Title states all, Vietnam is a country that fought for it's independence, fought off multiple invaders including 2 industrialized western superpower nations, and now is one of the fastest growing economies in East Asia and is generally speaking seen as a positive nation on the global stage, without all of the baggage that China or North Korea carry. Obviously this is an abridged understanding of Vietnam but on paper it looks good, unless there's some brave posters willing to tell me otherwise?
-7DeadlyFetishes
No offense to Vietnam, but they “don’t have the same baggage” because they unlike China aren’t as much a threat to the US and unlike North Korea don’t actively oppose them. and even then when Vietnam was being toated as an example in COVID you had articles and news heads saying they were only successful because of their evil and draconic authoritarian measures.
The consequences of the concept of individual rights has been a disaster for the world.
I'd argue individual rights aren't bad themselves, but rather the particular concept of them that we are taught in the US, which amounts to basically the right to do whatever you want without the gubberment telling you not to.
Yeah, the fact that most western countries only see rights through the lense of the individual has led to the exhaltation of the individual as the only thing that matters.
the individual is declared important, because humanity is made up of individuals.
but the exhaltation of the individual has nothing to do with the embetterment of the vast majority of individuals.
the rights of the collective, being made up of individuals, are intrinsically more valuable than those of any single individual.
:bean-think:
why would some individuals object to viewing the collective as a tallying up of individuals, and insist that it is instead an alternative that is wholly incompatable with the individual?
West often refuses to view many other people on this planet as human. The idea of child's rights (the real "No, you can't abuse your kid" kind not the weird thing groomers talk about) is something many people in the West are actually highly reluctant towards. They very much view children as property and it is horrible.
This is literally all it is. They aren't constantly in the New Cold War propaganda like China, we are no longer occupying the southern half of their country and need to be opposed like Korea, and they aren't floating ninety miles off Miami where an affluent and influential voting expat minority lives like Cuba.
Therefore "leftists" in the heart of empire dont feel obligated to pick a side and have a "take" like the others. Its like how a lot of babby leftists don't even know communist Laos even fucking exists.
The act of existing as a Marxist-Leninist state is “actively opposing” the US. Just cause their state media doesn’t make say as many cool things about executing imperialist leaders doesn’t mean the US is happy with Vietnam’s existence as a socialist country, or that Vietnam is a lapdog to the US. They just realize that things are significantly easier when you don’t have actively hostile relations with the world’s most powerful country
doesn’t mean the US is happy with Vietnam’s existence as a socialist country, or that Vietnam is a lapdog to the US.
Taking $150 million dollars in US military aid and hosting 2 visits by US aircraft carriers does kind of signal that the US is happy with you.
There are centuries of hatred, conquests and counter conquests etc.
But things were fairly cordial in the 50s-70s. Both the KMT and the CPC supported Ho Chi Minh against the French, until Vietnam chose the Soviet side of the split (technically they were neutral, but refused Deng's bribes), allowed foreign drilling in the South China Sea (which was and is disputed) and then realised what was going on in Cambodia was fucked and intervened.
So China invaded and got their asses handed to them.
Things have improved a lot since 1990 with most territorial disputes being resolved and major socialist co-operation, but there's been a brush war about the South China Sea in the last few years, with the USA trying to prevent a deal.
As for the Dengism, I'm not a Dengist (I'm a Little Dengist) but while Vietnam has more marketisation, the material conditions mean it's largely Petit Bourgeois in nature, Vietnam does have more foreign involvement too, but if anything the industrial heights of the economy are even more directly planned than China imo.
In a sense sure, but to a much lesser degree than the previous two.
people who are very very very very sceptical of china’s economic model turning around and being all positive about vietnam as a socialist project always struck to me as increadibly incoherent
The US is not trying to heighten tensions with Vietnam right now. This incoherence demonstrates how good the State Department is at shaping Left-wing discourse.
the positive counter tendency China has today.
what's that?
Xi moving against market reforms basically. Reenforcing state control over key industries, increasing power of communist party cadres at large private firms, anticorruption campaign, etc.
In addition to what hagensfohawk said, the CPC under Xi has been substantially increasing the amount of supply and marketing cooperatives to cover over 95% of villages and townships as of 2018 (was only 56% in 2012) as well as broadening their scope of services to other industries. There hasn't been such an emphasis on these cooperatives since the Mao era. Public services like healthcare are also being strengthened with the recent reestablishment of a universal healthcare system although it’s not totally free at point of service yet.
Xi called on the Communist Party’s state-owned enterprises to become “stronger, better and larger” and that “they form the economic and political foundation of China’s socialist system and are a key pillar for the Party’s rule” also adding that the state sector’s role “cannot be negated nor weakened”. He also stated that the state-owned enterprises have proven their worth in “both pandemic control and industrial production.” 44 high-tech companies have also been recently nationalized.
There has been a new campaign to purge corrupt capitalist roaders in the party, censor liberal economists like Mao Yushi and Sheng Hong who attack China’s publicly-owned enterprises, and to even shut down their neoliberal organizations like the Unirule Institute of Economics.
It was part of the Healthy China 2020 government initiative. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-06-14/Why-can-China-provide-1-4-billion-people-with-healthcare-coverage--HwhyDMAOdi/index.html
According to a CPC member who did a recent AMA:
On Medicare. China has a universal healthcare system, but previously a lot of workers and farmers don't have access to it. ( it was complicated to register for it). Xi in term simplified the procedure. He also kept the prices of going to hospital pretty low ( you can easily afford it even if you are poor as long as you don't have very major conditions.)
without all of the baggage that China or North Korea carry.
Hmm i wonder why :thinkin-lenin:
what is their current relationship to imperialism as to why they dont have this "baggage"? :thinkin-lenin:
U.S. hopes for second aircraft carrier visit to Vietnam this year: official
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-vietnam-idUSKCN1RF1OS
US move pits China vs Vietnam in South China Sea
https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/us-move-pits-china-vs-vietnam-in-south-china-sea/
US, Vietnam ties have never been better
https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/us-vietnam-ties-have-never-been-better/
Will We See a US-Vietnam Strategic Partnership?
https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/will-we-see-a-us-vietnam-strategic-partnership/
or the ASEAN thing which is global capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASEAN
Pretty true. Chinas not had a war since 1980 but prior to that it's foreign policy was fkn terrible
For some reason they sided with the Great Satan in the Sino-Soviet split then just funded groups that were anti-Soviet throughout the cold war for no other reason than because they were anti Soviet
Because people who think of state capitalist systems like Vietnam's positively are usually big fans of China, and the last 45 years or so of Vietnamese history conflict with their "China doesn't do imperialism" narrative. The Cambodia disaster and the Sino-Vietnamese War obviously, but also today, the current territorial disputes, the neoliberal trade deals imposed from the north, etc. If you're into the state capitalist version of "success", and you can only pick one, China has definitely achieved more of it than Vietnam (so many more billionaires!), so people pick them. That China fandom is very at odds with the Vietnamese public's view of things.
Just like American and French nationalists, China stans would really prefer you didn't spend too much time thinking about Vietnam or Vietnamese history.
To riff off of this a bit, China’s come out of its privatise-everything phase with a strong party and public ownership intact, whereas VN’s still in its phase, and is going further than China did. For instance, Vietnam joined the TPPA, which heavily regulated state owned enterprises.
In terms of anti-imperialism, Vietnam’s also getting uncomfortably close to the USA. It’s understandable given its proximity to China and the history there, but it’s also coming with significant economic shifts too.
There’s also the question of the strength of the Party. While VN is making moves around data sovereignty, it is significantly more exposed to the USA than other ML nations.
I need to research VN more generally, but your summary isn’t wrong.
If you’re a fan of the China model, you probably prefer focusing on the more successful of the two, China.
If you’re anti-imperialist, China’s the one having most of the lies spread about it, and that’s currently opposed to US hegemony.
If you’re a fan of the underdog, why not just focus on Cuba or the DPRK instead?
If you get off on obscurity, then stanning Laos makes more sense.
From an interest point of view, Vietnam’s just outclassed in most areas, which is why it plays second fiddle. The only time it really shines is in handing America’s ass to it.
If you get off on obscurity, then stanning Laos makes more sense.
Would love to see some of this on Chapo, just for variety's sake.
for one, it's doesn't produce as much text to praise vietnam as it does to struggle endlessly over xi jinping.
then there's the obvious explanation of spooks manipulating organizations and media to only focus on the countries that are currently the most unsubmissive.
China ultimately needs to be the bigger person and mend relations with Vietnam if they want to survive the 21st century. They should apologize to Vietnam for invading them after Vietnam stopped a genocide. It will be good for relations and own America at the same time. America has yet to apologize.
Makes no sense, they already agreed to end the border dispute (minus S-China sea) in 1991, apologizing won't do anything, as Vietnamese people will continue to hate Chinese for eternity anyway no matter what. The Vietnamese government is always in need to find a balance between general anti-China sentiment, not becoming too dependent on China, yet taking advantage of their location, hence why they keep flirting with people like Pompeo although 1/3rd of their imports are from China.
Because the anti-dengism circle jerk is in cognitive dissonance to the same people who will stan Vietnam with its similar system.
Edit: i have issues with Dengism too, but this seems to be a common logical inconsistancy amongsts many leftists.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Vietnamese_billionaires
You could do the exact same thing for China, I don't see your point here
That's exactly my point. People go "China has billionaires, China bad."
If thats the case then Vietnam has billionaires. Vietnam also bad.
Both countries run on basically the same system, so its pretty wild to say that one is a state capitalist and the other is socialist.
I can at least understand the people who say both are bad.
Thats my general take on their economies, yeah. The only major criticism I have of Vietnam is their willingness to be a lackey of the US military.
They use the US for their own national interests, but it’s not like they host US bases or anything.
It’s about on par with China’s support of Israel.
The only issue is the closeness to the USA makes it less likely they’ll pull out of their downward spiral of privatisation.
similar system
it's not about economic ideals, it's about material relations to production. They're smaller and less hegemonic than China
I def get your 2nd point, Vietnam isnt really big/strong enough to be imperialist (etc.) even if it wanted to, while the same is not true for PRC. Could you expand on what your 1st sentance is saying tho, are you talking about value chain positions or something like that?
I used to honestly not know a lot about Vietnam until I started engaging with Luna Oi's content. It might be ignorance in some cases.
Vietnam is not the most successful socialist nation in the world, Cuba has a signifcantly better standard of living, and Cuba is actually socialist, as opposed to Vietnam which is mixed-market market "socialism." Vietnam is state capitalist, not socialist.
You could say the same thing about Cuba tho. The most recent constitution allows for private property and free markets if I'm not mistaken.
Not sure if that's the case, but Cuba's industries as far as I'm aware are all businesses from Cuba, as opposed to Vietnam, where foreign corporations are allowed to operate an draw a profit not directly for Vietnam/Cuba.
I see that makes sense. I suppose in some sense it's in line with orthodox Marxist theory to develop national means of production, in the case of Cuba. Not sure if that's the official rationale or not but it would make sense.
Yeah I mean, most socialist states with the exception of the USSR pre-Gorbachev and after the NEP have some elements of capitalism, thereby making them not economically socialist on a technical level - however, almost all of them are advancing TOWARDS socialism, have socialist elements, and are following Marxist theory, thereby making them socialist.
It's complicated lol
All socialist states are capitalist until everywhere is socialist. What's the point in drawing the line between Vietnam and Cuba like this?
without all of the baggage that China or North Korea carry.
Do you consider being a military vassal of the US to be "baggage"?
No "socialist" state should be receiving $150 million in US military funding, or hosting 2 US aircraft carrier visits in 2 years.
https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-vietnam-2/
