Over 1.1 million Vietnamese people get jobs

[The Vegan Marxist]

Over 1.1 million Vietnamese people get jobs
October 8, 2010

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in the first nine months of 2010, jobs were created for 1,186 million labourers, accounting for 74.13% of the year’s plan.

Of which 58,075 labourers were sent to work abroad, accounting for 68.3% of the plan.

In September alone, some 141,500 people got jobs, including 6,500 labourers sent to work abroad.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, to realize socio-economic development targets, solutions and policies on poverty reduction, job creation and social welfare should be further promoted while encouraging enterprises to invest in the expansion of production to create more jobs for labourers.

http://www.cpv.org.vn/cpv/Modules/News_English/News_Detail_E.aspx?CN_ID=427880&CO_ID=30181

[ContrarianLemming]

Why exactly do they have jobless people at all? Or classes for that matter, of even a state.

[synthesis]

Once again, it's called "state capitalism." This is exactly why capitalists love countries like Vietnam and China.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Why exactly do they have jobless people at all? Or classes for that matter, of even a state.

Because they're not an anarchist nation. They go by Socialism, under Marxist-Leninism. They believe in the Proletarian State, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. And there's been an increase of the jobless within the rural areas of Vietnam, from what I understand due to the international economic crisis.

[ContrarianLemming]

Because they're not an anarchist nation. They go by Socialism, under Marxist-Leninism. They believe in the Proletarian State, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. And there's been an increase of the jobless within the rural areas of Vietnam, from what I understand due to the international economic crisis.

Are you telling me Marxist Leninists do not support a classless stateless society?

[synthesis]

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, to realize socio-economic development targets, solutions and policies on poverty reduction, job creation and social welfare should be further promoted while encouraging enterprises to invest in the expansion of production to create more jobs for labourers.

What do you think this means, Vegan?

[ContrarianLemming]

What do you think this means, Vegan?

this is the guy who supports North Korea as a socialist state.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Are you telling me Marxist Leninists do not support a classless stateless society?

Yeah, it's called Communism. Though Socialism is a transitional period from Capitalism to Communism.

[The Vegan Marxist]

this is the guy who supports North Korea as a socialist state.

There are plenty more of us on this forum. So don't even start a "point of a finger" game.

[AK]

Christ, TVM, you're openly supporting capitalism. I mean, I knew you were crazy, but this is ridiculous. You're buying into the bullshit progressivism of "more jobs" without reference to the capitalists that will be exploiting these workers.

[ContrarianLemming]

Yeah, it's called Communism. Though Socialism is a transitional period from Capitalism to Communism.

Why haven't they went to communism yet?


There are plenty more of us on this forum. So don't even start a "point of a finger" game.

"we are among you!"

[The Vegan Marxist]

Why haven't they went to communism yet?


You can't be that stupid.

I'm just presenting an article, where over a million jobs have been created for the Vietnamese people. Discuss or dismiss it.

[synthesis]

You can't be that stupid.

I'm just presenting an article, where over a million jobs have been created for the Vietnamese people by capitalism. Discuss or dismiss it.

Fixed. (Note the name.)

[ContrarianLemming]

ooo lifestylist

[Lolshevik]

does vietnam still have a planned economy at all? the phrase "...74.13% of the year's plan" caught me by surprise.

[KC]

God you're so delusional.

[fa2991]

They go by Socialism, under Marxist-Leninism. They believe in the Proletarian State, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Do not. :p

[pranabjyoti]

Vietnam, so far, is an example of worst kind of capitalism. Sorry, TVM, I can not agree with you in this matter. They are responsible for the demise of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, otherwise we will see today a truly Maoist (socialist) country in East Asia. I can not forgive Ho Chi Min for this reason and there are also other reasons.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

More jobs? Poor fuckers.
What with all the coffee to be grown and t-shirts to be sewn, it's a miracle anyone over there has time to meet their basic needs!

[Small Geezer]

does vietnam still have a planned economy at all? the phrase "...74.13% of the year's plan" caught me by surprise.

All the so called 'socialist' countries like China, Vietnam, Cuba, the DPRK have planned economies. It's just that they allow a (lesser or greater) degree of private capital.



Vietnam, so far, is an example of worst kind of capitalism. Sorry, TVM, I can not agree with you in this matter. They are responsible for the demise of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, otherwise we will see today a truly Maoist (socialist) country in East Asia. I can not forgive Ho Chi Min for this reason and there are also other reasons.


Ho Chi Minh was dead by the time Vietnam invaded the US-backed Khmer Rouge. And the Khmer Rouge were not Maoists their political ideology was red-tinged Cambodian nationalism. Pol Pot never called himself a Maoist while Mao was alive. Which is something you think an actual Maoist would do.

http://www.aworldtowin.org/back_issues/1999-25/PolPot_eng25.htm

[Apoi_Viitor]

Vietnam, so far, is an example of worst kind of capitalism. Sorry, TVM, I can not agree with you in this matter. They are responsible for the demise of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, otherwise we will see today a truly Maoist (socialist) country in East Asia. I can not forgive Ho Chi Min for this reason and there are also other reasons.

I agree comrade, I can't forgive Ho Chi Min for the destruction of Khmer Rouge - the greatest workers paradise since the Belgian Congo Free State. This is what true socialism - the dictatorship of the proletariat is.

http://www.intellasia.net/news/uploads/5/KhmerRougeCanal600.jpg

[Chimurenga.]

Why exactly do they have jobless people at all? Or classes for that matter, of even a state.

Nice to see that you're still living in a fantasy world.

[ContrarianLemming]

Nice to see that you're still living in a fantasy world.

Do you think it's impossible?

[Chimurenga.]

Do you think it's impossible?

Yes. Absolutely. As long as US imperialism exists and is functioning, it is impossible for a whole country to remain stateless.

[ContrarianLemming]

Yes. Absolutely. As long as US imperialism exists and is functioning, it is impossible for a whole country to remain stateless.

Why?

[Robocommie]

Why?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_j6135gEuOCM/TIWKfr3VnfI/AAAAAAAABZQ/o2rCGiCXaiQ/s1600/checkmated2.jpg

[Chimurenga.]

Why?

I can't believe that I have to explain this.

In the real world, the US actively pursues and acquires crazy things like cheap labor or natural resources. When you don't have a strong state and a military defending not only your independence from countries like the US but also your social and economic gains, you will ultimately lose all of that. Historically speaking, you can use any example of where a stateless system was tried and I can guarantee that most, if not all of those examples you can think of have been crushed completely by a group that got their shit together and seized state power.

If you don't think that the US would be willing to crush some stateless society and instill a puppet state that is beneficial to their interests, then you're delusional.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Vietnam, so far, is an example of worst kind of capitalism. Sorry, TVM, I can not agree with you in this matter. They are responsible for the demise of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, otherwise we will see today a truly Maoist (socialist) country in East Asia. I can not forgive Ho Chi Min for this reason and there are also other reasons.

You support the Khmer Rouge? That was an absolute disaster.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

lol wow

[Saorsa]

You know Vegan, a lot of people in capitalist countries have jobs...

[The Vegan Marxist]

You know Vegan, a lot of people in capitalist countries have jobs...

Understandable. But I don't see millions of jobs being created under capitalism. I could be wrong, which is why discussions help the matter, not personal attacks (not by you, but by others).

[Saorsa]

But I don't see millions of jobs being created under capitalism.

I'm pretty sure the majority of people in your country have jobs. Were they created by socialism?

[maskerade]

TVM is my favorite troll

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

An authentically Marxist examination of the globe isn't simply a form of "state shopping" or "party shopping". The fact that so many people rely on such approaches is symptomatic of a broad bankruptcy in the area of theory. Socialism is more than simply having a sizable state sector or welfare system. It's not simply that the more a state owns, the more socialist it is. It's a matter of what the class character of the state in question is. Does the state in question reshape society in the image of the proletariat or does it reproduce the exploiters thereof? Does the state in question pursue production based fundamentally on use value or exchange value? These are the sorts of questions that should be asked.

The truth is that there are no socialist countries in today's world. Disheartening as that fact may be, intellectual dishonesty will not change that fact. This matter should have become painfully clear this year for many people, especially in light of such developments as Cuba's decision to lay off fully a million government workers (i.e. up to 20% of the country's workforce) and North Korea's clear revelation that "false Western rumors" about dynastic succession aren't false at all. One has to choose not to see the obvious significance of such developments as these. Yet people still dream up explanations and excuses for all this and more.

Vietnam's "socialism" is, if anything, even more obviously phony than that of the two highlighted 'examples' mentioned above. Their main 'ally' (patron state) for most of the last 15 years has been the United States of America: the epicenter of the global imperialist system. Vietnam has a very large private sector and foreign direct investment and now, as we see, invites even more. I fail to see how one can possibly miss the true class character of the modern Vietnamese state.

I will, however, come to the defense of the Khmer Rouge. (The historical Khmer Rouge, not the modern, revisionist version that supports de facto Vietnamese and Western control over their own country.) The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot led an authentic proletarian revolution in Cambodia. In order to launch that, they had to go against the advice of and without the substantive assistance of their Vietnamese neighbors, who instead chauvinistically supported Cambodia's monarchy. The most common arguments people use to explain how Cambodia's revolution wasn't genuinely proletarian are about as scientific as the Bible (which, as we've seen here in the past, many of them are actually students of). A typical argument goes that the Cambodian Communists were phonies because they relied on the social base of the society in question, the peasantry, to conduct the revolution and that, accordingly, their revolution was conducted according to peasant interests. Relying on the peasants in making revolution in a feudal society is, however, a perfectly scientific, proletarian strategy for victory, which was actually achieved. The depopulation of the urban areas following the people's war is by no means evidence to the contrary. Many would-be communist theoreticians today forget that just because one might live in a rural area does not make one a peasant (a.k.a. farmer) per se. Being peasant in background does not make one materially a peasant by itself. The proletariat reshapes society in its own image, and that's what the Khmer Rouge led forward in Cambodia: even as they depopulated the urban areas, they collectivized agriculture pretty much in totality. Thereby the peasants were transformed into de facto agricultural workers. The war had seen the destruction of all noteworthy urban industry in Cambodia and of much of the country's food supply; most of this being the result of American bombing campaigns. The U.S. government itself predicted that a million Cambodians would inevitably starve in the years to follow as a direct result. The urban population was moved to the fields because there literally was no way for the new government to continue delivering food to the urban areas. Thus the urban dwellers had to be moved to where the food was. The alternative was greater starvation. A lot of the country's seemingly harsh policies during the Khmer Rouge period were, in fact, an outgrowth of this extremely adverse objective situation. For example, people had to work long hours in the fields to guarantee that as much food would be produced as possible...such as to minimize the rate of starvation, not to exploit the working masses and accumulate private wealth! Production occurred for the purpose of meeting human needs, not for satisfying the profit margins of any domestic or foreign capitalists. The monarchy and state religion were abolished and the imperialists of all stripes kicked out. Living conditions were difficult, but again this was not at all principally the fault of the new government, but of U.S. actions during the people's war. Unlike Vietnam, revolutionary Cambodia ("Democratic Kampuchea") didn't have any imperialist superpower patron states on which to rely for fresh supplies of technology and food in its camp. They, as they always had, pressed on anyway in accordance with the Maoist principle of self-reliance. And yes they did consider themselves Maoists and specifically, decisively take the side of Mao's China in the Sino-Soviet Split (unlike their Vietnamese conquerors). Many genuine comrades display only cowardice in refusing to come to the defense of these (historically) authentic communist revolutionaries.

Now I don't mean to suggest, of course, that the Khmer Rouge's "Democratic Kampuchea" was by any means without faults and shortcomings. The "Year Zero" concept was a pretty simplistic and obviously incorrect solution to the country's postwar problems. They saw that Cambodia had been reduced to a primitive state and accordingly sought to "restart civilization". That was appropriate. But problematically, they sought to do this in a voluntarist way, aiming to pretty much leap past the democratic and socialist stages of proletarian revolution directly into full-blown (or semi-full-blown, anyway) communism. Almost right away they outlawed finance and all other forms of commodity production, as well as religion, for example. Collectivization, to a considerable degree, was pursued in a commandist way rather than in an immensely mass-based way. And there were real shortcomings in the way of failing to get fully beyond traditional prejudices against Vietnamese people and certain other national minorities from nations that had traditionally oppressed and exploited Cambodia. (And yes these shortcomings in attitudes did sometimes translate into actual corresponding public policies that were horrific for their innocent victims.) But make no mistake, this was an authentic attempt at achieving communism. Under the Khmer Rouge, there was no economic inequality in Cambodia to speak of; no exploiting and exploited classes to speak of. There is no good reason not to uphold and defend this genuine historical communist revolution.

[ContrarianLemming]

I can't believe that I have to explain this.

In the real world, the US actively pursues and acquires crazy things like cheap labor or natural resources. When you don't have a strong state and a military defending not only your independence from countries like the US but also your social and economic gains, you will ultimately lose all of that. Historically speaking, you can use any example of where a stateless system was tried and I can guarantee that most, if not all of those examples you can think of have been crushed completely by a group that got their shit together and seized state power.

If you don't think that the US would be willing to crush some stateless society and instill a puppet state that is beneficial to their interests, then you're delusional.

This is such a wonderful look into your head, I wasn't even asking it in a critical manner, I just wanted to know your opinion on why, in fact I agree with you all the way, but you, like the prick you are, immediately took it with aggression and hostility and insulted me, as you do with any member who even whiffs of disagreeing with you. Pretty standard line for people like you, you couldn't, just this once, take things rationally with "OK, heres where I disagree, heres why, and heres my challenge to you/question for you", same as Vegan, I'm just delusional, end of! You have a lot of growing up to do.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

dude whats wrong with you? How can you think like you do?!

[ContrarianLemming]

who?

[pranabjyoti]

Ho Chi Minh was dead by the time Vietnam invaded the US-backed Khmer Rouge. And the Khmer Rouge were not Maoists their political ideology was red-tinged Cambodian nationalism. Pol Pot never called himself a Maoist while Mao was alive. Which is something you think an actual Maoist would do.

http://www.aworldtowin.org/back_issues/1999-25/PolPot_eng25.htm
US backed Khmer Rouge? Any source of that? Do you forgot that US bombed Cambodia as it declares war against US during the invasion of Vietnam. Cambodia was not less damaged by US bombs than Vietnam.
I myself always tried to look at any revolutionary personality by what he/she does or did, not what he says or said. As far as I know, the way the Khmer Rouge operates in their controlled area is very similar to the mode of operation of today's Maoists. As long as Mao was alive, Khmer Rouge made close relations with China and the as far as I know, a part of the revolutionary portion of CPC supports the Khmer Rouge.

[pranabjyoti]

You support the Khmer Rouge? That was an absolute disaster.
Why? The rhetoric that had been said about Khmer Rouge those days has been repeated again today against organizations like FARC, ELN, Maoists of India and other organizations, which take the armed path. At least I myself believed in those cliches, do you?

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

pranabjyoti wrote:
US backed Khmer Rouge? Any source of that? Do you forgot that US bombed Cambodia as it declares war against US during the invasion of Vietnam. Cambodia was not less damaged by US bombs than Vietnam.While I also consider myself a retrospective supporter of the "Democratic Kampuchea" government, there is actually truth to the argument that the Khmer Rouge kinda degenerated in the latter years, particularly following their ouster. One expression of this political degeneration was indeed a certain measure of reliance upon American subsidies. It was symptomatic of a partial acceptance of China's post-Mao-era, reactionary line which was supportive of U.S. imperialism as theoretically a bulwark against expanding Soviet hegemony in general and expanding Soviet regional hegemony in particular. Contextually, the fact that China was undergoing a counterrevolution was not so easy to see at the time as it is in retrospect and the majority of the global Maoist movement went astray by accepting the post-Mao-era CCP as still essentially a communist organization. The Khmer Rouge, in my view, was, to some degree anyway, swept up in this. The support they got from the United States and even the United Nations (which gave them Cambodia's representative seating even into the 1990s) ultimately had a major, negative impact on their politics. This can be seen in that, once the U.S. ceased to recognize them as Cambodia's legitimate government, they pretty quickly just gave into that verdict, stopped their people's war, entered the new bourgeois government, and arrested and tried Pol Pot. This is how the revisionist Khmer Rouge of today was born.

[Obs]

Once again, it's called "state capitalism." This is exactly why capitalists love countries like Vietnam and China.
Vietnam isn't state capitalist. It's full-fledged capitalism, and anyone who claims otherwise is delusional. Vietnam has private property, exploited workers, and all other traits of capitalism. It has no socialist traits whatsoever, and workers are not in control in any way in any of the multinational corporations they slave for.

I don't get why people pretend that Vietnam is socialist, since even the Vietnamese leadership speaks in plainly capitalist terminology - wanting foreign investors and whatnot. The CPV is literally selling out the Vietnamese people to the highest bidders.

Also, this thread is not about the Khmer Rouge. Please take that elsewhere so we can go back to why 1.1 million jobs in Vietnam is not necessarily a victory for socialism.

[gorillafuck]

Sweatshops run by corporations aren't socialism. Vietnams economy is characterized by sweatshops that are run by corporations. Vietnam isn't socialism. It used to be, but it's not at all now.

[cbaz]

Fixed. (Note the name.)

exactly what is that supposed to mean?

[The Vegan Marxist]

exactly what is that supposed to mean?

The person changed my name from "The Vegan Marxist" to the "The Vegan". A childish antic on his/her part.

[ZeroNowhere]

I can't believe that I have to explain this.

In the real world, the US actively pursues and acquires crazy things like cheap labor or natural resources. When you don't have a strong state and a military defending not only your independence from countries like the US but also your social and economic gains, you will ultimately lose all of that. Historically speaking, you can use any example of where a stateless system was tried and I can guarantee that most, if not all of those examples you can think of have been crushed completely by a group that got their shit together and seized state power.
And therefore, class rule and as such the capitalist mode of production must be retained. Please do go on.

But really, it's somewhat ludicrous to suggest that a nation which has abolished capitalism, and hence the illusory general interest which takes the form of state, is somehow more vulnerable than one in which, for example, the proletariat continues to have to assert its own particular interest as the general interest; one would think that the latter would in fact be more vulnerable, being still in the process of revolution, and hence having to battle the US while still in the process of expropriating the expropriators.


More jobs? Poor fuckers.It would be far better that they remain unemployed, I'm sure.

[fa2991]

The person changed my name from "The Vegan Marxist" to the "The Vegan". A hilarious antic on his/her part.

Fixed.

[Dimentio]

Because they're not an anarchist nation. They go by Socialism, under Marxist-Leninism. They believe in the Proletarian State, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. And there's been an increase of the jobless within the rural areas of Vietnam, from what I understand due to the international economic crisis.

Vietnam is one of the tiger economies of Asia. While highly successful at that, I fail to see what is particularly marxist-leninist 'bout that...

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

Vietnam is one of the tiger economies of Asia. While highly successful at that, I fail to see what is particularly marxist-leninist 'bout that...

They put the colour red on some of there things, and prefix other things with 'workers'.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Fixed.

How about participating in the thread instead of being a troll.

[fa2991]

How about participating in the thread instead of pwning me.

Fixed.

(This is my last troll post on this thread, I promise. :lol:)

[Robocommie]

You shouldn't be troll posting at all.

And for the record, because I noticed a lot of Anarcho-Communists dug my checkmate picture, I want to note it was intended entirely sarcastically. Retain or retract your thanks as you deem fit, accordingly. :p

[fa2991]

You shouldn't be troll posting at all.

And for the record, because I noticed a lot of Anarcho-Communists dug my checkmate picture, I want to note it was intended entirely sarcastically. Retain or retract your thanks as you deem fit, accordingly. :p

Hey, the chess pieces was trolling if anything is. It was just really classy, hilarious trolling. :thumbup1:

I don't see how a person could be anything but a troll in this thread.

[Obs]

Hey, the chess pieces was trolling if anything is. It was just really classy, hilarious trolling. :thumbup1:

I don't see how a person could be anything but a troll in this thread.
I tried my best.

[synthesis]

You shouldn't be troll posting at all.

And for the record, because I noticed a lot of Anarcho-Communists dug my checkmate picture, I want to note it was intended entirely sarcastically. Retain or retract your thanks as you deem fit, accordingly. :p

What do you mean sarcastically?

[Omi]

War creates jobs.

Yay war!

:rolleyes:

[What Would Durruti Do?]

It would be far better that they remain unemployed, I'm sure.

I think that's a matter of opinion.

Work for the man and have a little bit of cash? Don't work at all and not have any money? It's a tough choice, honestly, and I respect anyone who chooses the latter.

I would much rather live off the grid and be self-sustainable than be exploited by a capitalist.

It's actually kind of sad that being exploited is something to be celebrated in capitalist society. Have they really brainwashed us that badly? Guess so.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Tired of bourgeouis Reactionary scum? visit REDANARCHIST D0T 0RG, 100% REACTIONARY FREE (and no politicians from Shreveport Louisiana, hint hint)

again:

REDANARCHIST D0T 0RG


RAAN O MUERTE!!!!


(Leninists/Reactonaries/MLN will be BANNED and not allowed to join.)

I'm tired of RAAN-inites. Don't you have a building to smash windows at?

[mosfeld]

Im curious, how can you call yourself an anti-revisionist and still support state-capitalist regimes? Waving a red flag does NOT automatically make you a socialist. A major point of anti-revisionism is to denounce state-capitalism and revisionist regimes such as post-Stalin Soviet Union (for those who are going for the bait, Im not claiming that the Soviet Union, overnight, became capitalist after Stalin), contemporary China, etc... Maybe you should change your title to something more appropriate like Brezhnevite? :) (or, you know, even better just change your bankrupt political line.)

[The Vegan Marxist]

Im curious, how can you call yourself an anti-revisionist and still support state-capitalist regimes? Waving a red flag does NOT automatically make you a socialist. A major point of anti-revisionism is to denounce state-capitalism and revisionist regimes such as post-Stalin Soviet Union (for those who are going for the bait, Im not claiming that the Soviet Union, overnight, became capitalist after Stalin), contemporary China, etc... Maybe you should change your title to something more appropriate like Brezhnevite? :) (or, you know, even better just change your bankrupt political line.)

State-Capitalist? Hah! That's a good one. I don't uphold the b.s. rhetoric ISO's & anarchists seem to try & spew against true Socialist countries like Cuba.

[Saorsa]

State-capitalism was put forward by more trends than just the IST. It was put forward by left-communists, council communists, and by Maoists. It is not just a Cliffite notion.

Cuba is not state-capitalist. And neither is Vietnam... Vietnam is just capitalist.

Seriously TVM, wander through a Vietnamese sweatshop sometime and once you've left the building, let's have a conversation about socialism.

[The Vegan Marxist]

State-capitalism was put forward by more trends than just the IST. It was put forward by left-communists, council communists, and by Maoists. It is not just a Cliffite notion.

Cuba is not state-capitalist. And neither is Vietnam... Vietnam is just capitalist.

Seriously TVM, wander through a Vietnamese sweatshop sometime and once you've left the building, let's have a conversation about socialism.

I've spoken without thinking on Vietnam, & of course I don't know whether or not Vietnam is still socialist or not. But of course, there's very little info on Vietnam as of late to make any distinct analysis of Vietnam, which troubles me of course.

[Thirsty Crow]

I'm just presenting an article, where over a million jobs have been created for the Vietnamese people. Discuss or dismiss it.
Oh I'll discuss it.
This is a proof that a "socialist country" is a moronic oxymoron since it is clear as day that Vietnam, as a "socialist country", is integrated into the capitalist world market, which is the cause of the economic crisis' impact on Vietnam.

[gorillafuck]

I've spoken without thinking on Vietnam, & of course I don't know whether or not Vietnam is still socialist or not. But of course, there's very little info on Vietnam as of late to make any distinct analysis of Vietnam, which troubles me of course.
There is actually a good amount of information on Vietnam.

[The Vegan Marxist]

There is actually a good amount of information on Vietnam.

I've never seen it. Though, never really done much research on Vietnam in the first place. Been working most of my days.

[Thirsty Crow]

I've never seen it. Though, never really done much research on Vietnam in the first place. Been working most of my days.


Because they're not an anarchist nation. They go by Socialism, under Marxist-Leninism. They believe in the Proletarian State, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

It's fine to work, we are all forced to in order that we may survive.
But its not fine to assess some phenomenon without any information about it.

[The Vegan Marxist]

It's fine to work, we are all forced to in order that we may survive.
But its not fine to assess some phenomenon without any information about it.

That was mainly suppose to have been a response against what I thought was an anarchist attack against the Marxist-Leninist view of the Proletarian State. Didn't necessarily mean to constitute as a fact of how Vietnam operates.

[Small Geezer]

I think the difference between out-and-out capitalist countries like the ones in the West and the so called 'socialist' countries is that the 'socialist' economies are planned economies, essentially.

Vietnam and China still have 5 year or 7 year plans and the economy is stage managed by the state. Talking about what percentage of the MOP is owned by the state has only limited use in discussing the nature of these societies.

Vietnam is actually more hands on than China in this regard.

The core fact of this discussion is that the 'socialist' societies are bureaucratically managed statist command economies which are ATM trying to solve/manage their problems with economic development, for obvious reasons.

The Western states are dictatorships of the bourgeoisie where capital has a stranglehold on the governance system and directs it at it's whim.

I'm not praising the bureaucratic systems like Cuba, China, the DPRK and Vietnam I'm just offering an analysis of what they are which is vital to revolutionaries fighting against their number 1 enemy, US imperialism.

[Crux]

I've never seen it. Though, never really done much research on Vietnam in the first place. Been working most of my days.
You don't say? Then what leads you to believe it is socialist?

[The Vegan Marxist]

You don't say? Then what leads you to believe it is socialist?

I go by only what is presented to me. I've heard under various times by Cuba that Vietnam is Socialist, & they have direct relations with each other. Cuba would know more than us, given that we don't have any direct relations with Vietnam & I'm pretty sure none of us have even visited Vietnam, at least the vast majority of those on this forum.

[Crux]

I go by only what is presented to me. I've heard under various times by Cuba that Vietnam is Socialist, & they have direct relations with each other. Cuba would know more than us, given that we don't have any direct relations with Vietnam & I'm pretty sure none of us have even visited Vietnam, at least the vast majority of those on this forum.
You regulary speak to Cuba? That's a bit..weird. I have met at least one person who's been to and actually lived in vietnam for a year or so, but that was a while ago i got that report. Anyway most sources are pretty clear.

[fa2991]

I'm tired of RAAN-inites. Don't you have a building to smash windows at?

:lol: It's funny because the way you phrased that made me picture RAAN kids throwing windows at buildings.


State-Capitalist? Hah! That's a good one. I don't uphold the b.s. rhetoric ISO's & anarchists seem to try & spew against true Socialist countries like Cuba. He raised a legitimate point. How are you an "anti-revisionist?" You uphold China as socialist, too, don't you?


I've spoken without thinking on Vietnam, & of course I don't know whether or not Vietnam is still socialist or not. But of course, there's very little info on Vietnam as of late to make any distinct analysis of Vietnam, which troubles me of course. :blink: To be honest, the only source I've ever seen that would indicate that Vietnam was socialist is the Vietnamese press. Haven't you seen the wealth of information indicating that it's not socialist?

Like this?



In Vietnam, wages can be as low as nine to 15 cents an hour. It is not uncommon for young women to be forced to work 14 ½ hours a day, seven days a week. There is no such thing as overtime pay. Workers earn the same $35 to $40 a month whether they work 48, or 60, or 80 hours a week. There is no health insurance. There is no right to organize independent unions.

http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0090

[Robocommie]

What do you mean sarcastically?

I agree with proletarianrevolution.

[The Vegan Marxist]

You regulary speak to Cuba? That's a bit..weird. I have met at least one person who's been to and actually lived in vietnam for a year or so, but that was a while ago i got that report. Anyway most sources are pretty clear.

I speak to those who are present in Cuba, such as Mr. Oduardo who's a Professor in Cuba, & was also one of the guerrillas who fought with Comrade Fidel against the Batista regime:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000476426983&v=wall&viewas=100001041497308&ref=sgm

Not to mention Cuba mentions Vietnam's "socialist movement", along with their political/economical relations together, which you would know this if you ever read Cuban news sites such as Granma.

[The Vegan Marxist]

He raised a legitimate point. How are you an "anti-revisionist?" You uphold China as socialist, too, don't you?



I am an anti-revisionist under Marxist-Leninism, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize a country as Socialist if a country is, in fact, still socialist, still a workers state, in which even Comrade Iseul admits who's Chinese himself, despite his opposition against the CPC. Revisionism, by no means, declares capitalist restoration. Take the Soviet Union for example. Despite revisionism making its presence known from Khrushchev to Gorbachev, capitalism was not restored 'til 1991.

[Sir Comradical]

If surplus value is being extracted and then redistributed or directed towards common goals, then you may have an argument. Since we're talking about private companies and foreign investment, it's quite obvious that surplus value is being extracted by private interests - I think the word for this is capitalism. So long as all workers shoulder the burden of social-labour, there should be no reason for unemployment in the first place.

[The Vegan Marxist]

If surplus value is being extracted and then redistributed or directed towards common goals, then you may have an argument. Since we're talking about private companies and foreign investment, it's quite obvious that surplus value is being extracted by private interests - I think the word for this is capitalism. So long as all workers shoulder the burden of social-labour, there should be no reason for unemployment in the first place.

Is this the predominant force under Vietnam's economy though? From what I've understood, the predominant force within the Vietnamese economy is a centralized economy where the means of production is collectively owned between the workers & the State, with the State being controlled by the leading Communist Party, who, from as much as I've gathered, have not allowed the entrance of capitalists within the party, unlike China did back in 2002.

[Saorsa]

But of course, there's very little info on Vietnam as of late to make any distinct analysis of Vietnam, which troubles me of course.

There is an enormous amount of information about Vietnam. A quick googlesearch would give you weeks of reading.

TVM, maybe you should do independent research and come to your own conclusions, rather than misguidedly and uninformedly calling a sweat-shop nightmare like Vietnam a 'socialist' country just because the Cuban govt said so in some press release.

Your politics seem to be heading more and more towards "if the US doesn't like it, I like it". There's nothing Marxist about that.

[Obs]

Your politics seem to be heading more and more towards "if the US doesn't like it, I like it". There's nothing Marxist about that.
Well, except the US is on great terms with the government of Vietnam. More like "If the US disliked it at some point in time, I like it".

So TVM must really like Putin.

[Omi]

I go by only what is presented to me. I've heard under various times by Cuba that Vietnam is Socialist, & they have direct relations with each other. Cuba would know more than us, given that we don't have any direct relations with Vietnam & I'm pretty sure none of us have even visited Vietnam, at least the vast majority of those on this forum.

A close friend of mine got back from a long travel in East Asia not long ago. It's not pretty, I assure you.

[pranabjyoti]

I speak to those who are present in Cuba, such as Mr. Oduardo who's a Professor in Cuba, & was also one of the guerrillas who fought with Comrade Fidel against the Batista regime:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000476426983&v=wall&viewas=100001041497308&ref=sgm

Not to mention Cuba mentions Vietnam's "socialist movement", along with their political/economical relations together, which you would know this if you ever read Cuban news sites such as Granma.
I think that's more diplomatic than ideological. Do Cuba even announced the Gorby regime capitalist-revisionist? As far as I know, NO. Vietnam doesn't become socialist by declaration of Cuba only. You have to understand the realpolitik behind and please don't always blindly have faith in what you have said, however revolutionary the person may be. You have judge everybody with your own knowledge and experience.

[LeninBalls]

Take the Soviet Union for example. Despite revisionism making its presence known from Khrushchev to Gorbachev, capitalism was not restored 'til 1991.

do you even know what anti revisionism is

[The Vegan Marxist]

TVM, maybe you should do independent research and come to your own conclusions

This would be an option if I didn't have to work for a living. Just because others have free time to do whatever doesn't mean I do. Which is why I present whatever I have on this site, & then let others talk about it, & I learn from there, given that I don't have the time to do much research these days.

[Omi]

Given that you have an avarage posting rate of:

Posts Per Day: 10.92

(from your public profile)

Not having time to find out that Vietnam isn't in fact socialist and would be considered by most sane people a capitalist hell-hole, isn't really much of a defence of your position now is it?

[Obs]

This would be an option if I didn't have to work for a living. Just because others have free time to do whatever doesn't mean I do. Which is why I present whatever I have on this site, & then let others talk about it, & I learn from there, given that I don't have the time to do much research these days.
3090 forum posts, 100 blog entries, and 58 YouTube videos speak otherwise. Just think, in the time it took you to make this thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEVU6GISWII), you could have read this thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Vietnam). Sorry, there's no excuse for ignorance of this magnitude of Vietnam's situation if you intend to take up the task of informing others about it. You did a dumb thing and got told off by a bunch of people for it, leave it at that.

I suggest you remove your "anti-revisionist" label for as long as you intend to personify revisionism.

[gorillafuck]

in which even Comrade Iseul admits who's Chinese himself, despite his opposition against the CPC.
As if it matters at all that Iseul is Chinese. You know she lives in the UK right?


This would be an option if I didn't have to work for a living. Just because others have free time to do whatever doesn't mean I do.
You have an average of 10.92 posts per day. That's a lot.

[Queercommie Girl]

Work for the man and have a little bit of cash? Don't work at all and not have any money? It's a tough choice, honestly, and I respect anyone who chooses the latter.


Obviously you inhabit a magical fantasy world in which food appears out of thin air.

Has it ever occurred to you that in many parts of the world, don't have any money implies literal death?

Sorry, but I'd rather be a "running dog of imperialism" than actually die. Food is more important for me than socialist ideology.

There is always the potential possibility of fighting back against capitalism as long as you are alive. If you die, the potential is gone. As the Chinese saying goes: "As long as the azure mountains remain, one would not need to worry about not having any wood to burn."

Survival is the primary consideration.

[Queercommie Girl]

As if it matters at all that Iseul is Chinese. You know he lives in the UK right?


You have an average of 10.92 posts per day. That's a lot.

Use the correct pronoun for me please.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Obviously you inhabit a magical fantasy world in which food appears out of thin air.

Has it ever occurred to you that in many parts of the world, don't have any money implies literal death?

Sorry, but I'd rather be a "running dog of imperialism" than actually die. Food is more important for me than socialist ideology.

There is always the potential possibility of fighting back against capitalism as long as you are alive. If you die, the potential is gone. As the Chinese saying goes: "As long as the azure mountains remain, one would not need to worry about not having any wood to burn."

Survival is the primary consideration.

Food does not require money for its production, and nobody has ever literally died from not having enough cash.
This argument has such disturbing liberal baggage. Think about it - prior to neo-/colonization & market economies do you think people were just starving?
Communities are capable of taking care of themselves, and it is this autonomy that capital attempts to rob them of.
The possibility of fighting back against capitalism exists most significantly where we aren't dependent on it for food/shelter/etc.
"Survival is the primary consideration," is the same bullshit invoked to justify anything from snitching to building bombs. Fuck it.

[Queercommie Girl]

Food does not require money for its production, and nobody has ever literally died from not having enough cash.
This argument has such disturbing liberal baggage. Think about it - prior to neo-/colonization & market economies do you think people were just starving?
Communities are capable of taking care of themselves, and it is this autonomy that capital attempts to rob them of.
The possibility of fighting back against capitalism exists most significantly where we aren't dependent on it for food/shelter/etc.
"Survival is the primary consideration," is the same bullshit invoked to justify anything from snitching to building bombs. Fuck it.

We don't live in a pre-capitalist world anymore. Capitalism has taken over the entire globe. The market now penetrates everywhere.

Socialism doesn't emerge just through some kind of utopian "automist community-based local communism", but through actual economic and political struggles by workers with real economic power through democratic trade unionism, party organisation etc.

Yes, survival is the primary consideration since base determines superstructure. Ethics don't have value in the abstract sense. I'm a strategic pragmatist not an useless ideological purist. If survival requires "building bombs" and killing people I would do that, it's called the right of oppressed groups to fight back against their oppressors.

Socialism needs real workers inside the current economic system with real economic powers and strong union organisation, like industrial workers, not a mass collection of economically useless unemployed lumpen-proletariat or liberal-utopian armchair communists.

[gorillafuck]

Use the correct pronoun for me please.
Sorry, my mistake.

[Gustav HK]

Vietnam is a capitalistic state under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

It is not in any way a socialist and/or a proletarian state.

And Doi Moi is certainly not a kind of NEP. Doi Moi is open private market capitalism.

Or maybe you look at things that way I have drawed, The Vegan Marxist?


BTW your revisionism makes baby Stalin cry.:crying:

[L.A.P.]

There are plenty more of us on this forum. So don't even start a "point of a finger" game.

North Korea, a socialist state?:confused:.......:laugh:

[KC]

This would be an option if I didn't have to work for a living.

LOL first you openly admit that you have absolutely no basis for your belief that North Korea is a socialist state and now you openly admit that you don't even have time to research your beliefs enough to defend them.

I guess FRSO just spoon feeds you this shit and you accept it blindly?

[synthesis]

I agree with proletarianrevolution.

Ah, OK. Me too - I don't know if I understand what was sarcastic about that post, then.

[The Vegan Marxist]

You have an average of 10.92 posts per day. That's a lot.

I've been working for the past couple months now. I do have hours available on me at night, which I could do my resting, but I'm usually on here or somewhere else.

[Crux]

Lame.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Lame.

Excuse me if I don't give a shit what you think.

[Crux]

Excuse me if I don't give a shit what you think.
Ditto, bro. So why do you keep posting? If you're too busy with other stuff to make something at least somewhat worthwhile, why post at all?

[The Vegan Marxist]

Ditto, bro. So why do you keep posting? If you're too busy with other stuff to make something at least somewhat worthwhile, why post at all?

I'm off of work now, so I'm posting to talk to fellow Comrades & discuss politics. That is the predominant reason of posting on this forum. So please shut the fuck up.

[Crux]

Discussing politics like, say, the economy of Vietnam, requires some prior knowledge on the subject don't you think? Or at least to have an idea you are capable explaining and defending.

Don't start off with:

Because they're not an anarchist nation. They go by Socialism, under Marxist-Leninism. They believe in the Proletarian State, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. And there's been an increase of the jobless within the rural areas of Vietnam, from what I understand due to the international economic crisis.
...if you are clueless.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Discussing politics like, say, the economy of Vietnam, requires some prior knowledge on the subject don't you think? Or at least to have an idea you are capable explaining and defending.

Don't start off with:

...if you are clueless.

This, as I've explained, was out against what I thought was an anarchist attack against the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the Proletarian State. Of course, out of my own feelings, letting go of any materialism, I compared this with Vietnam. Do I have to explain myself a 3rd time now, or can we move on?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

We don't live in a pre-capitalist world anymore. Capitalism has taken over the entire globe. The market now penetrates everywhere.

Socialism doesn't emerge just through some kind of utopian "automist community-based local communism", but through actual economic and political struggles by workers with real economic power through democratic trade unionism, party organisation etc.

Yes, survival is the primary consideration since base determines superstructure. Ethics don't have value in the abstract sense. I'm a strategic pragmatist not an useless ideological purist. If survival requires "building bombs" and killing people I would do that, it's called the right of oppressed groups to fight back against their oppressors.

Socialism needs real workers inside the current economic system with real economic powers and strong union organisation, like industrial workers, not a mass collection of economically useless unemployed lumpen-proletariat or liberal-utopian armchair communists.

I meant building bombs for the state / the pigs in their various guises.
As for "actual struggle" it rarely plays out in the realms of the Economic or Political - it plays out in actual relationships and in passing beyond existing spheres of capitalist organization (a dead cop or a torched factory is neither Economic nor Political - it's real).

Socialism has proved itself to be nothing but the same daily bullshit as capitalism, organized by bureaucrats instead of capitalists. Vietnam should serve as an example. Any glorification of workers except vis-a-vis their abolition as such is going to be more of the same. Fuck that. Communism or bust.

[Obs]

This, as I've explained, was out against what I thought was an anarchist attack against the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the Proletarian State. Of course, out of my own feelings, letting go of any materialism, I compared this with Vietnam. Do I have to explain myself a 3rd time now, or can we move on?

Just one more time, if you please.

[Tifosi]

This, as I've explained, was out against what I thought was an anarchist attack against the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the Proletarian State. Of course, out of my own feelings, letting go of any materialism, I compared this with Vietnam. Do I have to explain myself a 3rd time now, or can we move on?

http://holycrapthatsfunny.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/epicfail02.jpg

[pranabjyoti]

India enlists aid from imperialists, zionists–and now from Vietnamese, in the fight against tribals and Maoists (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/9488/)

[India's "Operation Green Hunt", facing significant political opposition and militant resistance from Indian people, is drawing in technical resources and miltary training from imperialist and Zionist forces to assist them in fighting people in India. Now, Vietnam's government, having long turned to the capitalist market and friendly relations with imperialism, is sending forces to train Indian "counter-insurgency" forces waging an internal war against tribal people, Maoists, and independence movements in Kashmir, Manipur, Assam, and elsewhere. This story (and snarky headline) from The Telegraph gloats over Vietnam's turnabout on revolution, but the spirit of resistance, once led by Vietnamese, is now unmistakably carried by the tribals in India.--Frontlines ed.]
The Telegraph, Calcutta, India
October 14, 2010
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101014/jsp/frontpage/story_13056615.jsp#
Ho! Look who’s teaching army

– Hanoi tie-up in Maoist time

SUJAN DUTTA http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101014/images/14antony.jpg http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101014/images/14viet.jpg AK Antony (top), General Phung Quang Thanh New Delhi, Oct. 13: The Indian Army has decided to learn from the masters of the bush war — Vietnam — in the middle of an intensive study of Maoist military tactics.
The irony is hard to miss. When the Naxalites emerged in India in the late-1960s, a popular slogan that reverberated in Bengal was “Tomar naam, amar naam, Vietnam, Vietnam”.
Translated it means “Your name, my name, Vietnam, Vietnam”, but the English does not have quite the same ring as the passionate Bengali in which the slogan was chorused.
That was in solidarity with the Communist-led resistance war against the Americans and their puppet South Vietnamese government. The struggle that drove the Americans out in 1975 was probably the most successful guerrilla war in modern history.
Today, nearly 35 years later, defence minister A.K. Antony and his Vietnamese counterpart General Phung Quang Thanh — a hero of that guerrilla war — agreed that the armies of the two countries will begin joint exercises from next year.
In 1968, a year after the Naxalbari uprising in India, Company Commander Phung, then a 19-year-old, was running the “Ho Chi Minh Trail” — a complex network of jungle routes that wove and tunnelled through forests to supply logistics to Viet Cong guerrillas. As a squad commander, he is personally reputed to have killed eight assaulting airborne troops while defending a guerrilla position atop a hill.
India’s Maoists, who have killed over 200 police troops this year, have drawn many of their lessons from Vietnam’s resistance war that serves as a model to them along with the tactics enunciated by Mao Zedong and Che Guevara.
The first exercise between the Indian and Vietnamese armies in mountain and jungle warfare will be held in India.
The Indian Army has limited its current role in the counter-Maoist offensive to training the police and logistics. But its Allahabad-headquartered Central Command is specifically tasked with mapping the Maoist militancy, analysing their tactics and equipping the army with the right resources.
None of this has figured in the agreement reached by A.K. Antony and General Phung Quang Thanh yesterday. The Indian Army believes it is among the very best in jungle warfare — given its counter-insurgency experience in the Northeast and in Jammu and Kashmir.
US troops have also been in training at the Indian Army’s Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School in Vairangte, Mizoram, where the first drill with the Vietnamese is likely to be conducted.
Defence ministry sources said as part of India’s Look East Policy, New Delhi has offered to Hanoi its skills to “enhance and upgrade the capabilities of its (Vietnam’s) three services in general and its navy in particular”.
Antony announced India’s help at bilateral meetings with the top Vietnamese leadership, including President Nguyen Minh Triet, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and defence minister General Phung Quang Thanh.
“India will help Vietnam in its capacity building for repair and maintenance of its platforms. The armies of the two countries will also co-operate in areas like IT and English training of Vietnamese Army personnel,” Antony said yesterday.

You call this country "socialist"! They are just bustards.

[Kiev Communard]

You call this country "socialist"! They are just bustards.

That's not all. See this -




Washington has recently taken several steps to boost its military relationship with Vietnam as part of a broader Obama administration strategy aimed at undermining Chinese influence in East and South East Asia.


Last week, the two countries held their first-ever defence dialogue in Hanoi. At a joint press conference on August 17, US Deputy Assistant Defence Secretary Robert Scher declared that the talks represented “the next significant historic step in our increasingly robust defence relationship”. Previous security talks, which began in 2008, were conducted by the US State Department and Vietnamese foreign ministry, rather than defence officials.


While nominally the topics involved marine security and international peace keeping, both sides obviously discussed China’s military presence in the region. “I did share at our meeting our impressions of Chinese military modernisation,” Scher told reporters. Last week, the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress, expressing concerns about China’s military expansion and warning that its “limited transparency… increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation”.


The dialogue followed provocative comments by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at an Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional forum in Hanoi last month. Clinton declared that the US had “a national interest” in ensuring “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. Her remarks cut across China’s claims to sovereignty over much of the South China Sea. Earlier this year, Beijing told senior US officials that the maritime area constituted one of China’s “core interests,” like Taiwan and Tibet.


Clinton also intruded into the longstanding territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. She offered “to facilitate initiatives and confidence-building measures” aimed at establishing an international code of conduct. Washington’s “offer” was aimed at undermining Beijing’s efforts to settle the disputes on a bilateral or regional basis, and provoked an angry reaction from Chinese officials.


Prior to the US-Vietnam security dialogue, the huge aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, and several destroyers arrived off the Vietnamese coast—ostensibly to mark 15 years since the normalisation of relations between the US and Vietnam in 1995. On August 8, US naval officers hosted a delegation of Vietnamese military and government officials, who flew out to the aircraft carrier.


As both sides were well aware, the real purpose of the exercise was to forcefully underscore US claims to “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. Speaking to reporters as US warplanes took off from the deck, Captain David Lausman, commander of the USS George Washington, declared: “These waters belong to nobody, yet belong to everybody. China has a right to operate here, as do we and as do every country of the world.”


Two days later, on August 10, the USS John S. McCain, a guided missile destroyer, docked at Da Nang in Vietnam to conduct the first-ever joint military exercises with the Vietnamese navy. The US described the program as a “series of naval engagement activities” focussing mainly on non-combat training, such as damage control and search and rescue. US and Vietnamese naval vessels did not operate together at sea, but the exercise was clearly a step in that direction.


Last month the US navy held large-scale joint operations with South Korea in the Sea of Japan, to the east of the Korean Peninsula, in which the USS George Washington was involved. The exercise was in part a show of force after the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in March, allegedly by North Korea. While the war games were moved from the Yellow Sea after Beijing’s protests, the Pentagon has since announced the further joint naval exercises in coming months with South Korea in this sensitive area close to the Chinese mainland.


Commentaries in the Chinese press clearly expressed Beijing’s concerns regarding what one columnist described as the “Pentagon’s gunboat policy”. Another column in the state-owned People’s Daily by Li Hongmei, headlined “Vietnam advisable not to play with fire,” warned: “Vietnam’s actions now are very selfish… It might well overestimate the capacity of Uncle Sam’s protective umbrella. It is advisable for Vietnam to give up the illusion it can do what it likes in the South China Sea under the protection of the US Navy. Should China and Vietnam truly come into military clashes, no aircraft carrier of any country can ensure it will remain secure.”


Like governments throughout the region, the Stalinist regime in Vietnam is engaged in a delicate balancing game amid the growing rivalry between China and the US. Visiting Beijing this week, Vietnam’s vice defence minister, General Nguyen Chi Vinh played down ties with the US and described China as “a good friend of Vietnam”. China and Vietnam have already established military relations. Since 2006, the two countries have held at least nine joint naval patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin. Vietnam has hosted three port calls by the Chinese navy this year.


Nevertheless, there remains considerable suspicion and rivalry between the two countries. With the support of the US, China launched a devastating border war against Vietnam in 1979 aimed at undermining the regime, which had just ousted China’s ally Pol Pot in neighbouring Cambodia. China and Vietnam clashed in 1988 over their disputed claims to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.


Despite the bitter legacy of US imperialism’s war in Vietnam until 1975, Hanoi has had no scruples about developing closer economic and strategic relations with Washington. Having transformed the country into a cheap labour platform, the Vietnamese regime is reliant on the US as its top export market and source of foreign investment. Over the past year, the two countries have been negotiating a nuclear deal that would pave the way for US corporations to construct nuclear power plants in Vietnam, which already faces energy shortages.


While cautious not to offend Beijing, Hanoi has been forging closer defence ties with the US. Defence analyst Carlyle Thayer writing in the Wall Street Journal on August 19 observed: “Vietnam started last year to engage in a very delicate game of signalling that it views an American military presence in the region as legitimate. Last year, for example, Vietnamese military officials flew to the USS John C. Stennis to observe flight operations in the South China Sea. Later that year, Vietnamese Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh stopped off at Pacific Command in Hawaii on his way to Washington and was photographed peering through the periscope of a US nuclear submarine. The cooperation intensified this year when Vietnamese shipyards repaired two US Military Sealift Command ships.”


Vietnam clearly calculates that closer US ties will provide it with greater bargaining power in its disputes with China in the South China Sea. A US Congressional Research Service paper on US-Vietnam relations published last month noted: “Vietnam reportedly intends to use its chairmanship of ASEAN in 2010 to ‘internationalise’ the disputes by forming a multi-country negotiation forum which would force China to negotiate in a multilateral setting. Vietnamese officials have begun to ask their US counterparts more frequently and with greater intensity whether the United States will support Vietnamese efforts to combat what they see as China’s encroachment in the South China Sea. In a news conference releasing the Vietnamese Defence Ministry 2009 White Paper, Deputy Defence Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh [the same general who is now in China] said that sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea have created ‘concerns and new challenges for Vietnamese national defence.”


At last month’s ASEAN forum, Clinton clearly answered Vietnam’s appeals for US backing in the South China Sea in the affirmative. She also declared that the Obama administration was prepared “to take the US-Vietnam relationship to the next level”—as has now been rapidly demonstrated by the first security dialogue and first joint naval exercise between the two countries.


While Vietnam is looking for US backing in its disputes with China, the US is engaged in a far broader and more dangerous strategy of forging and strengthening alliances and security arrangements with a string of countries around China’s borders—from Japan and South Korea in North East Asia to Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore and Australia, through to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.


The South China Sea, however, has a particular strategic significance as the main sea-lane through which China ships the bulk of its energy imports from the Middle East and Africa. Since the end of World War II, a key element of American strategic thinking has been to ensure naval control over key “choke points” such as the Strait of Malacca, thus holding a trump card over its potential rivals, including China and Japan, in the event of war. Washington’s determination to hold on to its advantage is thus a direct threat to China, with the potential to further inflame the tense relations between the two major powers.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/viet-a26.shtml






US-Vietnam nuclear talks heighten frictions with China


In a move that will further raise regional tensions, the US is conducting negotiations with Vietnam over a deal to allow the purchase of nuclear fuel, as well as American nuclear technology and reactors. The talks, details of which were leaked to the US media last week, are another sign that the Obama administration is engaged in an aggressive strategy of countering Chinese influence throughout the Asian region.

The most detailed account was published in the Wall Street Journal on August 3. Based on the comments of a top US official, the article explained that Washington was in “advanced negotiations” with Hanoi over an agreement to share nuclear fuel and technology with Vietnam. Significantly, the deal would allow Vietnam to enrich its own uranium to produce fuel for its power reactors, subject to monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

While the agreement is yet to be finalised, the proviso allowing uranium enrichment has already provoked criticisms in the Middle East, where the US reached a nuclear deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that ruled out uranium enrichment. “It is ironic… as nonproliferation is one of the [US] president’s top goals that the UAE model is not being endorsed here [with Vietnam]… People will start to see a double standard,” a senior Arab official cautiously told the Wall Street Journal.

The cynicism of the Obama administration’s projected nuclear deal with Vietnam is underscored by its campaign against Iran over the same issue. Washington has imposed punitive sanctions and threatened military action against Tehran for building enrichment facilities and producing low-enriched uranium, under IAEA monitoring, to fuel its power reactors—precisely what Hanoi would be permitted to do.

In his comments to the Wall Street Journal, the senior US official justified the double standard with the claim that Iran was planning to build nuclear weapons—an assertion that Washington has never proved. “Given our special concerns about Iran and the genuine threat of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, we believe the UAE… agreement is a model for [that] region. These same concerns do not specifically apply in Asia. We will take different approaches region by region and country by country,” the official said.

In reality, the “different approaches” have the same driving force—the strategic and economic interests of US imperialism. In the case of Iran, the Obama administration is exploiting the nuclear issue as a means of fashioning a regime favourable to US ambitions for dominance throughout the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia. In the case of Vietnam, the White House is forging close strategic ties as part of broader plans to block Chinese influence in South East Asia.

The Wall Street Journal acknowledged that the US-Vietnam nuclear deal was “the latest example of the US’s renewed assertiveness in South and South East Asia, as Washington strengthens its ties with nations that have grown increasingly wary of Beijing’s growing regional might”. Asked whether China had been informed about the talks, the senior US official replied: “This is a negotiation between the US and Vietnam. We don’t ask China to approve issues that are in our own strategic interest.”

In an indication of Beijing’s opposition, a senior Chinese nonproliferation official told the state-run China Daily that the US-Vietnam talks showed “double standards” and “challenged the present international order”. The Times of India commented that the US negotiations had taken Beijing by surprise. The article noted that China had signed its own nuclear agreement with the Vietnamese government in July last year and had hoped to be chosen to build Vietnam’s planned nuclear power stations.

Like other South East Asian countries, Vietnam is attempting to balance between the US and China, even as rivalry between the two powers intensifies. While acknowledging that an initial nuclear agreement with the US had been reached in March, Vietnamese officials downplayed the negotiations toward a final pact, saying they were yet to begin. Vietnam’s Atomic Energy Institute director Vuong Huu Tan said his country had no plans to enrich uranium, adding: “Vietnam doesn’t want to make its international relations complicated.”

As a result of its rapid economic expansion, Vietnam is suffering power shortages and plans to build as many as 13 nuclear power plants, with a combined capacity of 16,000 megawatts, over the next two decades. US, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and French corporations are vying for the contracts to build them. Russia’s Rosatom Corp has been chosen to build the first plant, but American corporations such as General Electric and Bechtel obviously want a nuclear agreement between the two countries that would put them in the running.

However, the US decision to offer Vietnam an agreement on favourable terms goes beyond immediate economic calculations. The Obama administration is determined to forge closer ties with Vietnam as part of increasingly blatant moves to develop “strategic partnerships” and consolidate current military alliances with countries throughout Asia. Confronted with the challenge of China’s rising economic strength, the US, which is waning as an economic power, is relying on military and strategic muscle to defend its position.

The leaked news of US-Vietnamese nuclear talks follows US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s provocative statements on the South China Sea at last month’s Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) security forum in Hanoi. The South China Sea, along with the Spratly and Paracel islands, has been the subject of sharply conflicting claims between China and several ASEAN countries, including Vietnam.

In the past, the US has maintained a neutral stance on the competing claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea. At the ASEAN meeting, however, Clinton sided with Vietnam and other ASEAN members, calling for a “regional code of conduct” in opposition to China’s claims in the strategically sensitive area. China’s foreign minister Yang Jichi condemned Clinton’s comments, describing them as “virtually an attack on China”.

While in Hanoi, Clinton also commented on growing US-Vietnamese cooperation on a range of security, economic and environmental issues. “The Obama administration is prepared to take the US-Vietnam relationship to the next level,” she declared. “We see this relationship not only as important on its own merits, but as part of a strategy aimed at enhancing American engagement in the Asia Pacific.”


Despite the bitter legacy of US imperialism’s war on Vietnam until 1975, the Stalinist regime in Hanoi has had no qualms about developing its relations with Washington. Like its counterpart in China, the Vietnamese government has transformed the country into a cheap labour platform and is increasingly dependent on the US for trade, investment and economic aid. The US is now Vietnam’s largest market, accounting for 20 percent of exports, and in 2009 was the largest source of foreign investment.

Even though Vietnam wants to avoid antagonising China, there is longstanding rivalry between the two countries. With the tacit support of the US, China launched a war against Vietnam in 1979 aimed at crippling the regime, which had just toppled Pol Pot in neighbouring Cambodia. While China and Vietnam have since patched up relations, the two countries have a disputed land border, and have clashed over control of the Spratly Islands. Increasingly, Hanoi is tilting toward the US as a means of prosecuting its own regional ambitions, particularly against China.

In a demonstration of closer military ties, the US sent the aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, to Vietnam last Sunday to mark the 15th anniversary of the normalisation of relations between the two countries. In recent years, the US has sent warships to visit Vietnam, raising fears in Beijing that ports such as Cam Ranh Bay will, in effect, again become major US bases, as they were during the Vietnam War. The visit by the USS Washington was particularly provocative—both because of its size and fighting capacity, and also because the same warship engaged in joint naval exercises with the South Korean navy off the Korean Peninsula last month. China publicly warned against such war games so close to its coastline.

At the ASEAN summit last year, US Secretary of State Clinton bluntly declared that the US was “back in South East Asia”—reflecting criticisms of the previous Bush administration for having neglected Asia. The nuclear talks with Vietnam confirm that the Obama administration is accelerating its reckless strategy of undermining China’s position in Asia, regardless of the potential for confrontation and conflict.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/viet-a09.shtml



Obviously, if Vietnam is socialist now, then Obama's USA must be socialist, too :D.

The Vegan Marxist, if you support current Chinese regime, how can you at the same time uphold its regional adversary, Vietnam, which is conducting pro-U.S. foreign policy at the moment? This seems to be inconsistency on your part.

[EvilRedGuy]

The Vegan Marxist have completely lost track on things. :laugh:

:rolleyes: Ohh yeah, China and NK is totally socialist. Jesus. Ever been there? :glare:

[EvilRedGuy]

Seriously i just re:read the whole thread, TVM is just a troll but i don't see why we shouldn't try to educate him if he really is this stupid. (no offense)

[Lolshevik]

what's with the name calling & personal bashing on here?

I never had the opinion that Vietnam is still a socialist country, but even I didn't know the extent of the bourgeois restoration & collaboration with imperialism until I read about it on this thread. no need to get all... intense about it.