Nguyen Hue - Emperor Quang Trung

One of the most important, and certainly one of the most widely and continuously honored, heroes of Viet Nam is Nguyen Hue Quang Trung, a leader of the Tay Son uprising and the man who turned back the last invasion of Viet Nam by Imperial Chinese forces. He is remembered as a military leader of astounding prowess and an inspiring reformer in political leadership who personified the brilliant rise and rapid fall of the Tay Son movement. His was born to the task he would undertake, coming from a family of refugees from the costly and on-going fraternal warfare between the feuding Trinh and Nguyen lords over control of the Le throne.

He grew up in the area of Quy Nhon (a place I am not unfamiliar with) and which would later play a pivotal role in the survival of the Tay Son reign. From very early on, along with his brothers Nguyen Nhac and Nguyen Lu, he became involved in the protracted civil war and an early antagonist for the Nguyen lords of the south. He grew up opposed to the costly conflict between his people as well as the often oppressive policies of the opposing regimes. His first fame came in 1785 against Thailand (then known as Siam). The southern lord, Nguyen Anh (later Emperor Gia Long) had been driven out of Viet Nam and taken refuge in Siam. There he enlisted the support of the King to restore him to power. It would become a theme of Nguyen Hue's life to fight foreign armies sent to reinstate deposed Vietnamese rulers. West of the Mekong River, Nguyen Hue soundly defeated an army of 50,000 Siamese. Hopes of Thai expansion into southern Viet Nam were thwarted and Nguyen Anh was forced to flee once again, this time seeking help from the French. Nguyen Hue, however, continued his military campaigns.

The peasants across Viet Nam, tired of paying huge taxes and being forced into military service for the continuing wars between the Trinh and Nguyen, Nguyen Hue came to be seen as a champion of the common people and a national leader. As dissatisfaction spread, the Tay Son rebellion grew stronger and stronger. Originally, Nguyen Hue, in traditional fashion, stated that his goal was to crush the Trinh (since the Nguyen had already been all but wiped out) and to reunite the country and restore power to the Le Emperor. The Le dynasty had been powerless, under the control of the Trinh, and the object of control over the Le Emperor had been the purpose of every Nguyen-Trinh clash. Both sides professed loyalty to the old and honored dynasty, but both wished to control it. In an unprecedented campaign, the Tay Son firmly defeated the Trinh and then, in a shocking move, deposed the hitherto sacrosanct Le Emperor and gave power to the leading Tay Son brothers.

However, the last Emperor, Le Chieu Thong, would not go quietly. Calling upon the Chinese for help, the famous Emperor Qianlong of the Great Qing Empire, sent a massive army south with Chieu Thong in 1788 to restore him to the throne, though under Chinese protection of course. Nguyen Hue gathered his forces around Thanh Long (Ha Noi) which had been taken by the Qing army. In a brilliantly successful battle (which would be copied with less success by Vo Nguyen Giap) Nguyen Hue made a surprise attack against the Chinese during the Tet, lunar new year, holiday. This was traditionally a time of peace for all sides and the Qing troops were unprepared for battle. In a fierce 5-day battle they were soundly and stunningly defeated and Le Chieu Thong was forced to flee for his life back to China. Yet, Nguyen Hue showed considerable gallantry to the defeated Chinese, allowing them to return home with honor and encouraging a peaceful relationship in keeping with previous arrangements, with the Qing Emperor. As for himself, Nguyen Hue had become the national savior of Viet Nam and the most popular figure in the country. He was subsequently proclaimed Emperor of Vietnam with the name Quang Trung.

Once in power, Emperor Quang Trung quickly began instituting massive and unprecedented national reforms in Viet Nam. He set up a new system of administration and replaced the traditional Chinese script with the Vietnamese Nom as the official written language of the country. His religious toleration won him the support of the growing Christian community and his campaign of the common people against the traditional elites won him the admiration of the peasant majority. However, the popularity and success of the Tay Son regime was not destined to last long, perhaps mostly because of the short reign of its most glorious leader. Emperor Quang Trung died in 1792. He was succeeded by Canh Thinh, a 10-year-old boy whose reign would see the doom of the Tay Son. Christians began to be persecuted, government officials came to be seen as oppressive and Nguyen Anh returned in the south, with French support, to reclaim not only the former position of his family, but to overthrow the Tay Son and found the Nguyen Dynasty.

There came to be a feeling of illegitimacy regarding the Tay Son reign, perhaps because of the support then removal of the traditional Le dynasty, later on because of conflict between the brothers. Over time, what was once seen as a people's government came to be viewed as a police state. However, none of this could ever taint the reputation of Emperor Quang Trung who was a brilliant general, a reforming statesman and always seen as a champion of the Vietnamese people and a defender of the country against any foreign invasion. Much like the later Duy Tan Emperor, many Vietnamese look back at Quang Trung's short reign with a melancholy sense of a great opportunity being lost.

General Ly Thuong Kiet - Ly Dynasty

Li Chang Jie (1019-1105) is the second most prominent general of Dai Viet (to-day Viet Nam) who left his mark with a series of greatest victories. Only ranked behind the greatest tactician Tran Hung Dao (The author of the masterpiece Bach Dang), Li Chang Jie showed his superiority and flexibility in his tactics and showed his dedicated atitude to the Ly monarchy and to his own army.

Li Chang Jie (Vietnamese: Lý Thường Kiệt) was born in Gia Lam, later he moved back to Ba Dinh, Ha Noi (contemporary name is Thang Long, english means A Flied Dragon - their capital). His birth name is Ngo Tuan (Ngô Tuấn), however, when he got older, the king especially loved him as his own brother and use the royal family name "Ly" as a gift for his enormous contribution. His farther is a general, who died while visiting the Chinese-Vietnamese border, left his grand child alone at the age of 13. However, Ly was taught very strictly by his mother and his uncle. He proved to be a genius in learning martial arts and practising tactics by playing Chinese chess with his peers.

At the age of 23, he was appointed as eunuch to the royal palace, then was nominated quickly to high-ranking mandarin, and then finally to commander-in-chief, due to his talents. It was said that he was Buddhism and never got kill even an aunt.

The Song dynasty (大宋 or 宋朝) long watched Dai Viet as her target for a conquering after lost her control in 938, due to the collapse of the East Han dynasty. Her ambition is to engulf the Dai Viet and then getting to the South, eliminate the Champa Kingdom. The Chinese first find an opportunity to do that when the new king of Dai Viet, Ly Nhan Ton (1072-1127) enthroned when he was only 7 years old. Never let this golden chane slip through their fingers, the Song emperor sent an announcement ordered the whole kingdom to surrender, if not he would massacre to the last Vietnamese. This move, according to Chinese and Western historians, was a foolish evidence of arrogance. However, even before the announcement reached to Thang Long, Li Chang Jie had predicted the ambition of the Chinese through a careful observation of military mobilisation near the border of the two kingdoms. When the new came to the capital, the whole country, instead of panic, grew animosity and was deep in vengeful mood for their outrage of being conqured by Chinese dynasty more than 1000 years.

Under the Song Shen Zhong regime, Chinese talented politcian, Wang An Shi (1021-1086) proposed a plan in which Chinese main army will concentrated on Xiao Zhu and Yong Zhou before totally manoeuvre Dai Viet. They quickly built forts and amassed food supplies, ensured domestic tranquility and most of all, cut off trade with Dai Viet.

The young king of Dai Viet Ly Nhan Ton insisted to the whole kingdom that there would be no further concessions and appointed Li Chang Jie as primary commander of all Dai Viet army, Ton Dang as secondary general, shared the total army of only 10,000 prepared for a defend line along the border. However, Li Chang Jie considered to the king an alternative tactic, in which he attacked both Xiao Zhu and Yong Zhu at once to kill off their strength first, then retreat and quickly firm the defend line. The king with his wisdom, allowed Li Chang Jie keep on his plan but only led Ton Dang know.

The king even responsed to Chinese by answering the announcement with a letter writting in a very insolent tone to pick a quarrel on the Chinese army.

The letter generally said that under Song Dynasty, the fat emperor used tax to construct his palaces, plunged Chinese people into anguishness. As a merciful king, Tran Nhan Ton could not accept this happen and would allowe the Chinese army to surrender within 10 days, if not the king would attack and no more discussion in diplomatic front.

This was a war declaration and immediately outraged the Chinese emperors right away when it reached to his hand.

In 1075, Li Chang Jie attacked suddenly Qian Zhou and even spread through Lian Zhou, killing 8000 men of the Chinese, the plan was so successful that the second auxilliaries under leadership of Ton Dang attacked Yong Zhou.

A brave Zhang Shou Jie brought reinforcement to hold the front line was frustrated in Kun Lun Kuang by Li Chang Jie.

Zhang Shou Lie died immediately and was burried carefully as a brave man and returned him to honour among his dead soldiers.

The total casualties were still debated. Vietnamese contemporary historians seemed to narrow the number down as 9000, but according to modern historians and archeologists, the sudden assaults took off at least 10,000 or even more up to 12,000.
Vietnamese casualties were only among 2500 men.

There is a discussion according to available sources that I accumulated during the Vietnamese trip (refer to my gallery in Asian Gallery). There is a possibility that while keeping the campaign, Li Chang Jie used scouts everywhere he could to gather information for Chinese mobilisation. These scouts were highly trained and kept on their mission after the quick withdraw of Vietnamese troops. Monthly they sent secretly report to Thang Long, thus Li Chang Jie understood all movements within Chinese territories.

As being predicted, Chinese army with nearly 100,000 men crossed the border to Dai Viet territory. The two grand armies clashed at Nhu Nguyet river, in this intial clash, Chinese army lost 1000 men and was forced to retreat to Phu Luong river, a branch of Nhu Nguyet river. The battle happened so aggressive and nearly one month without significant victory. In the 10th day, Quach Qui, high commander of Chinese Army attacked Dai Viet defensive by Catapult, nearly broke off the line. The Dai Viet army nearly flee and demoralised. The chronic advance made by China could be decisive if Quach Qui

Li Chang Jie thought only increase moral would drive him to victory, he wrote a famous poem that latter became the first indenpent declaration of Viet Nam:

Nam quoc son ha nam de cu
Tuyet nhien dinh phan tai thien thu
Nhu ha nghich lo lai xam pham
Nhu dang hanh khang thu bai hu

I only can roughly translated: (sorry)

Dai Viet must be ruled by Viet King
This was seen as God will
Now the northerner conqured
Not soon they would be collapsed by a stronger force.

This document served as the first Declaration for Vietnamese freedom. Indeed, its immediate outcome was to increase markedly the demoralised troups of Dai Viet, and thus the defensive line held back longer than expected. However, stalemate arised gradually and the supreme commanders of Dai Viet assumed that if this situation prolonged, their manpower and reserve would run out. Thus, a call for ceasefire came to Chinese capital, Song emperor immediately accepted the terms.

Li Chang Jie stood out due to his brilliant tactics that had no precendents. Indeed, his move had been carefully calculated. The Batle Of Nhu Nguyet river was the first largest clash of the newborn Dai Viet kingdom with China dynasty.

General Tran Hung Dao - Vietnamese military leader

By the early 1280s the Vietnamese kingdom faced a growing threat from the Mongols under Kublai Khan, who had conquered China in the previous decade. When he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Vietnamese armed forces, Tran Hung Dao, in a rousing speech to his forces, called for national unity and persuaded his army to fight the invaders. When the Mongols invaded the Red River valley (in northern Vietnam) with a massive army in 1283/84, Tran gave way before the invaders and adopted a defensive strategy, using guerrilla warfare and scorched-earth tactics against them. He then launched a counteroffensive that liberated the Vietnamese capital and drove the Mongols back into China.

When the Mongols resumed their campaign against Vietnam in 1287, Tran and his forces again gave ground, avoiding a pitched battle until the Mongols had occupied the capital. After resuming the offensive, Tran engaged the Mongol fleet in battle at the mouth of the Bach Dang River in 1288. Kublai Khan’s junks, lured by Hung Dao’s men, were ripped apart by iron-tipped spears that had been implanted beneath the waters—a strategy borrowed from an earlier Vietnamese warrior, Ngo Quyen (939).

Tran Hung Dao was one of the first great Vietnamese military strategists. His use of guerrilla warfare to harass and eventually defeat a more powerful enemy provided a model for communist guerrilla warfare in the 20th century. His mobilization of the entire Vietnamese population in the cause of national resistance to foreign invasion similarly inspired the North Vietnamese during the Indochina Wars (1946–75). His proclamation calling for national unity, along with a textbook he wrote on military strategy, became classics of Vietnamese literature. Tran Hung Dao is still an object of worship in rural areas of Vietnam, with many temples dedicated to him.

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VIETNAM HISTORY

BRIEF HISTORY OF VIETNAM:

The Vietnamese first appeared in history as one of many scattered peoples living in what is now South China and Northern Vietnam just before the beginning of the Christian era. According to local tradition, the small Vietnamese kingdom of Au Lac, located in the heart of the Red River valley, was founded by a line of legendary kings who had ruled over the ancient kingdom of Van Lang for thousands of years. Historical evidence to substantiate this tradition is scanty, but archaeological findings indicate that the early peoples of the Red River delta area may have been among the first East Asians to practice agriculture, and by the 1st century BC they had achieved a relatively advanced level of Bronze Age civilization.

CHINESE INFLUENCE:

In 221 BC the Ch'in dynasty in China completed its conquest of neighboring states and became the first to rule over a united China. The Ch'in Empire, however, did not long survive the death of its dynamic founder, Shih Huang Ti, and the impact of its collapse was soon felt in Vietnam. In the wreckage of the empire, the Chinese commander in the south built his own kingdom of Nam Viet (South Viet; Chinese, Nan Y�eh); the young state of Au Lac was included. In 111 BC, Chinese armies conquered Nam Viet and absorbed it into the growing Han Empire. The Chinese conquest had fateful consequences for the future course of Vietnamese history. After briefly ruling through local chieftains, Chinese rulers attempted to integrate Vietnam politically and culturally into the Han Empire. Chinese administrators were imported to replace the local landed nobility. Political institutions patterned after the Chinese model were imposed, and Confucianism became the official ideology. The Chinese language was introduced as the medium of official and literary expression, and Chinese ideographs were adopted as the written form for the Vietnamese spoken language. Chinese art, architecture, and music exercised a powerful impact on their Vietnamese counterparts. Vietnamese resistance to rule by the Chinese was fierce but sporadic. The most famous early revolt took place in AD 39, when two widows of local aristocrats, the Trung sisters, led an uprising against foreign rule. The revolt was briefly successful, and the older sister, Trung Trac, established herself as ruler of an independent state. Chinese armies returned to the attack, however, and in AD 43 Vietnam was reconquered.

INDEPENDENCE:

The Trung sisters' revolt was only the first in a series of intermittent uprisings that took place during a thousand years of Chinese rule in Vietnam. Finally, in 939, Vietnamese forces under Ngo Quyen took advantage of chaotic conditions in China to defeat local occupation troops and set up an independent state. Ngo Quyen's death a few years later ushered in a period of civil strife, but in the early 11th century the first of the great Vietnamese dynasties was founded. Under the astute leadership of several dynamic rulers, the Ly dynasty ruled Vietnam for more than 200 years, from 1010 to 1225. Although the rise of the Ly reflected the emergence of a lively sense of Vietnamese nationhood, Ly rulers retained many of the political and social institutions that had been introduced during the period of Chinese rule. Confucianism continued to provide the foundation for the political institutions of the state. The Chinese civil service examination system was retained as the means of selecting government officials, and although at first only members of the nobility were permitted to compete in the examinations, eventually the right was extended to include most males. The educational system also continued to reflect the Chinese model. Young Vietnamese preparing for the examinations were schooled in the Confucian classics and grew up conversant with the great figures and ideas that had shaped Chinese history. Vietnamese society, however, was more than just a pale reflection of China. Beneath the veneer of Chinese fashion and thought, popular mostly among the upper classes, native forms of expression continued to flourish. Young Vietnamese learned to appreciate the great heroes of the Vietnamese past, many of whom had built their reputation on resistance to the Chinese conquest. At the village level, social mores reflected native forms more than patterns imported from China. Although to the superficial eye Vietnam looked like a "smaller dragon," under the tutelage of the great empire to the north it continued to have a separate culture with vibrant traditions of its own.

THE ECONOMY UNDER THE LY DYNASTY:

Like most of its neighbors, Vietnam was primarily an agricultural state, its survival based above all on the cultivation of wet rice. As in medieval Europe, much of the land was divided among powerful noble families, who often owned thousands of serfs or domestic slaves. A class of landholding farmers also existed, however, and powerful monarchs frequently attempted to protect this class by limiting the power of feudal lords and dividing up their large estates. The Vietnamese economy was not based solely on agriculture. Commerce and manufacturing thrived, and local crafts appeared in regional markets throughout the area. Vietnam never developed into a predominantly commercial nation, however, or became a major participant in regional trade patterns.

TERRITORIAL EXPANSION:

Under the rule of the Ly dynasty and its successor, the Tran (1225-1400), Vietnam became a dynamic force in Southeast Asia. China's rulers, however, had not abandoned their historic objective of controlling the Red River delta, and when the Mongol dynasty came to power in the 13th century, the armies of Kublai Khan attacked Vietnam in an effort to reincorporate it into the Chinese Empire. The Vietnamese resisted with vigor, and after several bitter battles they defeated the invaders and drove them back across the border. While the Vietnamese maintained their vigilance toward the north, an area of equal and growing concern lay to the south. For centuries, the Vietnamese state had been restricted to its heartland in the Red River valley and adjacent hills. Tension between Vietnam and the kingdom of Champa, a seafaring state along the central coast, appeared shortly after the restoration of Vietnamese independence. On several occasions, Cham armies broke through Vietnamese defenses and occupied the capital near Hanoi. More frequently, Vietnamese troops were victorious, and they gradually drove Champa to the south. Finally, in the 15th century, Vietnamese forces captured the Cham capital south of present-day Da Nang and virtually destroyed the kingdom. For the next several generations, Vietnam continued its historic "march to the south," wiping up the remnants of the Cham Kingdom and gradually approaching the marshy flatlands of the Mekong delta. There it confronted a new foe, the Khmer Empire, which had once been the most powerful state in the region. By the late 16th century, however, it had declined, and it offered little resistance to Vietnamese encroachment. By the end of the 17th century, Vietnam had occupied the lower Mekong delta and began to advance to the west, threatening to transform the disintegrating Khmer state into a mere protectora.

THE LE DYNASTY:

The Vietnamese advance to the south coincided with new challenges in the north. In 1407 Vietnam was again conquered by Chinese troops. For two decades, the Ming dynasty attempted to reintegrate Vietnam into the empire, but in 1428, resistance forces under the rebel leader Le Loi dealt the Chinese a decisive defeat and restored Vietnamese independence. Le Loi mounted the throne as the first emperor of the Le dynasty. The new ruling house retained its vigor for more than a hundred years, but in the 16th century it began to decline. Power at court was wielded by two rival aristocratic clans, the Trinh and the Nguyen. When the former became dominant, the Nguyen were granted a fiefdom in the south, dividing Vietnam into two separate zones. Rivalry was sharpened by the machinations of European powers newly arrived in Southeast Asia in pursuit of wealth and Christian converts.

By the late 18th century, the Le dynasty was near collapse. Vast rice lands were controlled by grasping feudal lords. Angry peasants-led by the Tay Son brothers-revolted, and in 1789 Nguyen Hue, the ablest of the brothers, briefly restored Vietnam to united rule. Nguyen Hue died shortly after ascending the throne; a few years later Nguyen Anh, an heir to the Nguyen house in the south, defeated the Tay Son armies. As Emperor Gia Long, he established a new dynasty in 1802.

FRENCH INTERVENTION:

A French missionary, Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, had raised a mercenary force to help Nguyen Anh seize the throne in the hope that the new emperor would provide France with trading and missionary privileges, but his hopes were disappointed. The Nguyen dynasty was suspicious of French influence. Roman Catholic missionaries and their Vietnamese converts were persecuted, and a few were executed during the 1830s. Religious groups in France demanded action from the government in Paris. When similar pressure was exerted by commercial and military interests, Emperor Napoleon III approved the launching of a naval expedition in 1858 to punish the Vietnamese and force the court to accept a French protectorate. The first French attack at Da Nang Harbor failed to achieve its objectives, but a second farther south was more successful, and in 1862 the court at Hue agreed to cede several provinces in the Mekong delta (later called Cochin China) to France. In the 1880s the French returned to the offensive, launching an attack on the north. After severe defeats, the Vietnamese accepted a French protectorate over the remaining territory of Vietnam.

COLONIAL RULE AND RESISTANCE:

The imposition of French colonial rule had met with little organized resistance. The national sense of identity, however, had not been crushed, and anticolonial sentiment soon began to emerge. Poor economic conditions contributed to native hostility to French rule. Although French occupation brought improvements in transportation and communications, and contributed to the growth of commerce and manufacturing, colonialism brought little improvement in livelihood to the mass of the population. In the countryside, peasants struggled under heavy taxes and high rents. Workers in factories, in coal mines, and on rubber plantations labored in abysmal conditions for low wages. By the early 1920s, nationalist parties began to demand reform and independence. In 1930 the revolutionary Ho Chi Minh formed an Indochinese Communist party. Until World War II started in 1939, such groups labored without success. In 1940, however, Japan demanded and received the right to place Vietnam under military occupation, restricting the local French administration to figurehead authority. Seizing the opportunity, the Communists organized the broad Vietminh Front and prepared to launch an uprising at the war's end. The Vietminh (short for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) emphasized moderate reform and national independence rather than specifically Communist aims. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, Vietminh forces arose throughout Vietnam and declared the establishment of an independent republic in Hanoi. The French, however, were unwilling to concede independence and in October drove the Vietminh and other nationalist groups out of the south. For more than a year the French and the Vietminh sought a negotiated solution, but the talks, held in France, failed to resolve differences, and war broke out in December 1946.

THE EXPULSION OF THE FRENCH:

The conflict lasted for nearly eight years. The Vietminh retreated into the hills to build up their forces while the French formed a rival Vietnamese government under Emperor Bao Dai, the last ruler of the Nguyen dynasty, in populated areas along the coast. Vietminh forces lacked the strength to defeat the French and generally restricted their activities to guerrilla warfare. In 1953-1954 the French fortified a base at Dien Bien Phu. After months of siege and heavy casualties, the Vietminh overran the fortress in a decisive battle. As a consequence, the French government could no longer resist pressure from a war-weary populace at home and in June 1954 agreed to negotiations to end the war. At a conference held in Geneva the two sides accepted an interim compromise to end the war. They divided the country at the 17th parallel, with the Vietminh in the North and the French and their Vietnamese supporters in the South. To avoid permanent partition, a political protocol was drawn up, calling for national electi ons to reunify the country two years after the signing of the treaty.

PARTITION:

After Geneva, the Viet minh in Hanoi refrained from armed struggle and began to build a Communist society. In the southern capital, Saigon, Bao Dai soon gave way to a new regime under the staunch anti-Communist president Ngo Dinh Diem. With diplomatic support from the United States, Diem refused to hold elections and attempted to destroy Communist influence in the South. By 1959, however, Diem was in trouble. His unwillingness to tolerate domestic opposition, his alleged favoritism of fellow Roman Catholics, and the failure of his social and economic programs seriously alienated key groups in the populace and led to rising unrest. The Communists decided it was time to resume their revolutionary war.

THE AMERICAN WAR:

In the fall of 1963, Diem was overthrown and killed in a coup launched by his own generals. In the political confusion that followed, the security situation in South Vietnam continued to deteriorate, putting the Communists within reach of victory. In early 1965, to prevent the total collapse of the Saigon regime, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson approved regular intensive bombing of North Vietnam and the dispatch of U.S. combat troops into the South. The U.S. intervention caused severe problems for the Communists on the battlefield and compelled them to send regular units of the North Vietnamese army into the South. It did not persuade them to abandon the struggle, however, and in 1968, after the bloody Tet offensive shook the new Saigon regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu to its foundations, the Johnson administration decided to pursue a negotiated settlement. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 and was succeeded by another leader of the revolution, Le Duan. The new U.S. president, Richard Nixon, continued Johnson's policy while gradually withdrawing U.S. troops. In January 1973 the war temporarily came to an end with the signing of a peace agreement in Paris. The settlement provided for the total removal of remaining U.S. troops, while Hanoi tacitly agreed to accept the Thieu regime in preparation for new national elections. The agreement soon fell apart, however, and in early 1975 the Communists launched a military offensive. In six weeks, the resistance of the Thieu regime collapsed, and on April 30 the Communists seized power in Saigon.

THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM:

In 1976 the South was reunited with the North in a new Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The conclusion of the war, however, did not end the violence. Border tension with the Communist government in Cambodia escalated rapidly after the fall of Saigon, and in early 1979 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and installed a pro-Vietnamese government. A few weeks later, Vietnam was itself attacked by its Communist neighbor and erstwhile benefactor, China. In the mid-1980s, Vietnamese troops were stationed in Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam substantially reduced its forces in Laos during 1988 and withdrew virtually all its troops from Cambodia by September 1989. Within Vietnam, postwar economic and social problems were severe, and reconstruction proceeded slowly. Efforts to collectivize agriculture and nationalize business aroused hostility in the south. Disappointing harvests and the absorption of resources by the military further retarded Vietnam's recovery. In the early 1990s, the government encouraged foreign investment and sought to improve relations with the United States.

Recent policies, trade agreements, and treaties have positioned Vietnam for peace, growth and prosperity in the twenty-first century.