26
November 2006
Firmly moving beyond past hostilities
Arriving
last week in Ho Chi Minh City, President George W. Bush, the second US
president to visit Vietnam since the end of war three decades ago, was greeted
by cheering crowds. Thousands of Vietnamese lined the streets of the city,
formerly known as Saigon, to welcome the guest, all waving or smiling and some
holding their children on shoulders.
In
contrast to this, Bush’s visit to Jakarta last Sunday provoked deep anger among
Indonesians. Thousands of people belonging to the country’s militant Muslim
groups took to the streets shouting anti-US slogans and threatening to kill
Bush. Some individuals reportedly resorted to black magic and voodoo in a bid
to thwart any agreement between Bush and his Indonesian counterpart Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono.
This,
despite the fact that Vietnamese, not Indonesians, were the target of the US
military machine in a bloody war that lasted a decade and killed hundreds of
thousands of their countrymen.
The
two contradicting scenes reflect the difference between two cultures. One is
based on tolerance and forgiveness and, therefore, capable of bypassing dark
events of past in favour of a promising future. The other is handcuffed by
hatred and demagogic rhetoric, which prevents compromise or reconciliation. The
latter, however, is not a genuine Indonesian culture. It is rather a culture
that has penetrated Indonesian society in the last three decades as a result of
growing interaction between locals and Middle Eastern Islamist groups and
individuals, according to Yudhoyono and former president Abdurrahman Wahid.
The
above lines serve as explanation for Vietnam’s capability of being avid to
learn, cooperate, and seize opportunities and of undertaking whatever is
necessary to build a better future for its present and next generations without
looking back at one thousand years of domination by Chinese feudalism, 16 great
invasions by Chinese and Mongolian dynasties, one century of domination by
French and Japanese colonialism, and thirty years of independence and unity
wars against France and the US.
Vietnam’s
openness to the world led to establishing diplomatic or economic ties with 167
countries, wining the membership of three influential economic groupings:
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asean Free
Trade Area (AFTA) and receiving an invitation to become the 150th member of the
World Trade Organization (WTO). However, the most significant aspect of its
openness has been its firm move in the last ten years to strengthen and
diversify cooperation with its old enemy, the United States.
There
have been numerous developments with respect to US-Vietnam relations since the
mid-1990s, including lifting of economic embargo in 1994, normalization of
diplomatic relations in 1995, and conclusion of the Bilateral Trade Agreement
(BTA) in July 2000. With former US president Bill Clinton’s visiting Vietnam in
November 2000, the BTA taking effect in December 2001, and Vietnamese Prime
Minister Phan Van Khai paying a historical visit to Washington in June 2005,
bilateral two-way trade has increased, jumping to nearly US$ 7 billion last
year. The US is now Vietnam’s largest export market, purchasing one-fifth of
the country’s total exports and US exports to Vietnam have increased by 300
percent in the past four years.
More
important, however, has been the growth of US investment in Vietnam, which
totaled $3 billion last year. Encouraged by factors such as diversified
business opportunities, low labour costs, dynamic work force with increasingly
strengthened educational system, and a relatively large consumer pool of 84
million people – 60 percent of whom are under the age of 30, American firms
have shown greater interest in investing in Vietnam.
According
to a study conducted in 2004 by the American Chamber of Commerce on Vietnam’s
business climate, 77 percent of members agreed that Vietnam’s economy was
improving, 82 percent expected profits to increase in years to come, and 90
percent voiced no concerns about the safety of themselves or their families
there. Despite some reservations concerning corruption, poor infrastructure, a
slow-moving bureaucracy, land acquisition issues, and taxes, there was a
general agreement that a new tiger was born and that through greater financial
and technical support it would grow and mirror the economic success of other
Asian tigers.
It
was not surprising, therefore, to see Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker
choosing Vietnam, not other neighbouring countries, as a place for its largest
overseas investment.
Almost
coinciding with Bush’s recent visit to Vietnam, the American company announced
that it would invest $1 billion in the country to build a chip assembly and
testing plant in a science park outside Ho Chi Minh City. Expected to begin
operation in 2009, the plant would create up to 4,000 jobs.
The
significance of Intel’s investment, the biggest by a US firm in Vietnam, is
that it will boost information technology industry in Vietnam, where 20,000
engineers currently work for about 700 software companies, and whose IT
industry has recorded sales of nearly $1 billion last year. It will raise
confidence in the country’s investment climate, put Vietnam firmly on the
high-tech map, encourage other Western and Japanese investors to come, and
possibly overcome Vietnam’s reputation for being the region’s worst violators
of intellectual property rights.
Dr.
Abdulla Al-Madani
Academic
researcher and lecturer on Asian affairs