Vietnam Essay, Research Paper

INTRODUCTION

The war-torn country of Vietnam is once again in the midst of a revolution. Only this war

is not being fought with soldiers and tanks; rather, it is being fought and won with businessmen and free-trade. This new on-slot of foreign business in the formerly closed country have completely rejuvenated the Vietnamese economy. For the first time since the re-unification of Vietnam in 1976, the doors of the market place are opened to the outside world and Vietnam is aggressively taking a stance for further economic development.

Before any International firm attempts to conduct business with, or in Vietnam, it is extremely important to not only know your potential consumer, but to understand him as well. Vietnam has a unique and rich cultural history that separates it from its neighboring Asian nations. Therefore, even the most successful marketing plans for other Asian countries probably will not work in Vietnam. It is a country with an identity of its own.

This report was compiled in an attempt to educate businesses and their employees of what makes Vietnam the welcoming, yet challenging nation it has become in the global marketplace. By first understanding the country and the people, it is then possible to formulate the most successful plan for a business venture. By gaining a foot-hold in the emerging market now, companies will benefit from continuous economic growth from the next potential

?Asian Tiger?–VIETNAM.

ABSTRACT

This is a glance into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, describing and analyzing its

political, economic, social, and national security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. This in an attempt to provide a basic understanding of the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their common interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and political order.

GENERAL INFORMATION 1

Official Name: Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Capital: Hanoi

Location: A republic of Southeast Asia, bordered by China on the north, the South China Sea on the east and south, and Cambodia and Laos on the west (see Appendix A).

Land Area: Its area is 329,707 sq km (127,301 sq mi); larger than Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina combined.

Terrain: Varies from mountainous to costal delta.

Climate: Tropical monsoon.

GOVERNMENT 2

A constitution enacted in 1992 assigned to the Communist party a leading role in Vietnamese government and society, but curbed some of its administrative functions. The constitution also increased the powers of the National Assembly. The Communist party acts through the Vietnam Fatherland Front, which includes representatives of the nation’s political parties, trade unions, and social organizations.

Executive

Under the 1992 constitution, the head of state is a president, elected by the legislature from among its members; as commander of the armed forces, the president chairs the Council on National Defense and Security. The president appoints, with legislative approval, the prime minister, who heads the government. The prime minister appoints a cabinet, also subject to legislative approval.

Legislative

The unicameral National Assembly, composed of a maximum of 400 members, is the highest legislative body in Vietnam. The legislature is elected to a five-year term by universal adult suffrage.

Judiciary

Judges of the people’s courts are elected to their offices. Organs of Control, which act as watchdogs for the state as well as monitoring government agencies, can initiate lawsuits against governmental bodies or individuals deemed to be violating the law. The highest court in Vietnam is the Supreme People’s Court.

Local Government

A system of people’s councils, each representing a local jurisdiction, administers local government in Vietnam. Each council elects a committee to serve as an executive. The country is divided into 53 provinces and three municipalities: Hanoi, Haiphong, and Ho Chi Minh City.

HISTORY 3

Over thousands of years the Vietnamese have passed down the legend of their origin as being descendants of the Dragon and the Fairy. An extremely strong son of a dragon, Lac Long Quan, having killed a sea monster, settled in what is now Vietnam, and married a fairy, Au Co. Together, they gave birth to a membrane with a hundred eggs which later became a hundred children. Fifty of the children followed the father to the sea, and fifty stayed with their mother in the mountainous area. The eldest son was proclaimed King Hung Vuong, and the country Van Lang, which today is Vietnam.

From the 1st to the 6th centuries, the south of what is now Vietnam was part of the

Indianised kingdom of Funan. The Hindu kingdom of Champa appeared around present-day Danang in the late 2nd century and had spread south to what is now Nha Trang by the 8th century. The Chinese conquered the Red River Delta in the 2nd century and their 1000-year rule, marked by tenacious Vietnamese resistance and repeated rebellions, ended in 938 AD when Ngo Quyen vanquished the Chinese armies at the Bach Dang River.

During the next few centuries, Vietnam repulsed repeated invasions by China, and expanded its borders southwards from the Red River Delta, populating much of the Mekong Delta. In 1858, French and Spanish-led forces stormed Danang after several missionaries had been killed. A year later, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) was seized. By 1867, France had conquered all of southern Vietnam, which became the French colony of Cochin-China.

Communist guerillas under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh resisted French domination. Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of Vietnamese independence after WW II sparked violent confrontations with the French, culminating in the French military defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

The Geneva Accords of 1954 temporarily divided Vietnam into two zones (the Communist north and the anti-Communist, US-supported south). Political and ideological opposition quickly turned to armed struggle, prompting the USA and other countries to commit combat troops in 1965. The Paris Peace Agreements, signed in 1973, provided an immediate cease-fire and signaled the withdrawal of US troops. Saigon eventually capitulated to the Communist forces on 30 April 1975.

The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR in 1991 caused Vietnam and

Western nations to seek rapprochement. In July 1995 even intransigent America re-established diplomatic relations with Hanoi (see Appendix B for a time line of historic events).

ECONOMY 4

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has undergone several extreme changes since it?s reunification in 1976 following the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The face of the economic system was completely altered from a capitalist system in the South to the centrally controlled communist system in the North. In the years that followed, emphasis was placed on heavy industry at the expense of other economic sectors. Close central control and poor management of the economy led to a decline in industrial and agricultural production. Faced with stagnant growth, a severe shortage of food, deficit budgets, soaring inflation and chronic trade imbalances, the Sixth National Congress of Vietnam?s Communist Party, held in December 1986, initiated an overall economic renovation policy. Popularly known as ?Doi Moi,? the policy aimed at making the country self-sufficient in food production and improving the standard of living of the people. The core of ?Doi Moi? was to reduce the state intervention in business and to open the country to foreign investment.

A key element in Vietnam?s continuing process of economic renovation has been the country?s adoption of policies to encourage private investment. In an effort to attract more foreign investment and to boost the domestic private sector, Vietnam amended its foreign investment code to offer more tax incentives, set up export processing and industrial zones, and allowed foreign banks and financial institutions to operate in Vietnam. The country also began to create the legal framework necessary for a multi-sectoral market economy. Since 1990, Vietnam has enacted a number of significant civil laws including a company law, a law on private business, a bankruptcy law, and a law encouraging domestic investment. The state has also approved the privatization of state-owned companies and enterprises.

Radical economic policies have vaulted the economy into a period of unsurpassed growth, with no end currently in sight. Vietnam has the potential to become the next great ?Asian Tiger.? The leading economic indicators for Vietnam, overwhelming proof of it?s presence as one of the new and emerging markets, are found in the charts below.

POPULATION 5

The estimated population of Vietnam is 74 million people with an average population density of 224 persons per square kilometer. Population density varies widely, however, and is generally lower in the southern provinces than in the northern ones; in both North and South it is also lower in the highlands and mountainous regions than in the lowlands. The most densely settled region is the Red River Delta, accounting for roughly 75 percent of the population of the North. Also heavily settled is the Mekong River Delta, with nearly half of the southern population.

The People 6

Vietnamese

The origins of the Vietnamese are generally traced to the inhabitants of the Red River Delta between 500 and 200 B.C., people who were a mixture of Australoid, Austronesian, and Mongoloid stock. Like their contemporary descendants, they were largely villagers, skilled in rice cultivation and fishing.

Contemporary ethnic Vietnamese live in urban as well as rural areas, are engaged in a variety of occupations, and are represented at all levels on the socioeconomic scale. The power elite (senior officials in the party, government, and military establishments), in particular, is dominated by ethnic Vietnamese. Although predominantly Buddhist, the Vietnamese people’s religious beliefs and practices nevertheless include remnants of an earlier animistic faith. A sizable minority is Roman Catholic. Despite some regional and local differences in customs and speech, the people retain a strong sense of ethnic identity that rests on a common language and a shared cultural heritage.

Vietnamese, the official language, is the mother tongue of the vast majority of the people and is understood by many national minority members. According to a widely accepted theory, Vietnamese is believed to be related to the Austroasiatic family of languages, which includes various languages, dialects, and sub-dialects spoken in mainland Southeast Asia from Burma to Vietnam.

Actually, the Vietnamese language was influenced more by classical Chinese than by any other language. During more than 1,000 years of Chinese rule and for centuries afterwards, Chinese was the language of officialdom, scholarship, and literature. The Chinese language had special status because of its identification with the ruling class of scholar-officials. Nevertheless, Vietnamese continued to be the popular language, even though knowledge of Chinese was a prerequisite to government employment and social advancement.

Minorities

Living somewhat separately from the dominant ethnic Vietnamese are the numerous minorities which account only for 12 percent of the national population. This figure included the Hoa (Han Chinese), the single largest bloc–representing approximately 1.5 percent of the total population–in the lowland urban centers of both the North and the South. Of the other minority groups, thirty, comprising 68 percent of the minority population, resided in the North, while the remaining twenty-two groups, comprising 32 percent of the minority population lived in the South. The size of each community ranged from fewer than 1,000 to as many as 0.9 million persons, and 10 major groups comprised about 85 percent of the minority population.

Minorities that live in the mountainous regions are known by their generic name, Montagnards. The Vietnamese also disparagingly call them “moi,” meaning savage. The government attributes the backwardness of the Montagnards to the overwhelming influence of their history as exploited and oppressed peoples. They are darker skinned than their lowland neighbors.

The non-Chinese minority peoples, however, are for the most part highlanders who live in relative independence and follow their own traditional customs and culture. They are classified as either sedentary or nomadic. The sedentary groups, the more numerous of the two kinds, are engaged mainly in the cultivation of wet rice and industrial crops; the nomadic groups, in slashand -burn farming where forested land is cleared for a brief period of cultivation and then abandoned. Both groups inhabit the same four major areas: the northern Chinese border region and the uplands adjacent to the Red River Delta, the northwestern border region adjoining Laos and China, the Central Highlands and the area along the Giai Truong Son, and parts of the Mekong River Delta and the central coastal strip. These groups are notable for their diverse cultural characteristics. They are distinguished from one another not only by language but also by such other cultural features as architectural styles, colors and shapes of dress and personal ornaments, shapes of agricultural implements, religious practices, and systems of social organization.

Hoa

The Hoa, or ethnic Chinese, are predominantly urban dwellers. A few Hoa live in small settlements in the northern highlands near the Chinese frontier, where they are also known as ngai. Traditionally, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the Chinese have retained a distinctive cultural identity, but in 1955 North Vietnam and China agreed that the Hoa should be integrated gradually into Vietnamese society and should have Vietnamese citizenship conferred on them.

Before 1975 the northern Hoa were mainly rice farmers, fishermen, and coal miners, except for those residing in cities and provincial towns. In the South they were dominant in commerce and manufacturing. According to an official source, at the end of 1974 the Hoa controlled more than 80 percent of the food, textile, chemical, metallurgy, engineering, and electrical industries, 100 percent of wholesale trade, more than 50 percent of retail trade, and 90 percent of export-import trade. Dominance over the economy enabled the Hoa to “manipulate prices” of rice and other scarce goods.

THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 7

Traditional Patterns

For centuries Vietnamese society was knit together by Confucian norms based on five relationships: the subordination of subject to ruler, son to father, wife to husband, and younger brother to elder brother, and the mutual respect between friends. These norms influenced the evolution of Vietnam as a hierarchic, authoritarian society in which Confucian scholarship, monarchical absolutism, filial piety, the subordinate role of women, and the family system were regarded as integral to the natural order of the universe.

The traditional society was stratified on the basis of education and occupation into four groups: scholar-officials or mandarins, farmers, artisans, and merchants. At the pinnacle was the emperor, who ruled with the “mandate of heaven.” Next were the scholar-officials, recruited through rigorous civil service examinations in Chinese classical literature and philosophy. Once a person passed the triennial examinations he became an accredited scholar or degree holder and was eligible for appointment to the imperial civil service, the most prestigious route to power, status, and wealth. Together, the emperor, his family, and the scholar-officials constituted the ruling class.

In theory, the mandarinate was not a closed social group. Commoners were permitted to apply for the examinations, and the status of scholar-official could not be inherited. In practice, however, these officials became a self-perpetuating class of generalist-administrators, partly because their sons could afford years of academic preparation for the examinations whereas most commoners could not. Education, the key to upward mobility, was neither free nor compulsory and tended to be the preserve of the mandarins.

Society in the 1954-75 Period

North Vietnam

At the time of the 1954 partition, Vietnam was overwhelmingly a rural society; peasants accounted for nearly 90 percent of the total population. During the ensuing 20 years of political separation, however, the North and the South developed into two very different societies. In the North the communists had embarked on a program intended to revolutionize the socioeconomic structure. The focus of change was ostensibly economic, but its underlying motivation was both political and social as well. Based on the Marxist principle of class struggle, it involved no less than the creation of a totally new social structure. Propertied classes were eliminated, and a proletarian dictatorship was established in which workers and peasants emerged as the nominal new masters of a socialist and ultimately classless state.

South Vietnam

South of the demarcation line after partition in 1954, the social system remained unchanged except that power reverted to a Vietnamese elite. The South’s urban-rural network of roles, heavily dependent on the peasant economy, remained intact despite the influx of nearly a million refugees from the North. In contrast to the North, there was no doctrinaire, organized attempt to reorganize the society fundamentally or to implant new cultural values and social sanctions.

At the bottom of village life were owners of small farming plots and tenant farmers. Forced to spend nearly all of their time eking out a living, they could not afford to engage in village affairs. Because they could not cultivate enough land to support their families, most of them worked also as part-time laborers, and their wives and children assisted with the field work. Their children frequently went to school only long enough to learn the rudiments of reading and writing. This group also included workers in a wide range of other service occupations, such as artisans, practitioners of oriental medicine, and small tradespeople.

THE FAMILY 8

Using the patriarchal family as the basic social institution, the Confucianists framed their societal norm in terms of the duties and obligations of a family to a father, a child to a parent, a wife to a husband, and a younger brother to an older brother; they held that the welfare and continuity of the family group were more important than the interests of any individual member. Indeed, the individual was less an independent being than a member of a family group that included not only living members but also a long line of ancestors and of those yet to be born. A family member’s life was caught up in the activities of a multitude of relatives. Members of the same household lived together, worked together, and gathered together for marriages, funerals, Tet (lunar New Year) celebrations, and rituals marking the anniversary of an ancestor’s death.

Family members looked first to other family members for help and counsel in times of personal crisis and guarded the interests of the family in making personal or household decisions. Special reverence was accorded a family’s ancestors. This practice, known as the family cult or cult of the ancestors, derived from the belief that after death the spirits of the departed continued to influence the world of the living. The soul was believed to become restless and likely to exert an unfavorable influence on the living, unless it was venerated in the expected manner.

Veneration of ancestors was also regarded as a means through which an individual could assure his or her own immortality. Children were valued because they could provide for the spirits of their parents after death. Family members who remained together and venerated their forebears with strict adherence to prescribed ritual found comfort in the belief that the souls of their ancestors were receiving proper spiritual nourishment and that they were insuring their own soul’s nourishment after death.

On the anniversary of an ancestor’s death, rites were performed before the family altar to the god of the house, and sacrificial offerings were made to both the god and the ancestor. The lavishness of the offering depended on the income of the family and on the rank of the deceased within the family. A representative of each family in the lineage was expected to be present, even if this meant traveling great distances. Whenever there was an occasion of family joy or sorrow, such as a wedding, an anniversary, success in an examination, a promotion, or a funeral, the ancestors were informed through sacrificial offerings.

In the traditional kinship system, the paternal line of descent was emphasized. Individuals were identified primarily by their connections through the father’s male bloodline, and kin groups larger than the family–clans and lineages–were formed by kinspeople who traced their relationship to each other in this manner. It was through these patrilineal descent groups that both men and women inherited property and that men assumed their primary obligation for maintaining the ancestor observances.

The patrilineal group maintained an extremely strong kin relationship. Members’ ties to one another were reinforced by their shared heritage, derived from residence in the same village over many generations. Family land and tombs, located in or near the village, acted as a focus for feelings of kin loyalty, solidarity, and continuity.

The extended family rather than the nuclear one was the dominant family structure, often including three or even four generations, and typically consisting of grandparents, father and mother, children, and grandchildren, all living under the same roof. Sometimes parents had more than one married son living with them, but this often led to such tension that it was generally held preferable for a second son to live separately. All members of the household lived under the authority of the oldest male, and all contributed to the income of the family.

Despite the cultural emphasis on obedience in women, women were not regarded as the weaker sex but as resilient and strong-willed . In the village, women assumed a great deal of responsibility for cultivation of paddy fields, often working harder than men, and sometimes engaged in retail trade of all kinds. A few women owned agricultural estates, factories, and other businesses, and both urban and rural women typically managed the family income. A woman’s influence in family affairs could be increased by giving birth to a first male child. In general, though, a woman was expected to be dutiful and respectful toward her husband and his parents, to care for him and his children, and to perform household duties. There were no women in public life.

Besides the so-called wife of the first rank, a household sometimes included a second and third wife and their children. The consent of the first wife was required before this arrangement could be made, but, more often than not, additional wives either were established by the husband in separate households or were permitted to continue living as they had before marriage, in their own homes or with parents. Polygyny was widespread in both northern and central Vietnam, as was the taking of concubines.

Marriage was regarded primarily as a social contract and was arranged by the parents through intermediaries. The parents’ choice was influenced more by considerations affecting the welfare of the lineage than by the preferences of the participants. Interest in having children was strongly reinforced by Confucian culture, which made it imperative to produce a male heir to continue the family line. A couple with numerous offspring was envied. If there were sons, it was assured that the lineage would be perpetuated and the cult of the ancestors maintained; if there was no male heir, a couple was regarded as unfortunate, and a barren wife could be divorced or supplanted by another wife.

Fostering filial piety was of overriding importance in child rearing . Children were expected to be polite to their parents and older persons, to be solicitous of their welfare, to show them respect through proper manner and forms of address, and to carry out prescribed tradition with respect to funeral practices and the observance of mourning. After the deaths of their parents, it was incumbent upon surviving children (and their children in turn), to honor their parents’ memory through maintenance of the ancestors’ cult.

RELIGION 9

The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, adopted in 1980, proclaims that “citizens enjoy freedom of worship, and may practice or not practice a religion” but that “no one may misuse religions to violate state laws or policies.” Despite the Constitution’s ostensible protection of the practice of the religion, the status of such was precarious in Vietnam in late 1987.

Buddhism

Historically, most Vietnamese have identified themselves with Buddhism. According to Buddhist thought, human salvation lies in discovering the “four noble truths”–that man is born to suffer in successive lives, that the cause of this suffering is man’s craving for earthly pleasures and possessions, that the suffering ceases upon his deliverance from this craving, and that he achieves this deliverance by following “the noble eightfold path.” The foundation of the Buddhist concept of morality and right behavior, the eightfold path, consists of right views, or sincerity in leading a religious life; right intention, or honesty in judgment; right speech, or sincerity in speech; right conduct, or sincerity in work; right livelihood, or sincerity in making a living; right effort, or sincerity in aspiration; right mindfulness, or sincerity in memory; and right concentration, or sincerity in meditation.

Before the country was unified under communism, Buddhism enjoyed an autonomy from the state that was increasingly threatened once the communists gained power. For pragmatic reasons, however, the regime initially avoided overt hostility toward Buddhism or any other organized religion. Instead, it sought to separate real and potential collaborators from opponents by co-optation and control.

The communist government’s attitude toward Buddhism and other faiths being practiced remained one of tolerance as long as the clergy and faithful adhered strictly to official guidelines. These guidelines inhibited the growth of religious institutions, however, by restricting the number of institutions approved to train clergy and by preempting the time of potential candidates among the youth whose daily routine might require study, work, and participation in the activities of communist youth organizations. In an apparent effort to train a new generation of monks and nuns, the Vietnam Buddhist Church reportedly set up one Buddhist academy in Hanoi in November 1981 and another in Ho Chi Minh City in December 1984 . These academies, however, served as an arm of the state.

Catholicism

Despite the Roman Catholic Church’s rejection of ancestor worship, a cornerstone of the Confucian cultural tradition, Roman Catholicism established a solid position in Vietnamese society under French rule. The French encouraged its propagation to balance Buddhism and to serve as a vehicle for the further dissemination of Western culture. After the mid-1950s, Catholicism declined in the North, where the communists regarded it as a reactionary force opposed to national liberation and social progress. In the South, by contrast, Catholicism expanded under the presidency of Ngo Dinh Diem, who promoted it as an important bulwark against North Vietnam. Under Diem, himself a devout Catholic, Roman Catholics enjoyed an advantage over non-Catholic in commerce, the professions, education, and the government. This caused growing Buddhist discontent that contributed to the eventual collapse of the Diem regime and the ultimate rise to power of the military.

The church was allowed to retain its link with the Vatican, although all foreign priests had either fled south or been expelled, and normal church activities were permitted to continue, albeit in the shadow of a campaign of harassment. The appearance of normalcy was misleading, however. The church was stripped of its traditional autonomy in running schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Its traditional right to own property was abolished, and priests and nuns were required to devote part of their time to productive labor in agriculture. Nevertheless, officials claimed that Catholics had complete freedom of worship as long as they did not question the principle of collective socialism, spurn manual labor, or jeopardize the internal and external security of the state.

EDUCATION 10

The Vietnamese inherited a high respect for learning. Under Confucianism, education was essential for admission to the ruling class of scholar-officials, the mandarinate. Under French rule, even though Vietnamese were excluded from the colonial power elite, education was a requisite for employment in the colonial civil service and for other white-collar, high-status jobs. In divided Vietnam, education continued to be a channel for social mobility in both the North and the South.

In the years after 1975, all public and private schools in the South were taken over by the state as a first step toward integration into a unified socialist school system. Thousands of teachers were sent from the North to direct and supervise the process of transition, and former teachers under the Saigon regime were allowed to continue their work only after they had completed “special courses” designed to expose “the ideological and cultural poisoning of which they had been victims for twenty years.”

The educational system in 1987 was based on reforms announced in January 1979 that were designed to make education more relevant to the nation’s economic and social needs. These reforms combined theory with practical application and emphasized the training of skilled workers, technicians, and managers. The reforms also stressed the need to develop the country’s scientific and technological levels of achievement until they were comparable to international levels in order to assist Vietnam in expanding its technical cooperation with foreign countries in general and socialist countries in particular.

Education continues to be structured in a traditional manner, including preschool, vocational and professional schools, supplementary courses, and higher education. “General” education, however, was extended from ten to twelve years. The first nine years of general education form the compulsory level, corresponding to primary and junior high schools; the last three years constitute the secondary level. Graduates of secondary schools are considered to have completed training in “general culture” and are ready for employment requiring skilled labor. They are also eligible to apply to colleges or advanced vocational and professional schools. The general education category also covers the schooling of gifted and handicapped children.

Vocational schools at the secondary and college levels serve to train technicians and skilled workers. Graduates of professional specialized schools at the college level primarily fill mid-level cadre positions in the technical, economic, educational, cultural, and medical fields. Senior cadres in these fields as well as members of the upper bureaucracy usually have graduated from regular universities.

PUBLIC HEALTH 11

In 1945 Vietnam had forty-seven hospitals with a total of 3,000 beds, and it had one physician for every 180,000 persons. The life expectancy of its citizens averaged thirty-four years. By 1979 there were 713 hospitals with 205,700 beds, in addition to more than 10,000 maternity clinics and rural health stations; the ratio of physicians to potential patients had increased to one per 1,000 persons, and the average life expectancy was sixty-three years for males and sixty-seven years for females. These expectancies remain true today.

Information concerning the health sector, although fragmentary, suggested that the country’s unified health care system has expanded and improved in both preventive and curative medicine. Medical personnel total about 240,000, including physicians, nurses, midwives, and other paramedics. The quality of public health care and the level of medical technology remain inadequate, however, and authorities are increasingly concerned about such problems as nutritional deficiency, mental health, and old-age illnesses. Cardiovascular diseases and cancers are reportedly not widespread but had increased in recent years. Information on AIDS was unavailable.

LIVING CONDITIONS 12

The improvement of living conditions has consistently been one of Hanoi’s most important but most elusive goals. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, food, housing, medicines, and consumer goods were chronically scarce as agriculture and industry slowly recovered from the effects of prolonged wartime disruptions, corrupt and inept management, and the cost of the military occupation of Cambodia. Consequently, the Hanoi government was under tremendous pressure to address social problems such as urban unemployment, vocational training, homelessness, the care of orphans, war veterans, and the disabled, the control of epidemics, and the rehabilitation of drug addicts and prostitutes. These problems were complicated by rapid population growth, which tested the limits of the food supply and increased the need to import grains. In recent years the dependence on foreign grains has subsided and the overall quality of life has increased; however, Vietnam is still considered to be one of the poorest Asian nations, with a per capita income of US$200 per person.

INFRASTRUCTURE 13

Decades of war and under-investment have left much of Vietnam?s infrastructure in a run-down state. The situation is gradually improving as the government encourages foreign investment in infrastructure projects through special incentive plans and takes advantage of international aid programs. However, a rising budget deficit and a shortage of hard currency have kept Vietnam from making some of the desperately needed large-scale improvements.

Transportation

Vietnam?s transportation system consists of about 105,000 km of roads, 2,600 km of railway, 19,500 km of navigable inland waterways, seven main ports, three international airports and additional number of smaller domestic airports.

The roads, bridges and railways are in desperate need of investment, while the rail and road transport fleets are inadequate and mainly use antiquated equipment. The current system is unable to meet existing needs, let alone keep up with the dramatic rise in trade volumes, foreign investment and economic growth.

Telecommunications

Vietnam has made great strides in upgrading its telecommunication systems, although much remains to be done. In recent years, Vietnam has invested US$800 million to increase the number of available telephones. The country now has one phone per 100 people, almost 10 times as many as in 1993. Direct dialing is now easy, although the costs remain quite high. A shortage of phone lines has led to a surge in the use of mobile telephones and pagers in urban areas, such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

NATIONAL SECURITY 14

Armed Forces

Vietnam?s military force is the largest in Southeast Asia and third largest force in

the world after China and Russia. It?s total estimated strength is over 5 million personnel: army, 1.2 million ( with thirty-eight regular infantry divisions); navy, 15,000; air force, 20,000; Regional Force, 500,000; Militia-Self Defense Force, 1.2 million; Armed Youth Assault Force, 1.5 million; and the Tactical Rear Force, 500,000. This makes Vietnam an adversary not to under-estimate, especially considering the number of combat seasoned veterans from the Vietnam, Cambodia and China Wars.

The Military’s Place in Society

The People?s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) exerts a great deal of complicated direct and indirect influence both on party and government policy-making and on everyday non- military life. It is so well integrated into the social system that there is no precise point at which it can be said that the military ends and the civilian world begins. PAVN is expected to be all things to the people and special things to the party. It must both lead the people and serve them. It must be loyal both to the political line and to the military line, even when these conflict. It must act as the vanguard of the party yet be scrupulously subservient to it.

The chief obligation of the average citizen to PAVN is military service, which is universal and compulsory. This duty long predates the advent of communism to Vietnam. Conscription in traditional Vietnam was carried out in a manner similar to the requisitioning of corvee labor. Village councils were required to supply conscripts according to population ratio. The 1980 Constitution stipulates that “citizens are obliged to do military service” and “take part in the building of the national defense force.” In December 1981, the National Assembly promulgated a new Military Obligation Law stating that “military obligation is mandated by law and is a glorious task for a citizen. . . . All male citizens from all rural areas, city districts, organs, state enterprises, and vocational schools from elementary to college level, regardless of the positions they hold, if they meet the induction criteria of the annual state draft plan, must serve in the armed forces for a limited time in accordance with the draft law.” Under the law there are no exemptions to military service, although there can be deferments. This practice has led to charges that extensive corruption allows the sons of influential party and state officials one deferment after another.

The draft is administered by PAVN itself and is conducted chiefly by a corps of retired officers stationed in district offices throughout the country. The process begins with registration, which is voluntary for all males at age sixteen and compulsory at seventeen. A woman may register if she is a member of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth League. The draft age is from eighteen to twenty-seven. The enlistment period is three years for ordinary enlistees, four years for technical specialists and navy personnel, and two years for certain ethnic minorities.

INTERNAL SECURITY 15

Internal security was never much of a problem in North Vietnam; it was probably somewhat more tenuous in unified Vietnam. Unification, understandably, introduced new internal threats, which the regime in the 1980s was able to keep in check. The most significant internal threat was the danger of counterrevolution, a possibility that had both internal and external implications. Hanoi feared that a resistance effort in Vietnam would mount an effective guerrilla war aided by outsiders who sought either to roll back communism in Indochina or to effect change in Hanoi’s leadership. These outsiders might include not only foreign governments but also emigre Vietnamese seeking to destroy the ruling system.

Police, crime-detection, and law-enforcement activities tend to be treated collectively under the heading of “public security.” These activities are conducted by overlapping, but tightly compartmentalized, institutions of control, separated by only hazy lines of jurisdiction. In particular, there is no sharp division between the internal security duties of PAVN forces and those of the civilian elements of the Ministry of Interior. Both party and state have paid enormous attention to the maintenance of public order. Perhaps it is for this reason that internal security has always been well managed and security threats have always been contained.

Four clusters of agencies are responsible for crime prevention and the maintenance of public order and internal security under the 1985 Criminal Code. The enforcement bodies are the People’s Security Force (PSF) or People’s Police, operating chiefly in urban areas; the People’s Public Security Force (PPSF), called the People’s Security Service or PSS at the village level; the plain-clothes or secret police; and the People’s Armed Security Force (PASF), a quasi-military organ, including some PAVN personnel, operating chiefly in the villages and rural areas and concerned both with crime and antistate activities.

Law Enforcement

Vietnamese legal thought with regard to the treatment of criminals is the result of three major influences: classic Confucianism, the Napoleonic Code, and Marxism-Leninism. The combination of the three legacies has produced in Vietnamese society a legal philosophy that is inquisitional rather than adversarial, seeking reform rather than punishment. The system imposes on the individual and the state the responsibility of bringing all members of society to a condition of self-imposed moral rectitude in which behavior is defined in terms of collective, rather than individual, good. In contrast to the West, where law is the guarantee of rights that all may claim, in Vietnam the law concerns duties that all must fulfill.

Vietnamese law seeks to give the prisoner the right to reformation. In theory, at least, there are very few incorrigibles. It also permits a relativist approach in fixing sentences, much more so than do the precedent-based systems of the West. Mitigating circumstances, such as whether the accused acted out of passion or premeditation, loom large as a factor in sentencing. Murder by stabbing is treated more leniently than murder by poison, for example, because the latter is perceived to require a greater degree of premeditation than the former. The personal circumstances of the accused are also a factor in determining punishment. In the administration of criminal justice in Vietnam, an effort is made to understand the criminal, his crime, and his reasons; and the notion of permanent or extended incarceration is rejected in favor of an effort to determine whether or not and, if so, how the criminal can be rehabilitated and restored to society.

Political crimes are treated less liberally, however. In such cases, the administration of justice can be arbitrary and harsh. Politics clearly plays a role in the arrest, trial, and sentencing procedures. The rationale for this policy, which is openly acknowledged, is that the revolution must be protected and that the individual may be sacrificed, perhaps even unjustly, for the common cause. The courts also take a more jaundiced view of the rehabilitation of political prisoners than of common criminals.

The court system was reorganized in 1981 into four basic levels: the Supreme People’s Court; the provincial municipal courts reporting to Hanoi; the local courts, chiefly at the district precinct levels, reporting respectively to provincial or municipal governments; and military courts. In addition, a number of specialized courts were created. In judicial procedure the courts still owed much to the French example, particularly with respect to the role of the procurator, who had much broader responsibilities than the prosecutor or district attorney under the Anglo-Saxon system.

Life in a Vietnamese prison is harsh. There are work details for those in prisons, as well as in the work-reform camps, that chiefly involve agricultural production for prison use. Rehabilitation lectures are held daily, and prisoners spend much time describing past behavior and thoughts in detail in their dossiers. Visitors are permitted only infrequently in most prisons. Discipline is strict, and prisons in particular are well guarded; usually there is 1 guard for every 250 prisoners. In general, the use of torture, corporal punishment, and what might be termed police brutality are no longer legal but are still condoned by officials and even accepted by the general public.

SUMMARY

This was a brief overview of the Vietnamese culture, in an attempt to establish a better understanding of the potential Vietnamese consumer. By utilizing the knowledge gained from this report, and any other possible sources, multi-national corporations may fully benefit from commerce with this emerging market. By possessing a basic foundation of the make up and everyday working of the Vietnamese society, international firms will be able to implement more efficient methods of human resource management, advertising, and manufacturing to meet the demands of the Vietnamese consumer.

SELF-EVALUATION

Through out the completion of this project, whether it be the countless hours of research

or the actual writing of this report, I have gained a better understanding of Vietnam that I would have had the opportunity to learn. I don?t consider myself an ?expert? on the country, or culture of Vietnam; however, I believe I am more aware of the cultural aspects of Vietnam and their possible advantages, or disadvantages that they may provide. Overall, I feel I have done an excellent job on this report and I may eventually have an opportunity to actually use this information in the international arena.

REFERENCES

1. General Information

?Background Notes: Vietnam.?United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. Aug 1995. Online.

http://gopher.state.gov:70/00ftp%3ADOSF…20and%20the%20Pacific%3AVietnam%2C%201995. 5 Nov 1997.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

?Welcome to Vietnam Embassy.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online.

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/index.htm.

2. Government

?Background Notes: Vietnam.?United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. Aug 1995. Online.

http://gopher.state.gov:70/00ftp%3ADOSF…20and%20the%20Pacific%3AVietnam%2C%201995. 5 Nov 1997.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

?Welcome to Vietnam Embassy.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online.

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/index.htm

3. History

Crawford, Ann. Customs and Culture of Vietnam. Pages 23-48. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.

?History.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online. http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/history.htm

4. Economy

?Economies of the Asia/Pacific Area: Vietnam.? Trade Information Center?s Asia/Pacific Web Site. Online.

http://infoserv2.ita.doc.gov/apweb.nsf/lc…4f4a128532cb852564030057838f?OpenDocumnet. 4 Nov 1997.

Knecht, Peter A. Editor. ?Background Notes – Vietnam.? United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. National Trade Data Bank. 6 OCT 95.

?Vietnam – Economic Statistics.? United States Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration Market Research Report. National Trade Data Bank. 19 JUN 96.

?Vietnam – Financial Sector Overview.? United States Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration Market Research Report. National Trade Data Bank. 24 APR 96..

?Vietnam?s Economy.? Vietnamese Embassy. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online. ?http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/economy.htm?.

?Vietnam.? Asian Development Bank. Online.

http://ccmail.asiandevbank.org/notes/vie1/2156.htm. 6 Nov 1997.

?VIEFIN.? Asian Development Bank. Online.

http://internotes.asiandevbank.org/notes/vie1/VIEFIN.htm. 6 Nov 1997.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

5. Population

?Background Notes: Vietnam.?United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. Aug 1995. Online.

http://gopher.state.gov:70/00ftp%3ADOSF…20and%20the%20Pacific%3AVietnam%2C%201995. 5 Nov 1997.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

6. The People

Crawford, Ann. Customs and Culture of Vietnam. Pages 49-64. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

?Welcome to Vietnam Embassy.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online.

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/index.htm

7. The Social System

Kham, Nguyen Khac. An Introduction to Vietnamese Culture. 2nd Edition. Pages 10-15. Saigon: The Vietnam Council of Foreign Relations, 1970.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

8. The Family

Crawford, Ann. Customs and Culture of Vietnam. Pages 49-64, 107-130. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.

9. Religion

Crawford, Ann. Customs and Culture of Vietnam. Pages 65-90. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.

Kham, Nguyen Khac. An Introduction to Vietnamese Culture. 2nd Edition. Pages 15-21. Saigon: The Vietnam Council of Foreign Relations, 1970.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

?Culture.? Vietnam Online Home Page. Online.

http://www.Vietnamonline.net/menu.nsf/menu/index?opendocument. Nov 1997.

10. Education

Crawford, Ann. Customs and Culture of Vietnam. Pages 91-106. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

11. Public Health

Cima, Ronald J. Editor. VIETNAM: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1987. Online.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+vn0000). Oct 1997.

Crawford, Ann. Customs and Culture of Vietnam. Pages 155-166. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.

?Welcome to Vietnam Embassy.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online.

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/index.htm

12. Living Conditions

?Welcome to Vietnam Embassy.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online.

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/index.htm

13. Infrastructure

Cima, Ronald J. Editor. VIETNAM: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1987. Online.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+vn0000). Oct 1997.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

14. National Security

Cima, Ronald J. Editor. VIETNAM: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1987. Online.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+vn0000). Oct 1997.

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

?Welcome to Vietnam Embassy.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online.

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/index.htm

15. Internal Security

Cima, Ronald J. Editor. VIETNAM: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1987. Online.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+vn0000). Oct 1997.

?Welcome to Vietnam Embassy.? Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Washington D.C. 2 OCT 97. Online.

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/index.htm

Graphics on Cover and Title Page

?Culture.? Vietnam Online Home Page. Online.

http://www.Vietnamonline.net/menu.nsf/menu/index?opendocument. Nov 1997.

Appendix A

?Vietnam.? Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) 96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM. Information Access. Oct 1997.

Pictures in Enclosures

The Vietnam Picture Archive. Online.

http://sunsite.unc.edu/vietnam/vnpic.html

APPENDIX A

HISTORICAL TIME LINE

111 BC

China conquered the northern part of present-day Vietnam, and later changed the name of the region to Annam.

AD 939

China withdrew from Annam, and the Vietnamese kingdom of Dai Co Viet was established. Other Vietnamese kingdoms ruled southern areas of present-day Vietnam.

1009-1225

Vietnamese art and culture thrived during the Ly dynasty.

1407-1428

China seized control of Dai Co Viet, but resistance forces led by Le Loi drove the Chinese from the country and established the kingdom of Dai Viet.

1471

Dai Viet conquered the southern Vietnamese kingdom of Champa, but intermittent fighting between the north and south continued until 1673.

1770s

The Tay Son began to seize control of much of Dai Viet from the Nguyen dynasty.

1802

Nguyen Anh defeated the Tay Son and united the northern and southern parts of the country, which he renamed Vietnam.

1861

The French seized control of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and began establishing a colonial government in Vietnam.

1883

France controlled all of Vietnam as well as Laos and Cambodia.

1940

Japan assumed effective control of French Indochina.

1945

Japan forced Emperor Bao Dai to declare the independence of northern and central Vietnam. After the war, the emperor stepped down and Communist leader Ho Chi Minh assumed power.

1954

The Communist-led Vietminh defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Vietnam was divided into two nations. Ho Chi Minh became president of North Vietnam, and Bao Dai became the leader of South Vietnam.

1957

Backed by North Vietnam, Communist guerrillas called the Vietcong began to rebel against the South Vietnamese government.

1965

United States forces landed at Da Nang and began fighting in Vietnam.

1969

Ho Chi Minh died.

1973

The United States ended its military involvement in the Vietnam War.

1975

South Vietnam surrendered to northern forces. Thousands of Vietnamese began fleeing the country.

1976

North and South Vietnam were unified under a Communist government. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

1978

Vietnam invaded Cambodia and removed the Khmer Rouge government.

1989

Vietnam claimed to have withdrawn all of its forces from Cambodia.

1990s

Economic reforms encouraging limited private enterprise and foreign investment were instituted.

1994

The United States ended its long-standing trade embargo with Vietnam. In return, Vietnam offered increased cooperation in providing information about soldiers killed or missing in the Vietnam War.

1995

President Clinton announced the normalization of diplomatic relations with Vietnam. This followed the establishment of Liaison Offices in Hanoi and Washington, DC.