Doi Thoai - Tu Do Dan Chu cho To Quoc Viet Nam

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Ðằng Vân:
East Wind or West Wind

Last week has been hailed by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) as pivotal in its attempt for Vietnam to be admitted to WTO. According to Vietnamnet (20 July 2006) in its round of negotiations of 19 July 2006 in Geneva with the WTO Working Party chaired by Mr. Eirik Glenn, the Vietnamese team under the leadership of Truong Dinh Tuyen, Minister for Trade, has affirmed his country's determination to join the organization. Vietnam is currently undertaking an array of legislative reforms including 24 new legislations and executive decrees covering areas such as: enterprise laws, investments, intellectual property. There appear to be hope that Vietnam will be admitted to WTO this October, prior to the planned visit to Vietnam by President George W Bush for the purpose of the APEC meeting to be hosted by Hanoi in November 2006.

Of course there are some concerns as to the granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status to Vietnam by the US legislature. According to RFA (20 July 2006) in an interview with former South Vietnam's Ambassador Bui Diem, although there are hearings before the economic sub-committee of the Senate, there are yet no hearings in the House of Representatives. Furthermore, Congress will be in recess from 4 August until beginning of September. After that its members will be busy with the November election.

Amnesty International, through Mr. T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia & the Pacific has reported to the Senate Committee on Finance as to the various violations on Human Rights in Vietnam.

It seems that WTO rules might override any PNTR resolutions and Vietnam's place in WTO is almost guaranteed. Legally speaking, PNTR might be a marginal issue after all.

However, despite the CPV's express enthusiasm with PNTR status, and with joining the West in terms of trade, we should not read to much politically into it.

For the CPV, the WTO is only an opportunity to get economic credence in order to justify its continued monopoly of political power. For it, the act of joining WTO (or the West) is not aimed at promoting prosperity for the people. It is aimed merely at furthering the selfish interests of the CPV and its cronies.

Indeed, despite all the noise about membership of WTO, and despite the fact that the Venerable Chairman Mao Tse Tung died many moons ago, for his loyal disciple the CPV, the East Wind still prevails over the West Wind, when the chips are down.

It is true to say that by siding with the West, Vietnam as a nation of relatively literate workforce, with great intellect and potential technical skills, will speedily catch up with the West, in the way South Korea did 40 years ago. Paradoxically under Western influence and with the infusion of information and technology, the CPV may lose control and possibly political power.

By contrast, by siding with the East (China), Vietnam as a nation has already lost significant parts of its border territory and sea areas to the Chinese. It has become the dumping ground for cheap Chinese goods. China will forever continue in its tradition of treating Vietnam as a political and economic vassal. Vietnam as a nation will always lag behind China in economic and political developments. Paradoxically, the CPV believes that under Chinese suzerainty, it benefits from the unflinching support of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and this support would cement its political power for years to come.

The CPV genuinely believes that the CCP is the rock on which it can build its temple of power for eternity. Their belief is built on two propositions:

2. That the CCP on the other hand can continue to rule Mainland China even after the CPV has lost power in Vietnam.

Granted that many years ago, before the 1954 capitulation of the French imperial dreams in Indochina, both Mao Tse Tung and Ho Chi Minh were unanimous in stating that the relationship between the two Communist parties was one in which “if the lips are not firmly closed, then the teeth will feel the bitter cold”.

At that point in history, the two ancient leaders did not specify which nation was the teeth and which one was the lips. But the reality was quite clear. The CCP and Mao Tse Tung did not need the CPV and Ho Chi Minh to defeat Chang Kai Chek and the Chinese Nationalist Party, then win power in mainland China. However, without the CCP's victory in China in 1949 and if the Chinese Nationalist Party won in China, then the CPV would have been smashed into smithereens by the Nationalist forces in Vietnam.

But times have drastically changed, and so has the power relationship between the two countries. There are now only 4 Communist dictatorships in the world: North Korea, Cuba, China and Vietnam. But Cuba is geographically and culturally too remote, and North Korea is both politically and economically too different from both Vietnam and China to be of any influence in this equation.

Thus, the CPV in Vietnam, with its 84 million population, and of course the CCP in China with its billion plus population and economic might, become more and more politically interdependent.

Furthermore, the similar political and economic policies adopted by the two ruling parties, in the last 30 years or so have tied their fates together.

Thus not only the fall of the CCP in China will bring about the fall of the CPV in Vietnam. But critically, this time around, with the information technology penetrating deep into each nation, the reverse will be true too.

It follows that the “loose lips and cold teeth” fable, as enunciated by Ho and Mao, has only assumed its fullest meaning, in the deepest sense of the term, in the 21st century, and not during their lifetimes. This fable now, also as discussed, works in both directions.

The CCP knew this and this was why days before the 10th Congress of the CPV this year, they sent no less than one of the most powerful in their hierarchy (Gia Khanh Lam) to Vietnam to give directions to their vassal on the appointments of the current local leaders (Manh, Trong, Triet, Dung) to their respective positions of Party General Secretary, Chairman of Congress, State President and Prime Minister.

The tragedy for the Vietnamese people is that it seems the CPV leaders are still cursed by a deep seated complex of inferiority. They still fail to understand that their demise will certainly spell the demise of their big brother in China too. Burdened and blinded by this ignorance, they did not bother to put up a decent fight during negotiations with China, but readily ceded sea and territories so easily to the Chinese, risking the ire of the majority of the people including the rank and file of their own party, in the process.

For the life of them, they could not imagine such a powerful and invincible brother the like of the CCP could be that vulnerable under the same types of pressure and fear.

As a further insight into this relationship, the Caltrade Report of 24 July 2006 referred to the fact that Vietnam started negotiations with the USA to join WTO as early as 1992 and applied to join in 1995. That was six entire years before the Chinese joined WTO. However, under Chinese influence, Vietnam discontinued its efforts to join, accusing the USA of lack of cooperation.

Even a blind man can see that next to a powerful neighbor to their East personified by Japan, what China is really most terrified of is an economically and militarily powerful Vietnam with a population approaching 100 millions, in their southern borders.

But as long as the CPV is in power, China can control Vietnam's destiny and has nothing to fear.

From the above facts, it appears that well before China joined WTO on 11 November 2001, Vietnam had the chance, and thanks to its big brother, missed the boat. They were tricked by their Chinese comrades into believing that commerce with China alone would be beneficial enough, and China would help them with keeping political power. As soon as Vietnam took the bait, China joined the WTO. China's wanton conduct after it joined made it so much harder for Vietnam to join.

The CPV knew this but swallowed this bitter pill in silence. Their leaders continued to worship Beijing because of their continued belief in the above unjustified myth, and in their own vulnerability without the CCP.

Despite the common perception that the CPV is doing a fine balancing act between the two super powers: China and the USA, the balance is not really even. It is heavily skewed towards China.

The USA knows this. Thus the fact that the American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice no longer sees fit to visit Vietnam as per schedule at the end of July 2006 because of the situation in the Middle East, will not be made into any fuss by either side of the negotiating table.

At this moment, in Vietnam, for the CPV, the East Wind prevails over the West Wind. But everyone knows that in the very hearts of the Vietnamese people, and in the long term interest of the nation, the West Wind clearly prevails.