Forty-two years ago, on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese tanks smashed through the gates of Saigon’s Presidential Palace, thus dramatically ending what was known as the Vietnam War. South Vietnam had fallen, the US was politically stunned, and the narrative would switch to Vietnamese reunification.
Indeed in the spring of 1975, American troops had been out of Vietnam for over two years, the brunt of the fighting falling to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). But a string of North Vietnamese probing attacks in the Central Highlands in February led to the deluge with ARVN units soon falling like dominoes. The speed of North Vietnam’s invasion led to an unprecedented military rout in South Vietnam. Even Hanoi’s commanders were surprised by the speed of their victory.
We know what happened. Forcible reunification. Massive re-education. The Boat People refugees. And a dour united Socialist Republic of Vietnam under the tender charms of Hanoi’s hardline communists.
But what if it had played out differently – a historic scenario that took a different turn leading to a free and prosperous South Vietnam along the same lines as South Korea? Vietnam, after all, is a country, not a war.
In this contrarian scenario, North Vietnam abided by, not militarily violated, the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. Vietnam remained divided at the 17th parallel and both governments, North and South, retained their separate political and socioeconomic structures.
If we look at South Korea in 1975, we see the Seoul government faced the same if not even more daunting security challenges from the North. Nonetheless, Seoul could rely solidly on the US/ROK Mutual Security Treaty. South Korea’s political landscape was decidedly authoritarian under Park Chung-hee, but the system paled in comparison to the neo-Stalinist regime in the North under Kim Il-sung.
Roughly the same parallel existed in Saigon, where a tough but reforming government of President Nguyen Van Thieu, long under direct military assault by the North, faced a hardline Soviet-backed regime in Hanoi.
Economically South Korea in the 1970s was prospering despite the threat from North Korea. South Korea’s per capita income stood at US$591 in 1975, while the North was at near parity with $579. Within a few years, Seoul’s growth rates would skyrocket ahead of the faltering North. ROK’s GNP growth reached 7 % in 1972.
During Park’s rule, South Korea’s economy between 1961 and 1979 saw the per capita income rise eight-fold and economic growth skyrocket. Trade, an elixir of South Korea’s economy, jumped from $477 million in 1962 to $1.7 billion in 1972 and $153 billion by 1991.
Even a decade prior to 1975, South Vietnam’s relatively open market economy was severely constrained by the ongoing conflict. The GDP in both North and South Vietnam was just over $10 billion a year. But export and trade prospects languished.
With opening global markets in the 1980s, South Vietnam, like South Korea, would have had the chance to enjoy robust economic development.
Though the socioeconomic situation for South Vietnam’s population of 20 million was on the verge of improvement if the ceasefire held, any future prosperity for the divided nation depended on peace, not the permanent state of conflict it endured.
While North Vietnam, like North Korea, was known for its heavy industry, South Vietnam, like South Korea, was an agricultural rice bowl. Nonetheless, let’s say that export-oriented development in textiles, apparel, and light electronics would take root as they did in South Korea. With opening global markets in the 1980s, South Vietnam, like South Korea, would have had the chance to enjoy robust economic development.
In 1978, three years after the invasion of the South, Socialist Vietnam’s per capita income stood at a piddling $170 while South Korea’s was $1,200.
Alas, fate intervened with the North Vietnamese invasion and communization of the South. It would take years before Hanoi’s hardliners adopted the more flexible economic policies of doi moi, which have transformed united Vietnam into a reasonably prosperous place.
Today, Vietnam boasts 6.6 percent GDP growth and per capita income stands at $2,245. Though South Korea has slower GDP growth at 2.6 percent, its per capita income of $28,000 represents one of East Asia’s Tiger economies. In 2015, Vietnam’s exports reached $162 billion ($45 billion to the US); South Korea soared to $537 billion.
Yet while South Korea’s political system is tenaciously democratic, Vietnam’s remains in lockstep with the Communist party diktat. Press freedom is highly restricted. And according to Amnesty International, the country ranks as one of the world’s leaders in capital punishment, with 429 prisoners executed between 2013 and 2016.
We can’t change the path of history. But we can reflect upon it. What if?
The adoption of Marsism-Leninism by commie leaders in Hanoi was an idiotic experimentation leading to wasteful loss of human life and destruction. Southern leaders came up with economic reform which has shown great success. What Vietnam is practicing now is not socialism but capitalism, albeit crony capitalism.
One may ask what’s the point of going to war over a bankrupt ideology which is renounced the world over, even in the land of its birth, Russia.
Vietnam is now on the right track in opening to the world economically and needs the West to shore up its economy and reduce dominance by its giant northern neighbour, China.
funny, this smart ass avoided to mention the murderous trade embargo imposed by the US and its allies after the murderous war, and consequency of chemical and ordinances left by them that millions Vietnamese are still suffering even today.
The U.S ends Vietnam’s trade embargo in 1994. It was 23 years ago already. Speaking of war, all countries in Asia and Europe sufferred destruction from WW2, it matter how quick one can recover and rebuild the country. Vietnam currently full of corruption, and likely fall into middle income trap. Yet, I heard from those like you giving the same excuse over and over again; war and trade embargo. War is 40 years ago, trade embargo was 23 years ago. Never once did they admit their failure.
This article is Fake News along with his love of comparing this to that. The facts are plain for everyone to see and Vietnam was fighting for "independence" and would never have allowed a split country such as on the Korean peninsula. Nothing to see hear just move along!!!
The Vietnam War stems from the struggle for independence from French colonialism. The communists took the opportunity to seize power from the nationalist Tran trong Kim. They worked under the guise of fighting to get rid of foreign colonialists but steered the struggle toward imposing communist ideology upon Vietnam.
Vietnamese people have been deceived into thinking they were fighting for a noble cause which was hijacked by the communists with support from the Soviet Union and communist China. It was not possible for Hanoi to win the war without active support from Beijing which pursues its own agenda.
There is a mystery about the exact identity of Ho chi Minh, the person dubbed "father" of independent Vietnam. The real Ho chi Minh was reported deceased from illness in Hong Kong in 1932. The official Ho chi Minh worshipped by commies in Hanoi has his embaumed body displayed in the Hanoi Mausoleum, possibly to immortalize him to justify the legitimacy of the communist regime.
There are reports that the mummified body is that of a Chinese person. Indeed during the bitter China/Vietnam dispute over the South China Sea, China’s Global Times published an article and pictures pointing out Ho chi Ming was a colonel in the PLA. This could be an elaborate machination perpetrated by Beijing to subjugate Vietnam to its will.
There are calls for DNA samples be taken from the corpse in the mausoleum to ascertain its identity. If it’s established that the body is that of a Chinese agent, the Ho chi Minh mausoleum should be demolished and Ho chi Minh City reverted to its former name, Sai Gon.
The Mongol empire, world’s largest ever known, extended from China to Eastern Europe in the 13th century. In his quest to expand to South East Asia, Kublai Khan needed a safe route by invading Vietnam three times, in 1258, 1285 and 1287, but the Mongol hordes were stopped in their track. Following the same pattern, China always wanted to subjugate Vietnam in order to expand into South East Asia.
Throughout history, China has invaded Vietnam no less than 17 times and spared no ploys to take control of the country. The commies in Hanoi are accused as collaborators in relying on China to ensure the survival of the party, maintain themselves in power and keep enriching themselves. Chinese bigwigs always turn up at major Hanoi Party Congress to exert pressure, to pay bribes to insure their chosen man triumphs as Viet commie leader.
The current party head, Nguyen phu Trong, is pro China and is doing China’s bidding. There are calls for charges be levelled against Trong and fellow pro China members of the Politburo for treason against the Vietnamese nation.
Had North Vietnam abode the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 then there wouldn’t be a need to call them hypocrites. After 1973, that’s when they (well, the majority of them anyway) came out of the shadows and fought visibly.