Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [350]
As the Vietnamese economy improved and as relations between America and Vietnam started to thaw around the turn of the millennium, so the ODP and ROVR programmes were gradually wound up. Their completion marked the end – at least as far as officialdom was concerned – of the whole sorry saga of the boat people.
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History |
Doi Moi
A severe famine in 1985 and the 775 percent inflation that crippled the country in 1986 were just two of the many symptoms of the economic malaise threatening to tear Vietnam apart during the late 1970s and early 1980s. An experimental hybrid of planned and market economies tried out in 1979 came to nothing, and by the early 1980s the only thing keeping Vietnam afloat was Soviet aid. Treaties made it illegal for Americans to do business with the Vietnamese, who, largely due to American pressure, were unable to look to the IMF or World Bank for development loans.
The party’s conservative old guard resisted change for as long as it could, but the death of General Secretary Le Duan in 1986 finally cleared the way for more reformist politicians to attempt to reverse the country’s fortunes: Nguyen Van Linh took over as general secretary, and a raft of market-based economic reforms, known as doi moi or “renovation”, followed. This encompassed limited moves towards decentralizaton and privatization; collectivized agriculture was abandoned in favour of individual land-holdings and attempts were made to attract foreign capital by liberalizing foreign investment regulations. Political reforms came a poor second, although the congress did instigate purges on corrupt officialdom and gave the press freer rein to criticize. With the collapse of Communism across Europe in 1989, though, the press was again silenced, and in a keynote speech Nguyen Van Linh rejected the concept of a multi-party state; all economic reforms, however, remained in place, and the government set in motion efforts to end Vietnam’s isolation.
International rehabilitation, which had already begun with the withdrawal of troops from Cambodia in 1989, gathered momentum in the 1990s, as efforts to aid the US search teams looking for remains of the two thousand-plus American soldiers still unaccounted for (MIAs, or Missing in Action) were stepped up. In 1993, a year after the reformist Vo Van Kiet became prime minister, the Americans duly lifted their veto on aid, and Western cash began to flow. By the year’s end, inflation was down to five percent. The rapprochement with the US continued into 1994, as the US trade embargo was lifted by President Clinton, and in February 1995 the two countries opened liaison offices in each other’s capitals. Vietnam was admitted into ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) in July 1995, and the same month saw full diplomatic relations restored with the US.
During the next two years foreign investment continued to flood in, pushing economic growth rates close to ten percent per annum. Revenues from oil, manufacturing and tourism took off and everyone was forecasting Vietnam as the next Asian tiger. For all the optimism, however, cracks were beginning to appear: the economic upturn was benefiting city-dwellers (particularly in Ho Chi Minh City) far more than the rural population; top bureaucrats were openly criticized in corruption scandals; and an alarmed government launched a campaign against “social evils” – videos, advertising, pornography and other Western imports which were seen to be undermining traditional society.
By 1997 the honeymoon period was definitely over. Economic growth flagged as foreign companies scaled back, or pulled out altogether, frustrated by an overblown bureaucracy, miles of red tape and regulations in a constant state of flux. As the economic crisis in Southeast Asia took hold, Vietnam’s mostly inefficient, state-run industries became increasingly uncompetitive, and smuggling grew at an alarming rate. In May 1997,