforms.

1 Vo Van Sen, “The Socio-Economic Transformation of Vietnam during the Twentieth Century,” NUCBB Journal of Language, Culture and Communication 1, no. 2 (2000), 49. 2 David G. Marr and Christine P. White, eds., Postwar Vietnam: Dilemmas in Socialist Development (NY.: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1988), 77. 3 Phan Van Khai. “Kinh Te Vietnam Qua 10 Nam Doi Moi” *“Vietnam’s Economy after 10 Years of Renovation”+, Co Mot Vietnam Nhu The: Doi Moi Va Phat Trien Kinh Te [Such is Vietnam: Doi Moi and Economic Development] (Hanoi: Chinh Tri Quoc Gia Publisher, 1996.) Cited in, Vo, “The Socio-Economic Transformation of Vietnam during the Twentieth Century,” 50. 4 Nguyen Khac Vien, Vietnam: A Long History (Hanoi: Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers, 2004), 394-395. 5 “Dong Thai va Thuc Trang Kinh Te-Xa Hoi Viet Nam 10 Nam Doi Moi 1986-1995 [Impetus and Present Situation of Vietnam Economy and Society after 10 Years of Doi Moi+,” Tong Cuc Thong Ke [General Statistical Office]. (Hanoi: Statistical Publishing House, 1996.) Cited in, Vo, “The Socio-Economic Transformation of Vietnam during the Twentieth Century,” 50. 6 Nguyen, Vietnam: A Long History, 384. 7 James M. Freeman, Changing Identities: Vietnamese Americans 1975-1995, (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995.) 8 Sandy Northrop, Vietnam Passage: Journeys From War to Peace. (Wind & Stars Production Group, 2000.) 9 Neil L. Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 364. 10 Freeman, Changing Identities, 26. 11 Gareth Porter, Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism (Ithica, NY.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 135 and 140. 12 Vietnam: The Land and the People (Hanoi, Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers, 2001), 38-39. 13 John Thompson, ed., A Vision Unfulfilled: Russia and the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century. (Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1996), 440. 14 Thompson, A Vision Unfulfilled, 440-441. 15 Nguyen, Vietnam: A Long History, 381. 16 Evgenia S. Ginzburg, Into the Whirlwind , Paul Stevenson and Manya Harari, trans. (London: Collins, Harvill, 1967), 11. 17 Ginzburg, Into the Whirlwind, 315. 18 Released in 1987, Repentance focused on the demonic figure of Varlam Aravidze, mayor of a small Georgian town who routinely disposes those who resist him or whom he suspects would potentially oppose him. Through the film, director Tengiz Abuladze reawakened a legacy of tyranny and purges under Stalin, and what’s required to repent, atone or exorcise the crimes of the past to restore stability and justice to the present. See, David Gillespie, Russian Cinema (New York: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 117-118. 19 LG. January 21, 1987. p.8. Cited in, Anna Lawton, Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 156.

22

20 Thompson, A Vision Unfulfilled , 442. 21 Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China: From Revolution to Reform (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 83. 22 Liberthal, Governing China, 85-121. 23 Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007), 55-79. 24 Barry Naugton, Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978-1993 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 70. 25 Adam Fforde and Stefan de Vylder, From Plan to Market: The Economic Transition in Vietnam (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996), 2. 26 Operated first under the name Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam), the Vietnamese Communist Party emerged in a leadership position as Vietnam's Provisional Government in 1945 when Ho Chi Minh read Vietnam's Declaration of Independence from French colonization at Ba Dinh Square in Ha Noi. However, it wasn't until 1976, after the Vietnam War ended and all of Vietnam was officially brought under one regime that the Vietnamese Communist Party has successfully established itself as the official government of the Socialist Republics of Vietnam. Therefore, strictly speaking, when the VCP initiated Doi Moi, as a unified, post-war country, Vietnam's experience with socialist construction and the VCP's attempts at instituting a command economy had lasted only ten years from 1976 to 1986. 27 Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet and Mark Selden, “Agrarian Transformations in China and Vietnam,” Transforming Asian Socialism: China and Vietnam Compared, Anita Chan, Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, and Jonathan Unger, eds. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman&Littlefield, 1999). 28 Kerkvliet and Selden, “Agrarian Transformations in China and Vietnam,” 119. 29 Melanie Beresford, National Unification and Economic Development in Vietnam (London: Macmillan, 1989), 102- 103, 109. 30 In his book The Power of Everyday Politics, Benedict Kerkvliet analyzed the start of the process of collective farming between 1958 and 1961 and the dismantling of the collectives after the reunification of North and South of Vietnam. The perspective which Kerkvliet adopts of the process of agrarian reforms is to view the reform process as a play of power relations—direct and indirect—between stratum of top Party leadership and non-state, grassroots village actors. Accordingly, Kerkvliet distinguishes “everyday politics” from two broad types of politics: officials and advocacy. “Official” politics, the author explains, involve operating whether in government or other organized forms with official authorities to contest, make, implement, change or evade policies regarding the allocation of resources. “Advocacy” politics, on the other hand, involves more direct and confrontational efforts to oppose authorities, policies, programs or how resources are produced and distributed. In contrast to the two, “everyday” politics is described as “quiet,” “mundane,” and “subtle” in ways that involve little or no formal organization at all. In other words, as Kerkvliet explains, “*everyday politics] features the activities of individuals and small groups as they make a living, raise their families, wrestle with daily problems, and deal with others like themselves who are relatively powerless and with powerful superiors and others.” See, Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, The Power of Everyday Politics (New York: Cornell University Press) 2005. 31 Kerkvliet, The Power of Everyday Politics, 1. 32 Daniel Roy Kelliher, Peasant Power in China: The Era of Rural Reform, 1979-1989 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 6. 33 Kelliher, Peasant Power in China , 55-69. 34 Kelliher, Peasant Power in China, 55. 35 Kelliher, Peasant Power in China, 69.

23

Chapter 3: Economic Decentralization and Liberalization

When the VCP officially launched the new comprehensive reform package in 1986, the

VCP called it ―Doi Moi.‖ As its name suggests, the VCP‘s decision to depart from the traditional socialist command economy model to pursue the path of ―market-socialist‖ reforms is nothing short of a large-scale renovation of Vietnam‘s former economic structures. The VCP's decision to pursue reforms had effectively set Vietnam off on a path for comprehensive renovation from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy that began with policies aimed at decentralizing and liberalizing Vietnam‘s economy.

Doi Moi sought to build a hybrid model in the form of a ―mixed economy.‖ In theory, this model would combine the advantages of a free market—a high level of economic efficiency that the former socialist centralized model did not demonstrate—with socialist characteristics of central planning as it may require to remove the shortcomings and excesses of a free market.1

Institutionally, the policies strove to incorporate market mechanisms as the means of providing and allocating most goods and services, supporting the development of entrepreneurial private sectors, diversifying various forms of social ownership, and still retaining the state‘s role in management and adjusting market regulations to meet state's priorities.2

Among the raft of economic reforms, Doi Moi policies aimed at decentralizating and liberalizing key areas in Vietnam's economy to open up channels for privatization and market stimulus. Notably, in agriculture, internal and foreign trade, and the operation of state- enterprises, restructuring was implemented by:

 Introducing an output contract system in agriculture to stimulate individual initiatives and the development of free markets; Abolishing agricultural collectives; Allowing for long-term land use rights and greater freedom in the marketing of products as well

24

as the autonomy to buy production inputs at mutually agreed prices rather than preset contractual ones;  In internal trade, abolishing rationing system for most commodities and introducing market determined prices for nonessential goods while still maintaining the dual price system—state-controlled and free market—for other goods;  In foreign trade, handling over the right to selected state-owned and private enterprises to deal directly with foreign markets for importing and exporting most products; Reducing import quotas and lowering tariffs; Eliminating subsidies for all consumers and exporters; Introducing interest and exchange rates that are now allowed to float in response to market forces and conditions;  Transferring decision-making autonomy away from state-owned enterprises; Allowing bankruptcies of some state enterprises and privatization; Consolidating and reducing the number of existing state enterprises; Reducing bank credit and tightening budget constraint for state enterprises; Passing new tax reforms requiring state enterprises to pay the same taxes as private enterprises;3

Formerly, the state had a much more pervasive role in allocating resources through administrative mechanisms, controlling the rate of investment to reflect state planners' preferences, and determining the distribution of individual income based on fixed administratively determined wage and salary scales or compulsory quota delivery schemes.4

What these policies effectively redefined was the changed role of the state in Vietnam's new economy.

This need to redefine the role of the state in the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy is also evident in the direction of reforms adopted by the

Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev, for example, explained Perestroika as a wholesale

―restructuring‖ of the Soviet planned economy to ―temper state ownership of major industries with economic decentralization, limited privatization, and a simulated market.‖5 Policies implemented with Perestroika included:

 Decentralizing day-to-day decision making  Moving economic units towards self sufficiency and profitability by allowing leasing of collective or state-farm land for independent production and contracts and supplementing decentralization with competition in wholesale transactions

25

 Fostering cooperatively owned private businesses in retail services and light industry  Promoting foreign trade and outside investment in the U.S.S.R  Implementing a new financial and banking policy within the framework of comprehensive reforms in management by building up the role of fiscal-commodity relationships in economic development.6

These changes intended to put in the hands of producers—not Party bureaucrats, planners or administrators—the power to determine what should be produced, how they should produce, and in what quantities. Although the program still retained some features of central planning and most industries in the Soviet Union remained state-owned, reformers hoped that by cutting state subsidies and allowing most sectors broader autonomy to respond to market demands, there would be more incentives for producers to be self-financing and increase their profits.

In addition, there are specific structural elements of decentralization and economic liberalization in Doi Moi that resemble more closely to China's economic reforms. For example,

Vietnam maintaining a dual price system of both state-controlled and free market prices in the early phases of Doi Moi achieved the same purpose as China's ―dual-track system.‖ The ―dual- track system‖ was one of the feature mechanisms by which the CCP navigated the course of reforms in its first phase from 1979 to 1983. The system is described by Naughton as ―the coexistence of a traditional plan and a market channel for the allocation of a given good‖ or, better yet, ―two coordination mechanisms (plan and market)‖ which dealt out for every single commodity a typically lower state-set planned price and a typically higher market price.7

In the bigger picture, the most important resemblance between Vietnam and China was their gradual approach to reforms. The pace at which decentralization and liberalization took effect in Vietnam was carefully controlled without any initiatives for political liberalization that resemble the Soviet Union‘s glasnost. As Keith Griffin noted, ―the reform process (in Vietnam) has been pragmatic, experimental and cautious and the authorities have been able to tolerate

26 during the transition inconsistencies, half measures and ambiguities.‖8 Likewise, decentralization and economic liberalization for the CCP had been described as ―crossing the river by groping for stepping stones.‖ As Naughton concluded, ―When the Chinese reform process is viewed as a whole, what is most striking is the succession of incremental, steadily accumulating measures of economic reform that have gradually transformed the economy in a fundamental way.‖9 Without any blueprint for reforms, both the VCP and CCP similarly believed it was important that the new reform measures be implemented with the same cautiousness as when one conducts an experiment in order to assure that the state and the Party would still have ultimate control of the process.

Compared to Vietnam and China, not only did decentralization and liberalization took effect at an incomparably rapid pace under the ―shock therapy‖ of Perestroika, the Soviet

Communist Party‘s authorized call under the fervor of reforms for political openness or glasnost further gave people a dangerous outlet of expression in a time of unpredictable changes and instability. The call for glasnost, Gorbachev explained, first arose from the Communists‘ need for truth to be made accessible by ―a real pluralism of opinions‖ and freer flow of information in an era of reforms.10 However, although the intent of glasnost was to help de-bureaucratize the

Soviet administrative apparatus and restore a measure of trust between the Party and the people, in practice, the openness encouraged by glasnost had unleashed and inflamed contentious opinions and criticisms directly targeted at the Party and its regime that, in the long run, effectively dethroned the Soviet Communist Party‘s political power status. As Strayer insightfully summed up, ―For many people, the impact of glasnost was to erode fatally the sustaining myths of the Soviet regime and to destroy what legitimacy remained to it.‖11 In other words, the Soviet Communist Party‘s legitimacy and power became crippled, rendering the Party

27 and state too paralyzed to handle the magnitude of any unintended and unwanted impacts that reforms may catalyze.

When Perestroika failed to transform the Soviet stagnant economy and led it instead toward an even sharper decline, Soviet felt that the hopes and promises with which people had vested in the reforms were betrayed while the socio-economic crisis continued to worsen. Before reforms, Gorbachev had assessed, ―This society is ripe for change. It has long been yearning for it. Any delay in beginning perestroika could have led to an exacerbated internal situation in the near future, which, to put it bluntly, would have been fraught with serious, social, economic and political crises.‖12 As results showed, although Gorbachev‘s reforms ushered many changes, in the end, the change that Gorbachev claimed society was ―ripe‖ and ―long been yearning for,‖ however, did not take place.13 Instead, growth rates for national income and industrial production in the Soviet Union consistently plummeted between 1975 and 1990. Not only did the Soviet

Union‘s national income and industrial production growth rates declined, annual inflation also grew from 7.3 % in 1987 to 10.5% in 1989, 53.6% in 1990, and 60-700% in 1991.14

28

Figure 1: Growth rates for national income (1) and industrial production (2) in the USSR, 1975-1990

Figure 1: Growth rates for national income and industrial production in the USSR, 1975-1990 Source: G. Yavlinski, et al. 500 Days: Transition to the Market, David Kushner, ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. pp.4.

As the graph above shows, vision did not coincide with reality. Perestroika had further exacerbated the existing crisis and fueled an embittered, angry Soviet population, most of whom, as Strayer puts it, ―saw themselves as victims of Perestroika rather than its beneficiaries.‖15 Film director Vasily Pichul exposed in the 1988 Soviet film Little Vera this friction between hopeful promises and the stark reality that had taken hold of Soviet society with the plethora of social problems borne in the time of Perestroika. In Little Vera, Vera, meaning faith, is a young woman whose life spiraled around dreams. Through indulgence in alcoholism, violence, sex, and love, she yearned for a better life. However, in the end, Vera remained trapped amidst the forlorn relations with her family, young love, society, and Soviet industrial crumble. As Anna Lawton, a

Russian specialist in literature and film at Georgetown University interpreted:

29

[The young generation] feel a void, and do not know what is missing. As the older generation (represented by characters such as Vera‘s temperamental father) fades into retirement with a baggage of bitterness and frustration for their legacy of unfulfilled lives, the children (like Vera and her boyfriend/fiancée Sergei) are confronted with a physical and spiritual wasteland. The many lingering pans of a decaying industrial city on the shores of a polluted harbor evoke the collapsing system of values that was artificially preserved by decades of official propaganda and indifferent conformism.16 Ultimately, the film raises the question, who should bear the responsibility for such self- alienation and disintegration of the social fabric in Soviet society? The image of Vera‘s fragile body stranded and alienated in an unexpected tumultuous storm was, in many ways, reflective of the crisis of Soviet society as a whole.

When the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991 at the feet of Perestroika and glasnost, VCP leaders couldn‘t help but to witness the collapse as a precaution for where Doi Moi, if it were to fail, could also lead Vietnam. As historian Martin Malia concluded, when the Soviet Union fell,

―the Communist Party was destroyed and a superpower was dismembered; ‗socialism‘ was renounced by the world‘s first socialist society in favor of the ‗restoration of capitalism‘; and the most enduring fantasy of the twentieth century, the pseudoreligion-cum-pseudoscience of

Marxism-Leninism simply evaporated.‖17 As the VCP realized, if it was willing to bet on the decentralization and economic liberalization initiatives of Doi Moi to turn Vietnam‘s crumbling economy around and to restore the VCP its political legitimacy, then it had also willingly risked the VCP‘s political survival as the Soviet Union had with Perestroika and glasnost under

Gorbachev.

1 Keth Griffin, p.14-15 2 Christopher Pierson, Socialism after Communism: The New Market Socialism (University Park, PA.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 95-107 3 Keth Griffin, p.14-15 and Geoffrey Murray, Vietnam: Dawn of a Market (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 24- 25. 4 Keith Griffin, p. 37

30

5 Cited in, John Thompson, ed. A Vision Unfulfilled: Russia and the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century (Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1996), 480. 6 See, Abel G. Aganbegyan, “Economic Reforms,” Perestroika 1989. Abel Aganbegyan, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), 74-75. And, Thompson, A Vision Unfulfilled, 481-482. 7 Barry Naughton, Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978-1993 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 8. 8 Griffin,13. 9 Naugton, Growing Out of the Plan, 20. 10 Cited in, Von Laue, p. 168. 11 Robert Strayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? Understanding Historical Change (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 106. 12 Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (Harper & Row, 1987). Cited in, Daniels, p. 70. 13 Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (Harper & Row, 1987). Cited in, Daniels, p. 70. 14 Moskoff, Hard Times, 89. Cited in, Strayer, p. 135. 15 Strayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? , 137. 16 Anna Lawton, Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 192. 17 Quoted in, Strayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? , 202.

31

Chapter 4: Opening Up and Its Paradox

Alongside reform measures aimed at decentralizing and liberalizing Vietnam‘s internal economic apparatus, the VCP also adopted a new outward outlook in its external economic relations that sought to reintegrate and open Vietnam up to foreign trade and investment.

Paradoxically, a closer look at the VCP‘s responses to U.S. court decisions on Vietnam

Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, et al. v. Dow Chemical Co., et al. a less enthusiastic and amicable sentiment toward U.S. federal courts, and, inevitably by association, the United States itself. On one hand, the paradox may suggest an inconsistency in the

Vietnamese government's policy and a love-hate relationship that Vietnamese may have with

America. On the other hand, the multifaceted perception also reveals an essential, flexible and pragmatic approach by Vietnam‘s government and individuals in Vietnamese society towards interpreting the different context of their contacts with America in ways that would successfully complement and accommodate Vietnam‘s national interests and individual preferences or priorities.

I. International Reintegration and Reconciliation

Prior to reforms, foreign trade and exports under the central planning system in Vietnam was curtailed by the VCP‘s focus on rapid domestic accumulation and industrialization. On one hand, the loss of two of Vietnam‘s major aid sources—the United States and China—and severe post-war shortages had forced Vietnam to become more and more reliant on imports of supply and aid from other countries that were willing. On the other hand, priority given to developing

Vietnam‘s heavy industry and the state‘s planned control over prices and transactions gave little support to as well as little incentives for farmers to increase outputs or hand over any surplus that

32 they did produce to the Ministry of Foreign Trade for exports. In other words, the state could not increase exports even if it wanted to because it simply did not have the goods.1 With reforms, a new incentive structure was put in place to enable Vietnam to trade at competitive world prices.

In general, major changes included (1) a flexible exchange rate parallel to market price, (2) a substantial reduction in tariff rates, (3) a reduction in quantitative restrictions on imports, and (4) a reduction in export controls.2 Since these changes, exports have grown at an explosive pace.

One notable manifestation of the VCP‘s changed international policies in alignment with its economic goals for Vietnam is also the VCP‘s formal reconciliation effort with the United

States and expressed eagerness to bridge Vietnam-U.S. economic relations. Due to America's dominance in today‘s international system, the VCP recognizes that economic relations with the

United States is not only advantageous but is nevertheless necessary to the actualization of

Vietnam‘s economic goals. As John Ikenberry described in ―Globalization as American

Hegemony,‖ the rise of U.S. power since post-World War II has resulted in a hegemonic structure that provide the political and strategic infrastructure for an explosion in trade and investment in a world market, an explosion that Vietnam is ever more eager to take part of now.3

In order for Vietnam to pursue its fundamental strategic and economic interest, economic relations with the United States are important for three primary reasons: (1) access to the U.S. market, (2) the decisive role that the United States plays in allowing Vietnam access to funds from important international financial institutions including the World Bank or IMF, and (3) U.S. approval as key to Vietnam‘s entry into other regional and global economic institutions.4

Statistics provided by the U.S. State Department‘s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of

2007 largely also supports this analysis. After signing the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) in

December 2001 with the United States to formally grant Vietnam unconditional normal trade

33 relations and after acceding to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 2007, Vietnam has enjoyed many additional economic benefits, including the removal of application of quotas on textiles and apparel imported from Vietnam by the U.S. as well as other market access agreement and treatment granted to members of the WTO. As a result, exports in Vietnam have continued to expand by an estimate of 20% to 30%, peaking at 63% of the nation‘s GDP in 2005.

Foreign direct investment by U.S. private sector in Vietnam in 2006 alone totaled up to a sum of

$444 million.5 Overall, Vietnam‘s GDP has grown over 8% annually between 2004 and 2007.

While the numbers does not provide us a full picture, they are nevertheless indicative of the drastic change that the new policies have yielded. Be it the United States or another country, as shown by the VCP‘s policies, Vietnam now wants to strengthen relations with other countries if these relations will help Vietnam achieve its goals.

In practice, many Vietnamese now eagerly consume and seek after improved living standard and luxury associated with foreign products and conveniences not available before Doi

Moi as rewards for their own economic success. Compared to the harsh economic condition and backwardness before Doi Moi, to many Vietnamese, the fact that Vietnam now has branches of

McDonald, KFC, and high-rise shopping malls and wide-screen movie theaters showing the

Chronicles of Narnia, for example, are interpreted as positive signs of Vietnam‘s own national economic and individual progress. As Robert Templer observed, ―Amid the pace and noise of urban life … symbol of capitalist America intruding into the heart of Vietnamese culture seemed to hit foreigners much more vividly than Vietnamese … Most Vietnamese simply felt that their lives were much better.‖6 The increasingly more visible commercial and cultural presence of foreign investment, products, and entertainment in Vietnamese cities come across to the majority

34 of Vietnamese as not signs of any kind of cultural imperialism but, again, signs of new material wealth, development, international integration, progress and success.

II. Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, et al. v. Dow Chemical

Co., et al.

Contrary to the enthusiasm that Vietnam‘s government and Vietnamese largely express about prospects of increased economic ties with the United States, the recent Agent Orange lawsuit and consequent rulings by U.S. federal courts have instigated many controversies. In

January 2004, on behalf of a group of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims and families, the

Vietnamese Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) first filed a class action lawsuit in U.S federal court in Brooklyn, New York against Dow Chemical and a long corporate list of thirty-six other major U.S. chemical manufacturers for human and environmental damages allegedly caused by Agent Orange and other herbicides.7 Citing an array of international statutes and agreements, the plaintiffs argue that the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War constituted, first of all, a blatant international war crime. Secondly, the plaintiffs demand that the chemical manufacturers supplying these dangerously high-degree dioxin defoliants provide unspecified compensatory, punitive damages for Vietnamese victims as well as an environmental cleanup program to end the perpetuation of the toxic cycle for future generations of Vietnamese.

However, U.S. District Court and Second Circuit Court of Appeals later both dismissed the suit on March 7, 2005, then again on February 22, 2008. The courts rejected VAVA‘s accusation, claiming that not enough evidence or research was available to prove Agent Orange and other defoliants as the cause of cancers, birth defects, and other health problems cited by the plaintiffs. As New York Times columnist William Glaberson reports, despite what appears to be

35 obvious, the scientific issue remains one of the most debated points over the consequences of

Agent Orange. While the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences has said that there is an ―association‖ between exposure to Agent Orange and some diseases, it also says that there is inadequate evidence to determine Agent Orange‘s association with many of the diseases cited by veterans, including many types of cancer and birth defects.8 On the other hand, as Professor Arnold Schecter of the University of Texas School of Public Health points out, to supply such proof, one would have to test blood samples of every individual and his family to see if they contain elevated dioxin levels. Costing up to $1,000 USD per sample, the research is an expensive project that both Vietnam and the United States are reluctant to fund.9

On a more technical front, United States District Judge Jack Weinstein insists, as he had in other recent Agent Orange cases,10 that the government contractor defense doctrine also effectively protects the chemical manufacturers from being held responsible for supplying Agent

Orange and other defoliants. According to the American Society of International Law, the doctrine specifically bars ―state law [from] impos[ing] liability on government contractors for design defects in military equipment if it was manufactured to the government‘s specifications and if the contractor warned the government of any dangers associated with it known to the manufacturer but not to the government.‖11 Although the doctrine may protect the chemical manufacturers from liability lawsuit, the implicit rationale of the doctrine seems to be that, as long the contractors fulfilled their side of the deal with the U.S. government, it is the government then who ought to be directly responsible for the use and consequences of any military equipment provided by the manufacturer. In fact, lawyers for Dow Chemical, Monsanto,

Hercules, and more than a dozen others involved made this claim themselves. ―If there is to be any compensation to Vietnam,‖ the companies‘ lawyers suggested, ―it should be a result of

36 negotiation between the two governments,‖12 – not from the companies contracted by the government.

However, in the same ruling, Judge Weinstein also dismissed VAVA‘s accusation that the U.S. military‘s use of Agent Orange and other defoliants violates international laws and agreements. Judge Weinstein insisted that, in the court‘s view, the use of the chemicals did not constitute an international war crime because, first of all, ―no recognized source of international law that might have applied up to 1975 could have been interpreted as outlawing use of herbicides in the way they were utilized in Vietnam.‖13 Secondly, as the Second Circuit Court of

Appeals further affirmed, ―it is significant that plaintiffs nowhere allege that the government intended to harm human beings through its use of Agent Orange.‖14 In other words, in the courts‘ view, the United States alleged absence of intent to harm and interpretation of existing customary international laws and agreements up to 1975 thereby effectively discharged the

United States from any legal responsibility and conviction for its use of Agent Orange and other defoliants cited by the plaintiffs in Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, et al. v. Dow Chemical Co., et al.

III. Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin Responds

If, according to U.S. District Court and Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the chemical manufacturers of Agent Orange and other defoliants used during the Vietnam War cannot be technically held responsible and the U.S. government also cannot be held responsible, who then should be held responsible? The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin

(VAVA) vehemently disagrees with both court rulings from 2005 and 2008. ―The judgment was unjust and immoral,‖ said Jonathan Moore, one of VAVA‘s representative lawyers in the suit.15

37

As expected, the suit, however, certainly does not end here until someone admits responsibility.

In an official statement released by the plaintiffs in Tuổi Trẻ Online16 on February 24th, 2008,

VAVA‘s vice-president, Tran Xuan Thu announced that the Association and victims of Vietnam will resubmit their appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. lawyers representing Vietnam and

VAVA had anticipated the situation and already prepared new evidences with widely gained support from new Vietnamese victims.17 The lawsuit is seen here by Vietnamese less as a suit for money than an overdue quest for justice that Vietnamese Agent Orange victims are now able to pursue.

In an opinion that accompanied VAVA‘s public statement in Tuổi Trẻ Online on

February 25, 2008, the Vietnamese-Australian scientist, Dr. Nguyen Van Tuan, has poignantly laid out some of the strongest rebuttals from the plaintiffs against the inquiries raised by U.S. courts.18 First, does the use of toxic chemicals in war violate international laws? Dr. Nguyen publicly addressed the question in a Vietnamese newspaper by citing: (a) Article 23 of the Hague

Convention of 1907, which specifies that ―it is especially forbidden...[t]o employ poison or poisoned weapons;‖19 (b) Article II of the Chemical Weapons Convention's definition of ―toxic chemical‖ as ―any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals;‖20 And, (3) Resolution 2603 from the United Nations‘ ―Questions of Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons,‖ that ―chemicals agents of warfare [are] chemical substances, whether gaseous, liquid or solid – which might be employed because of their direct toxic effect on man, animals or plants.‖21 Based on the articles cited above, in Dr. Nguyen and the plaintiffs' opinion, Agent Orange obviously qualifies as a toxic. As Dr. Nguyen reiterates, ―Up until now, no one has argued against an obvious truth that dioxin is one of the most dangerous chemical ever known to humans; [and]

38

Agent Orange contains dioxin.‖22 Thus, from the plaintiffs and Vietnamese victims‘ point of view, the U.S. federal courts' use of legal and scientific technicalities to reject the plaintiffs‘ claim only further showcases another shrewd U.S. move to dodge its responsibility.

Moreover, the U.S. courts articulated a conflicting opinion that on one hand, acknowledges the plaintiffs as victims of Agent Orange, and yet, on the other hand, alleges that the plaintiffs have effectively failed to prove the causal relationship between Agent Orange and the victims‘ health damage. ―One can say, this is a most unscientific ruling,‖23 Dr. Nguyen exclaims. He questions the U.S. courts' demand for evidence from Vietnamese victims when, in his view, it already conceded to evidences from past research on the chemical's causal effects on health problems when the court approved the $180 million settlement from the same chemical manufacturers to American veterans from the Vietnam War in 1984. ―The toxic chemicals do not discriminate whether the victims are American or Vietnamese,‖ said Dr. Nguyen, ―So, for what reason does the U.S. court demand from the victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam evidences which U.S. veterans already provided?‖24 In the plaintiffs' view, the demand is thus but an exceedingly mechanical stipulation and covert for the U.S. shameless double standards.

IV. Are the “Ghosts” Still Lurking?

When the Agent Orange suit first surfaced in U.S. court in 2004, New York Times columnist Glaberson wrote, ―Whatever the fate of the suits, the revival of the Agent Orange battle means that these days, there are ghosts in the Brooklyn federal courthouse – of a divisive war, of modern battle tools, of hard feelings by people in two countries who were caught up in combat long ago.‖25 Was Glaberson right?

39

For the Vietnamese government, Agent Orange remains a politically sensitive, unresolved issue between Vietnam and the United States to this day. An unannounced U.S. proposal to co-fund a project to remove massive amounts of Agent Orange from Vietnam's soil in 2006, for instance, was first seen as an exemplary effort by the U.S toward ―taking concrete actions to respond to the issue.‖26 However, such exemplary effort became discredited by U.S. federal courts‘ unreasonable rulings. They signal to Vietnam a serious incoherence in U.S. policy and commitment to cultivating long-term relations and mutual understanding with Vietnam. On

February 24, 2008, two days after the latest dismissal by U.S. court of the lawsuit, Le Dung,

Vietnam's Speaking Representative of Foreign Affairs said on VNExpress27, ―The erred and unjust judgment by U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals on February 22, 2008 had truly infuriated the people of Vietnam ... It is especially regrettable that the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals had issued such a judgment when the U.S. government is making collaborative effort with Vietnam to overcome the consequences of Agent Orange/dioxin.‖28 This incoherence keeps

Agent Orange a politically sensitive subject and sore thorn in U.S. – Vietnam foreign relations.

Statistics and images of numerous Agent Orange victims have flooded Vietnam‘s public media. ―Nôĩ đau m àu da cam (the orange-colored pain),‖ has become a particularly familiar euphemism among the Vietnamese public to describe the Agent Orange anguish of Vietnamese victims. Bell jars used at Tu Du hospital as hollow containers of deformed babies, including

―grimacing Siamese twins, locked in death, to fetuses with half-formed limbs, collapsed skulls, deformed jaws and monstrously twisted pelvises and spines‖ were vividly captured by Philip

Jones Griffith with photographs that are widely distributed on Vietnamese TV, news sources, various charity or fundraising events, and public awareness campaigns.29 Such images have become part of what Vietnamese media presents as crucial evidences of consequences of the

40

Vietnam War and Agent Orange that Vietnam's government and Agent Orange victims address largely to the United States.

Illustration 1: Nươc Mỹ Có Trách Nhiêṃ Nói Lên Sự Thâṭ ́ (The United States Duty to Speak the Truth)

Source: Tuổ i Trẻ Chủ Nhâṭ (Sunday Youth magazine) No. 24. September 26, 2004. Likewise, the portrayal of America in Vietnam‘s media coverage overwhelmingly bombarded viewers and readers with images that present the Vietnam War as principally an

―American War.‖ On September 2004, an article was printed in Vietnam‘s popular Tuổi Trẻ Chủ

Nhâṭ [Sunday Youth] magazine, titled ―Nướ c Mỹ Có Trách Nhiêṃ Nói Lên Sự Thâṭ (The United

States Duty to Speak the Truth).‖ Written by Fred Branfman, the original article called for the

U.S to speak and act more morally, responsibly, and truthfully about the United States‘

Indochina war crimes, and bombing in particular. In its translated version and Tuổi Trẻ Chủ

41

Nhâṭ 's magazine layout, the message conveyed is an even more powerful testimony of not only

America's cumulative past war legacy in Vietnam and its consequent scourge on Vietnamese

Agent Orange victims, but also a continued trend of U.S. international aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.30

At the same time, the degree to which the Vietnamese government‘s censorship or restrictions influence how Vietnamese media covers the lawsuit and portrays America is questionable. As BBC journalist Gregorius points out, the constant exhibition of such images of the bell jars and the victims raises the question, are these children, families, and alleged victims being used for the purpose of propaganda? ―Their future appeared to be sacrificed to the greater good of gaining international sympathy, and funding. For, as we found out, there is now a veritable Agent Orange trail, well trodden by foreign journalists, charity workers, and anyone else who shows a serious interest in the matter. All are taken to the same places,‖31 Gregorius reported. To Gregorius, while the victims are real, the trail to these victims seems to have been pre-paved and mapped out—perhaps by someone, some entity, or some third-party of authority—with deliberate intent for foreign journalists, charity workers, and others.

However, despite the skepticism, as one speaks with individual Vietnamese, one gets a sense that most Vietnamese would agree with Branfman that the United States government should bear, if not all, then at least some part in the responsibility for the devastating human cost from Agent Orange. Therefore, the U.S. denial of responsibility in many Vietnamese eyes is an inexcusable response and evidentially self-interested act. For Vietnamese reporter Bich Nga, it is important to take notice of the apathetic attitude and inequality with which the U.S. government approaches and treats the Agent Orange victims‘ situation.32 She questions, if Vietnam in the

42 past has been so willing to aid the United States with its search for MIA, for instance, why is

America now so resistant to helping Vietnam with the Agent Orange devastation?

Effectively, the United States‘ actions demonstrate an attitude about American power that debunks a traditionally humanistic and generous image and the principles of justice and equality manifested in the brand of U.S. democracy that it has persistently sold to the world. As responses from Vietnam's government, public coverage and discussion of the Agent Orange suit reflect, it is evident that ―the ghosts‖ weren't present only in the Brooklyn federal court, but also continues to lurk in various venues in Vietnamese society. Essentially, they articulate and reaffirm the growing sense of injustice and hypocrisy that both Vietnamese and Vietnam‘s government feel the United States has consistently demonstrated in the ways U.S. federal courts have handled the case and the U.S. government's reluctance to act otherwise.

V. Conclusion

As the discussion in this chapter illustrates, needless to say, the Vietnam War and its legacy still shape and provide an important context for Vietnam‘s present public portrayal and

Vietnamese perception of the United States government and Vietnam–U.S. formal relations.

Why Vietnam still actively tries to maintain close ties with the United States does not presumably diminish or contradict the VCP‘s condemnation of U.S. irresponsibility and condescension in the Agent Orange issue. To achieve economic growth, stability, and security, as Vietnam‘s former General Vo Nguyen Giap asserted, Vietnam must develop, first of all, its economy, society, and culture.33 As the General clearly articulated, Vietnam and the Vietnamese

Communist Party have wholly embraced a renewed pragmatic outlook. Vietnam wants to

43 strengthen relations with other countries, including the United States, regardless of their political or social systems, if these relations will help Vietnam achieve its goal.

1 Melanie Beresford and Dang Phong, Economic Transition in Vietnam: Trade and Aid in the Demise of a Centrally Planned Economy (Northampton, MA.: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., 2000), 5, 33-35. 2 Keith Griffin, ed., Economic Reform in Vietnam (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 16. 3 John G. Ikenberry “Globalization as American Hegemony,” Globalization Theory: Approaches and Controversies. David Held & Anthony McGrew, ed. Madden, MA: Polity Press, 2007. p.57. 4 Anderson, Desaix. An American in Ha Noi: American’s Reconciliation with Vietnam. White Plains, NY: EastBridge, 2002. p.18. 5 “Vietnam.” Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State. December 2007. Available on-line: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/4130.html . Accessed on: April 8, 2008. 6 Templer, Robert. Shadows and Wind: a View of Modern Vietnam. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. p.3. 7 During the Vietnam War, in an operation called Operation Hades or Ranch Hand, as it is later known, approved by President Kennedy upon recommendation by the State and Defense Departments, the United States began spraying various mixtures of herbicide formulation with chemicals known as Agent Blue, White, Purple, Green, or Pink, etc. Overall, the United States sprayed an estimate of over seventy-six million liters of the defoliant chemical over more than 10% of the former South Vietnam from 1965-1971. Agent Orange, in particular, contains 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, called for short as TCCD dioxin. The TCCD dioxin produces effects that were once summarized in 1979 by Arthur Galston, a biologist at Yale specializing in herbicide research, that even a 'vanishing small' quantities of dioxin in the diet produced adverse health effects in test animals, including cancerous conditions and premature death. By inference, the adverse health effects in test animals exposed to Agent Orange and its dioxin thus also likely to suffer from similar effects. See, Peter H. Schuck. “The Chemical and the Courts,” Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1986. pp. 16-34. 8 William Glaberson. “In Vietnam and America, Some See a Wrong Still Not Righted”. New York Times. August 8, 2004. 9 Arlene Gregorius. “Vietnam War Poison,” BBC, November 19, 1999. Available on-line: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/526693.stm. Accessed on: October 19, 2005. 10 United States District Judge Jack Weinstein had previously overseen the $180 million Agent Orange class action settlement in 1984 from the In re “Agent Orange” Products Liability Litigation case between also Dow Chemical and other six chemical companies and American Vietnam veterans who similarly claimed that the defoliant Agent Orange had caused them cancer, birth defects and a brew of other health problems. The Judge continues to uphold his view that not enough evidence was available to prove that Agent Orange causes specific diseases among other reasons from In re “Agent Orange” Products Liability Litigation in subsequent Agent Orange cases including Isaacson v. Dow Chemical Company and Stephenson v. Dow Chemical Company. See, Isaacson v. Dow Chemical Company, 98 CV 6383, Stephenson v. Dow Chemical Company, 99 CV 3056, and In Re "Agent Orange" Product Liability Litigation, 597 F. Supp. 740 (E.D.N.Y. 1984) 11 John R. Cook , ed. “U.S. District Court Dismisses Agent Orange Litigation, Finding International Laws as of 1975 Did not Bar Military Use of Herbicides” in American Journal of International Law. No. 99. July, 2005. American Society of International Law, 2005. p. 710. Also see, Boyle v. United Techs. Corp., 478 U.S. 500, 5112 (1988). 12 Glaberson, 2004. 13 Quoting extensively from United States v. Alvarez-Machain, Judge Weinstein further extrapolated in his opinion: “In World War II the Germans attempted to starve the British, and the United States to starve the Japanese, by unrestrained submarine warfare. Particularly where so much of the enemy force is guerilla in nature and lives off the land, as in the Vietnam War, destruction of crops supporting mobile forces cannot be said to have been contrary to tradition up to 1975, even if the international view of its appropriateness may have changed….*In conclusion,] despite the fact that Congress and the President were fully advised of a substantial belief that the herbicide spraying in Vietnam was a violation of international law, they acted on their view that it was not a violation at the time.” See, United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 124 C. Ct. 2739, 2759. 2004. Quoted in, Vietnam

44

Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co., MDL No. 381, 04-CV-400. E.D.N.Y. March 10, 2005 (amended memorandum, order, and judgment). Available on-line: http://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/Decicions_of_Interests/. p.70. 14 Quoted by, Larry Neumeister. “NY Court Spurns Bid for Damages by Viet Victims of Agent Orange,” Associated Press. February 22, 2008. 15 T. Huyen . “Tòa Án Mỹ Bác Đơn Kiện Của Nạn Nhân Chất Da Cam VN (U.S Court Denied Appeal by Agent Orange’s Victims),” VNExpress. February 23, 2008. Available on-line: http://vnexpress.net/Vietnam/The- gioi/2008/02/3B9FF8D3/ . Accessed on: March 10, 2008. 16 Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) is a major daily newspaper in Vietnam, publishing in Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh City. Originally a publication of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Organization (Đoàn Thanh niên Cộng Sản Hồ Chí Minh), it has grown to become one of the largest newspaper in the country. The newspaper includes: the daily Tuổi Trẻ, the weekly Tuổi Trẻ Cuối Tuần (End of the Week Youth), the bi-montly Tuổi Trẻ Cười [Youth Humor], and the online Tuổi Trẻ Online. See, Tuổi Trẻ Online at: http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx. 17 L. Anh. “VN Sẽ Đệ Đơn Kiện Lên Tòa Án Tối Cao Hoa Kz (VN Will Resubmit Appeals to the United States Supreme Court),” Tuổi Trẻ Online. February 25, 2008. Available on-line: http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=244399&ChannelID=3 Accessed on: March 10, 2008. 18 Tuan V. Nguyen. “Một Phán Quyết Bất Công (An Unjust Judgment), ” Tuổi Trẻ Online. February 25, 2008. Available on-line: http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=244399&ChannelID=3 Accessed on: March 10, 2008. 19 Article 23, Chapter 1, Section II, Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV). October 18, 1907. Available on-line: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm. Accessed on: March 21, 2008. 20 No.2, Article II, Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction. January 13, 1993. Available on-line: http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/eng/cwc_frameset.html . Accessed on: March 21, 2008. 21 “Question of Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons,” Resolution 2603. December 16, 1969. General Assembly of the United Nations, 24th Session. Available on-line: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/24/ares24.html . Accessed on: March 21, 2008. 22 T. Nguyen, 2008. 23 T. Nguyen, 2008. 24 T. Nguyen, 2008. 25 Glaberson, 2004. 26 Anthony Faiola. “In Vietnam, Old Foes Take Aim at War's Toxic Legacy.” Washington Post. November 13, 2006. 27 VNExpress is a leading on-line news source in Vietnamese first established in February 26, 2001. The online news source has developed a reputation among Vietnamese readers as reporting news in an objective point of view and allowing close contact to readers through different channels at the editorial, giving them the opportunity to express their thoughts online. See, VNExpress homepage at: http://vnexpress.net/Vietnam/Home/. 28 “Việt Nam Bất Bình Về Phán Quyết Sai Lầm Của Tòa Án Mỹ (Vietnam Disagrees with the Erred Judgment by the U.S. Court).” VNExPress. February 24, 2008. Available on-line: http://vnexpress.net/Vietnam/The- gioi/2008/02/3B9FF913/ . Accessed on: March 10, 2008. 29 Phillip Jones Griffiths. Agent Orange: “Collateral Damage” in Viet Nam. London: Trolley Ltd, 2003. p. 38. 30 The layout of the pages on which the article appears includes a headline quoted from UN Kofi Annan which runs across Fred Branfman’s article, stating, “In our opinion and according to the United Nations Charter, the war in Iraq is illegitimate”. Under Branfman’s article, a column titled “An̉ h Trong Tuần” or “Photo of the Week” features the historical photo by American journalist Eddie Adams of a Southern Vietnamese officer, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, pointing a short gun “coldly” aiming and firing straight at the temple of a “special task soldier” whose arms were tied to the back facing a deserted Sai Gon street during the Tet Offensive of 1968. On the left of Branfman’s article is a baby photo of To Thanh Nam at the age of one or two born with two deformed legs the size of his baby hands allegedly due to his parents’ exposure to Agent Orange. These four supposedly unrelated subjects – Branfman’s article, Kofi Anna’s quote, Adam’s photo, and a photo of To Thanh Nam – are framed together in a way that illustrates a powerful impression on the readers about both U.S past and present international interventions. 31 Gregorius, 1999.

45

32 Bich Nga. “Nỗi đau màu da cam (The Orange-Colored Pain).” Mỹ Thuâṭ (Fine Arts) Magazine. September 2004. 33 Quoted in, Desaix Anderson, p. 183.

46

Chapter 5: Conclusion

The thesis first examined the specific factors and conditions which gave impetus to Doi

Moi in Vietnam. The VCP‘s demonstrated failure to meet the challenges of post-unification and the escalation of the devastating socio-economic consequences of this failure accumulated to a situation of national crisis from 1976 to 1986. Through a comparative perspective that draws from similar impetus and initiatives for reforms in China and the Soviet Union, it became clear that this crisis situation had directly created the strongest impetus for the VCP‘s decision and commitment to Doi Moi‘s economic reforms. Moreover, unlike China and the Soviet Union, the historical starting-point from which Vietnam began reforms and the absence of a stabilized macroeconomic system in Vietnam also further helped to explain the prompt pace at which reforms were initiated and implemented in Vietnam.

The reform policies themselves reflected an evident change in the VCP‘s outlook of and approach to the structuring and orientation of Vietnam‘s economic development. As a whole, the policies emphasized the importance of decentralization and liberalization of Vietnam‘s economic structures as well as Vietnam‘s international reintegration and relations with the rest of the world including the United States. The VCP believed that this new pragmatism is not only necessary for Vietnam‘s successful reform transition from a centrally planned economy to a market- oriented economy but also for renewing the VCP‘s claim to political legitimacy and its long-term political stability.

The VCP‘s demonstrated pragmatism and adoption of the new market economic orientation, however, had raised some serious questions about its renowned ideological and political Marxist and Communist orientation. Marxism had criticized market economies and

47 capitalist forces for exacerbating economic inequalities, competition, and gradually leaving remaining ―no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, and callous ‗cash payment‘.‖1 Therefore, how could the combination of free markets and socialism be ideologically and politically feasible and compatible?

When confronted with the same question, the Soviet Communist Party had argued that the introduction of the market system did not presumably spell an end to socialism or communism. As Gorbachev asserted to the Soviet public at the outset of reforms when speculations began to rise:

Does Perestroika mean that we are giving up socialism or at least some of its foundations? ... We have only one way out, they say, to adopt capitalist methods of economic management and social patterns, to drift toward capitalism … To put an end to all the rumors and speculations that abound in the West about this, I would like to point out once again that we are conducting all our reforms in accordance with the socialist choice … We will proceed toward better socialism rather than away from it.2 Deng Xiaoping, on the other hand, had expressed the CCP‘s position on the issue with his own version of the same reasoning behind China‘s adoption of Gaige Kaifeng and its market-oriented economic policies: "Black cat, white cat, who cares as long as it can catch mice."

Likewise, VCP leaders were clearly conscious of this ideological dilemma. Terms like

―market mechanism‖ and ―privatization‖, for example, were intently avoided and replaced with meaningless alternative catchphrases still used today such as ―a multi-sector commodity- producing economy‖ (kinh te nhieu thanh phan,)3 and ―equitization‖ (co phan hoa).4 However, as Dr. Nguyen Xuan Oanh5, the main architect behind Doi Moi economic policies, stated, ―We have committed a grave error in labeling systems capitalist or communist. What‘s important is to create a hybrid which must meet the historical context of the country and the mood of the people.‖6 In other words, whether a system is labeled capitalist or communist is irrelevant as Dr.

48

Nguyen saw it. Recognizing the socio-economic conditions of Vietnam, the emphasis thus ought not to be placed on ideological or theoretical correctness, but rather on the importance of pragmatic policy implementation and how the VCP apparatus can rise to meet the demands of the Vietnamese people. From this point of view, there is nothing incompatible or ideologically unfeasible about combining market forces and socialism as long as it would prove to benefit

Vietnam and its people.

The VCP is in fact betting its political legitimacy and political stability on the results that

Doi Moi would bring to Vietnam‘s economy and society. In a speech from March 1994, former

Party Secretary General Do Muoi clearly explained:

If our economy develops strongly, and living conditions, culture, the situation of our people gets better day by day, then I believe the people will defend the party, the system of government, and regime such that hostile forces cannot do anything. The key point is to make a good economy, take care to make living conditions good. In the process, principally because of a good economy and living conditions, people‘s confidence in the party and regime will increase.7 In other words, if successful, Doi Moi would become the VCP‘s renewed claim to political power and legitimacy in place of the revolutionary ideology that the Party had hailed in its revolutionary victory. At the same time, if reforms were to fail and economic performance were to decline under impacts of the new reforms, expectedly, so would the Party‘s political legitimacy and stability.

In 2001, World Values Survey (WVS) had systematically conducted surveys sampling

1,000 individuals in Vietnam for their personal opinions and perceptions on a wide range of topics, including their perceptions of life, environment, work, family, politics, society, religion, morale, and national identity.8 Data from the survey as WVS intended to produce it are, as said by the organization, ―evidence of gradual but pervasive changes in what people want out of life‖ on an

49 international, large-scale, scientific scope. 9 The most telling evidences from the data provided by

WVS based on the surveys conducted are the participants‘ responses to four questions pertaining to their perceptions of politics and society in Vietnam. The first question asked participants to choose from the choices provided on the survey the aim which he or she considered should be the country‘s aim for the next ten years. 60.6% of the participants chose ―a high level of economic growth.‖

Table 1: Aims of country

Aims of Country Frequency A high level of economic growth 606 Strong defense forces 115 People have more say about 107 how things are done Trying to make our cities and 117 countryside more beautiful Don´t know 55 Total 1000

Source: European and World Values Surveys Four Wave Integrated Data File, 1981-2004, v.20060423, 2006. The European Values Study Foundation (www.europeanvalues.nl) and World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org).

When asked to choose among choices of a stable economy, progress toward a less impersonal and more humane society, ideas count more than money, and the fight against crime, 64.4% selected ―a stable economy‖ as their first choice of the most important goal for Vietnam.

Table 2: First choice of most important goal

First Choice of Most Important Goal Frequency A stable economy 644 Progress toward a less impersonal 201 and more humane society

Ideas count more than money 33

The fight against crime 67

Don´t know 55 Total 1000

Source: European and World Values Surveys Four Wave Integrated Data File, 1981-2004, v.20060423, 2006. The European Values Study Foundation (www.europeanvalues.nl) and World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org).

50

Based on the results above, we can infer that whether the VCP can lead Vietnam to achieve a high level of economic growth and stability would be among the most important criteria by which people‘s confidence in and rating of the Vietnamese government fall and rise.

Today, ―dan giau, nuoc manh, xa hoi cong bang van minh [wealthy people, strong country, equal and civilized society]‖ has already become the new slogan for the era of Doi Moi.

More than just a slogan, it reflects the Vietnamese state and society‘s shared priority in the transition of reforms for new economic growth and success. The actual positive results of reforms correspond to the positive responses that participants from the same wave of surveys conducted by WVS in 2001 expressed about their confidence in the government and rating of the current Vietnamese political system.

Table 3: Confidence in Government

Confidence in Government Frequency A great deal 760 Quite a lot 209

Not very much 16

None at all 5

Don´t know 10 Total 1000

Source: European and World Values Surveys Four Wave Integrated Data File, 1981-2004, v.20060423, 2006. The European Values Study Foundation (www.europeanvalues.nl) and World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org).

51

Table 4: Rating of current political system for governing country

Rating of Current Political System Frequency for Governing Country 2 1 3 3

4 2

5 33

6 52 7 86 8 198 9 132 Very good 443 Don´t know 50 Total 1000

Source: European and World Values Surveys Four Wave Integrated Data File, 1981-2004, v.20060423, 2006. The European Values Study Foundation (www.europeanvalues.nl) and World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org). What the responses and rating above substantiate is the people‘s overall satisfaction with results of reforms and, in effect, the VCP‘s renewed claim to political legitimacy under the impacts of Doi Moi‘s success. It is based on this unprecedented economic growth that people especially Vietnamese new youth generation like Chau Huy Ngoc and Nguyen Thi Phuong are drawing their conclusions about the Communist Party‘s decision to have adopted and committed to reforms. Vietnam now, as Chau Huy Ngoc saw it, has really ―thay da doi thit [changed skin and taken on new flesh].‖10 When asked, ―What do you think about Vietnam‘s development and present political direction?‖, Nguyen Thi Phuong also positively affirmed, ―Very fitting! Just look at Doi Moi!‖11

What impacts will the building of a market economy continue to have on Vietnam's socio-economic and political structure? What characteristics of socialism will remain standing against this current of change? These are larger reform issues that both leaders and scholars of

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Vietnam are well aware of but are uncertain about answering themselves. Nonetheless, like Dr.

Vo Van Sen, historian and current rector of Vietnam's National University of Social Sciences and Humanities of Ho Chi Minh City, VCP leaders and scholars of Vietnam often publicly assert: ―The Vietnamese people are following the socialist path to development of the country and will gradually answer these questions. Anyone who studies the long history of Vietnam can recognize that this will be so.‖12 One can be sure that the VCP's commitment to finding

Vietnam's path to economic growth and development by changing its perspectives and approach from the constricting demands of ideology to more pragmatic solutions is intended to stabilize— not to jeopardize—the current Vietnamese state and party political system.

1 Karl Marx and Engels Frederick, Manifesto of the Communist Party (New York: International Publishers, 2001), 11. 2 Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (Harper & Row, 1987). Cited in, Roberts V. Daniels, ed. Soviet Communism from Reform to Collapse (Lexington, MA: D.C. Health and Company, 1995), 74-75. 3 Brian Van Arkadie and Raymond Malon, Vietnam: a Transition Tiger? (Australia: Asia Pacific Press, 2003), 76. 4 Nicholas Nugent. Vietnam the Second Revolution (UK: In Print Publishing Ltd, 1996), 78. 5 Dr. Nguyen Xuan Oanh is a former Central Bank Governor and deputy prime minister to the Southern Vietnamese Diem government in 1963. Despite his association with the defeated regime, Dr Nguyen became a think-tank to former Secretary General Nguyen Van Linh to help refine his ideas for economic reforms that were eventually adopted by the Party under the label Doi Moi. 6 Cited in, Nicholas, Vietnam the Second Revolution, 84. 7 Do Muoi. “Address to the Fatherland Front on 17th August”, Voice of Vietnam. BBC Monitoring Service: Asia Pacific, August 17, 1994. Cited in, Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, ed. Dilemmas of Development: Vietnam Update 1994 (Canberra, Australia: Panther Publishing and Press, 1995), 10. 8 See, World Values Survey’s “Documentation of Values Survey” of Vietnam in 2001 for more detailed explanation and documentation of data collection procedures, samples of surveys conducted and questions asked, and the process overall. Documentations in PDF are available from World Values Survey at: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ 9 World Values Survey (WVS) is self-introduced as “a worldwide investigation of socio-cultural and political change” conducted by a network of social scientist all around the world. Having conducted a total of five waves of surveys of countries across different continents (1981-1984, 1989-1993, 1994-1999, 1999-2004, and 2005-2008), WVS is confident that data from the survey produced are “evidence of gradual but pervasive changes in what people want out of life” on an international, large-scale, scientific scope. Tables and data cited here are from WVS’s online-data analysis of survey results provided by WVS. The data themselves were collected during WVS’s fourth wave (1999- 2004); the surveys conducted in Vietnam were from 2001. Data from the fifth wave (2005-2008) of Vietnam are available to the public but are currently not in a ready-for-analysis format as of March 2009 at the time when the thesis is composed and are therefore not made use of here. See, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ for more information and related data from World Values Survey. 10 Chau Huy Ngoc. Personal Interview. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. October 23, 2004. 11 Nguyen Thi Phuong. Personal Interview. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. November 19, 2004.

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12 Vo Van Sen, “The Socio-Economic Transformation of Vietnam during the Twentieth Century,” NUCBB Journal of Language, Culture and Communication 1, no. 2 (2000), 51.

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Vita

Before attending the University of Texas at Austin, Nhu Truong received her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Kenyon College in 2006. She was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on September 11, 1984 and first settled with her family in San Jose, CA in 1995. Her family includes her parents, Frank Truong and Yen Hoang, her little sister, Cindy Truong, and their canine companions, Butter and Beyond. Truong has demonstrated an interest in international development, public service, and non-profits through her experience with

Environmental Development Action in the Third World of Vietnam, the Political Asylum Project of Austin, now called American Gateways, and Texans for Public Justice. Her current research interest includes economic and political reforms in Vietnam, emerging development issues, and the role of NGO’s and Vietnamese in diasporas in Vietnam’s current and future development.

Permanent address: 2115 Chalk Hill Cove Round Rock, TX 78665

This dissertation was typed by: Nhu Quynh-Thuy Truong

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