History of Vietnam (1945–present)

In 1969, Hồ Chí Minh died, leaving wishes that his body be cremated. However, the Communist Party embalmed his body for public display and built the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum on Ba Đình Square in Hà Nội, in the style of Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow.

Although the Tết Offensive was a catastrophic military defeat for the Việt Cộng, it was a stunning political victory as it led many Americans to view the war as unwinnable. U.S. President

Despite the peace treaty, the North violated the treaty and continued the war as had been envisioned by Lê Duẩn and the South still tried to recapture lost territories. In the U.S., Nixon resigned after the Watergate scandal. South Vietnam was seen as losing a strong backer. Under U.S. President Gerald Ford, the Democratic-controlled Congress became less willing to provide military support to South Vietnam.

In 1974, South Vietnam also fought and lost the

In 1976, Vietnam was officially unified and renamed the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRVN), with its capital in Hà Nội. The unified regime was dominated by holdovers from the North, and the flag and anthem of North Vietnam became the flag and anthem of unified Vietnam.

The Vietnamese Communist Party dropped its front name "Labor Party" and changed the title of First Secretary, a term used by China, to

In foreign relations, the SRVN became increasingly aligned with the Soviet Union by both joining the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), and signing a Friendship Pact, which was in fact a military alliance. Tension between Vietnam and China mounted together with China's rivalry with the Soviet Union and conflict erupted with Cambodia, China's ally. Vietnam was also subject to trade embargoes by the U.S. and its allies.

The SRVN government implemented a

Despite the defeat of South Vietnam, there was no serious demobilization of the Vietnamese People's Army, which remained one of Asia's largest militaries at over one million troops, or sign that warfare was coming to an end anytime soon. Not only were Vietnamese soldiers highly experienced from decades of fighting, but also had acquired a large cache of captured US and South Vietnamese armaments. Vietnam soon found itself drawn into conflict with Cambodia, which had been ruled by the communist Khmer Rouge since 1975. In addition to this, Sino-Vietnamese relations deteriorated quite rapidly following Mao Zedong's death in 1976 due to Hanoi's unremitting loyalty to the Soviet Union, which was at odds with China during the 1970s. By 1978, most trade and material assistance programs between the two countries had ceased and Vietnam forbade Chinese ships from docking at its ports. As the Khmer Rouge were allies of Beijing, this further aggravated tensions and following border skirmishes, the VPA launched a full-scale armed invasion of Cambodia during the first week of 1979. This had the effect however of causing conflict with China and during a visit to the US in February, Deng Xiaoping stated that "It may be necessary to teach Vietnam a lesson." A large Chinese force invaded the Vietnamese border area, but with China still suffering the effects of the Cultural Revolution, the People's Liberation Army was seriously deficient in training, equipment, and communications. Over 30,000 Chinese troops were killed or wounded in three weeks of battling Vietnamese border guards and militia (the VPA was then in Cambodia and had no involvement in the war). Shortly afterwards, they withdrew with Beijing proclaiming that the aforementioned "lesson" had been taught as in any case, the fighting caused extensive destruction to Vietnam's infrastructure along the border.

In Cambodia, the

Vietnam's third Constitution, based on that of the USSR, was written in 1980. The Communist Party was stated by the Constitution to be the only party to represent the people and to lead the country. In 1980,

Compounding all this was the complete failure of the Five-Year Plan adopted in 1976, as Vietnam remained one of the world's poorest countries with a per-capita GDP of less than US$300 and almost totally dependent on Soviet aid, which reached as much as US$3 billion a year by 1982. Moscow faced mounting pressure from its Warsaw Pact allies to reduce outlays to Vietnam. Soviet-Vietnamese relations were also harmed by the former's wishes to have greater involvement in Vietnam's economic development and increased access to military facilities. In 1982, the VCP held its 5th National Congress in which General Secretary Lê Duẩn stated that "The Party wishes sternly to criticize itself." and "Our nation's manifold difficulties, while aggravated by outside circumstances that could not be helped, are nonetheless worsened by the various errors and shortcoming of officials." Le also expressed his dismay at the average age of the party leadership, noting that there was only one person on the Central Committee under 60.

That year, a general purge of the party ranks began to weed out elderly and inefficient cadres and replace them with younger men. Võ Văn Kiệt, aged 59, was promoted to head of the State Planning Commission, and 62-year-old Foreign Minister Nguyễn Cơ Thạch was elevated to Politburo membership. More surprising was the removal of General Võ Nguyên Giáp, considered a national hero, from the Politburo (it was later speculated that he was removed by political rivals). This rejuvenation campaign was nonetheless diminished by the fact that the country's three most powerful individuals, Lê Duẩn, Phạm Văn Đồng, and President Trường Chinh, showed no sign of stepping down any time soon despite their combined age of 226 and clearly failing health (all of them visited Moscow for medical treatment during 1982). Although they saw the need for reforms and fighting corruption, such change was beyond their ability by this point.

The Second Five Year Plan was adopted for 1981 and showed a clear move towards more market reforms and away from the rigid central planning of the 1976–80 scheme. Real change would not begin until the second half of the decade when Lê Duẩn died in July 1986, succeeded as general secretary by Trường Chinh. However, Trường was expelled only five months later and replaced by Nguyễn Văn Linh, eight years his junior. Phạm Văn Đồng retired as premier in 1987. Upon their accession, the country's new leadership denounced their geriatric predecessors for "utterly failing to improve the people's living standards, check corruption, or instill a more flexible, non-dogmatic outlook on life."^{[citation needed]}

Contemporary Vietnam (since 1993)

During the late 1980s, Vietnam began tentative market reforms along the model then being adopted by China. The basis for these experiments were in the south which had a stronger tradition of trade and commerce. The perestroika policies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were also a source of motivation. Although communist governments in Eastern Europe were collapsing in 1989, Vietnam was kept comparatively isolated from these events due to its poverty and geographical distance and a few small pro-democracy protests in Hanoi were quickly suppressed. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused a thaw in the long hostile Sino-Vietnamese relations as the two nations embraced each other as some of the only surviving communist states.

Soon after the Paris Agreement on Cambodia resolved the conflict in October 1991,^[22] however, Vietnam established or reestablished diplomatic and economic relations with most of Western Europe, and several Asian countries. In February 1994, the United States lifted its economic embargo against Vietnam,^[23] and in June 1995, the United States and Vietnam normalized relations.^[24] After President Bill Clinton visited Vietnam in 2000, a new era of Vietnam began. No other U.S. leader had ever officially visited Hanoi and Clinton was the first to visit Vietnam since U.S. troops withdrew from the country in 1975.^[25] In June 2005, a high-level Vietnamese delegation, led by Prime Minister Phan Văn Khải, visited the United States and met with their U.S. counterparts, including President George W. Bush.^[26] This was the first such visit in 30 years. Although the visit mostly went well, a few embarrassing events occurred such as the White House's official website (www.whitehouse.gov) accidentally depicting the flag of South Vietnam in its official announcement of the visit. This provoked dismay and hostile comments from the Vietnamese government until the White House officially apologized and corrected the webpage. In addition, a crowd of hostile protesters gathered outside the White House during Phan's meeting with President Bush denouncing the Vietnamese Communist Party and waving South Vietnamese flags.^[27]

In late 2005, a three-person collective leadership was responsible for governing Vietnam. This triumvirate consisted of the VCP general secretary (

In 2013, a baby girl named Nguyen Thi Thuy Dung was born and was officially designated Vietnam's official 90 millionth citizen.[33]

However, Vietnam also faces disputes, mostly with Cambodia over their shared border,^[34] and especially with China, over the South China Sea.^[35] In 2016, President Barack Obama became the 3rd U.S. Head of State to visit Vietnam.^[36] His historic visit helped to normalize relations with Vietnam. This improvement of U.S-Vietnam relations was further increased by the lifting of a lethal arms embargo, allowing the Vietnamese government to buy lethal weapons and modernize its military.^[37]

On 27–28 February 2019, the 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit was held between North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. president Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam.^[38]

According to the

In 2021, General Secretary of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, was re-elected for his third term in office, meaning he is Vietnam's most powerful leader in decades.^[40]

In 2023, a three-person collective leadership was responsible for governing Vietnam. President Vo Van Thuong (since 2023),^[41] Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (since 2021)^[42] and the most powerful leader Nguyễn Phú Trọng (since 2011), leading the only legal political party, as the Communist Party of Vietnam’s General Secretary.^[43]

References