The Internal Problems of Vietnam as Cause and Consequence of The War’s Course and Outcome
by Just how much of a detrimental affect the Vietnam War had on the country’s development will be discussed below. That economic development was also affected by political and military factors such as the war of independence from France, the country being split into two and the subsequent war between communist North Vietnam and capitalist South Vietnam. North Vietnam’s victory reunified the whole country under communist control and meant the removal of capitalism from the south of the country.
The internal problems of Vietnam as cause and consequence of the war’s course and outcome was demonstrated by the damage that the conflict did to the country’s agricultural sector.
By the time that North Vietnam had reunified the country its economy had been devastated by more than three decades of virtually continuous fighting. The task of rebuilding the economy was only achieved through the economic assistance of the Soviet Union. The internal problems of Vietnam as cause and consequence of the war’s course and outcome were not helped by the fact that the economic policies of the Soviet Union, which the Vietnamese copied were flawed in their own right (Woodruff, 2005 p. 275).
The Soviets wished to prop up a communist state that had already humiliated the United States, and that preferred friendship to the Soviet Union rather than a good relationship with China (Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 489). The Vietnamese economic recovery was interrupted by the short – lived Chinese invasion of 1979, which had the affect of increasing the number of refugees that fled the country. The conflict also reversed some of the economic recovery that had begun since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 (Lenman, 2004 p. 869).
Ironically it was the economic policies of China that provided the Vietnamese government with the inspiration to liberalise their economy and attempt to increase international trade with the rest of the world. Like China, Vietnam started economic liberalisation as a means to promote economic development and growth without instigating political changes that would threaten the communist control of the government. The reliance of Vietnam’s economic development upon international trade and investment was amply demonstrated when its largest trading partner the Soviet Union went into economic meltdown before finally collapsing. The demise of the Soviet Union meant that Vietnam had to increase international trade with the United States, China and other Asian states to prevent its economy from collapsing as well (Evans & Newnham, 1998, p.563). Vietnam joined the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1995 to increase its trading links and stimulate the growth of exports (Evans & Newnham, 1998, p.35). In 2006 Vietnam became the latest member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) yet had to agree stringent cuts to its import quotas to gain that membership. For the Vietnamese government such concessions are regarded as being worthwhile as growth in international trade has strengthened economic development (Beattie, Kazmin, & Williams, 7 November 2006).
Economic reforms had already started during the 1980s when the government began to realise that a centrally planned economy was not achieving economic development as quickly or as widespread as it wanted. The Vietnamese economy had recovered from the Vietnam War yet the failures of Communism meant its state – planned economy was a failure. International trade was the main way in which Vietnam was to pay for economic development and obtain the funds to implement the government’s industrialisation programmes (Whitaker’s 2007,p.1049). Of course the country’s drive to fund industrialisation through the export of its primary products became more urgent after the Soviet Union ceased its economic aid from 1989 (Evans & Newnham, 1998, p.563).
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