Essay on Vietnam: Physical Features, Cultural Patterns, Resource and Other Details

Vietnam emerged in its present unified form in 1976, after the French occupation of the territory for nearly 100 years as three French states: Tonkin in the north; an elongated Annam in the middle; and Cochin China in the south, and on the ru­ins of the two states of North and South Vietnam that existed between 1954 and 1976. The country extends nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) along the eastern rim of mainland Southeast Asia, from China’s southern borders to the Mekong delta.

The two former states of Tonkin and Co­chin China are crowded delta lands. With its present population of over 77 million, Vietnam is the most populated country of mainland Southeast Asia, and despite the huge losses of reproductive age groups dur­ing the Vietnam War (1954-1976), now records a high rate of population increase.

Despite the unification of North and South Vietnam, creating one of the most elongated states in the world, the age-old divisions between north and south con­tinue to persist. Hanoi in the Tonkin area in the north and Ho Chi Minh City, for­merly Saigon in the Mekong delta in the south, continue to dominate the two areas as regional foci of economic, social and po­litical power.

In the aftermath of the dissolution of the French rule and the crea­tion of two states: communist-led North Vietnam and non-Communists South Viet­nam, the tragic developments of the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s plunged the region into political instability and economic ruin from which it is strug­gling to recover.

An armed push to oust the government in Saigon by communist guerrillas, the Vietcong, helped by North Vietnam led to a brutal war into which the United States was drawn. Fearing an ever- encircling extension of communism, United States forces supported the Saigon regime of South Vietnam with more than half a million soldiers at one time. What had begun as a scattered rebellion by the Vietcong ended in 1975 in the defeat of South Vietnam and its ally, the U.S. de­spite the heavy U.S. military and economic aid provided to South Vietnam, including an extensive bombing of North Vietnam and its capital, Hanoi.

Following unification, Vietnam intro­duced important economic and political changes, but recovery proved difficult. First, the economy had been crippled by wholesale destruction of the already poor infrastructure, resistance on the part of the peasantry to collectivization, minimal ex­ternal economic aid except from the Soviet Union, and the departure of a large pro­portion of the middle-class entrepreneurs, civil servants, technicians and professional persons.

Secondly, Vietnam became em­broiled in the affairs of its neighbors, Cambodia, and Laos. Although Vietnam with its overwhelming military, technical and numerical superiority could retain control over these neighbors, this sapped its energy so vitally needed for its own re­construction.

Thirdly, Vietnam’s hostility and open conflict with China along its northern border created a border of ten­sion, weakening its military and economic base. As a by-product of these relations, Chinese (who form substantial minorities in all major cities) have been fleeing into China in a steady stream of refugees.

The Soviet Union, and its Eastern block satel­lites, had helped to keep the Vietnamese economy from collapsing by the provision of economic aid to the extent of 2 billion dollars per year (in the mid-1980s). With the final disintegration of its former ally, the Soviet Union in 1991, and the strained relations with China, Vietnam is now looking to the West for foreign aid for eco­nomic reconstruction.

A consequence of the emergence of the new regime, in terms of human suffering as tragic as the political upheaval during the Vietnam War, has been a large-scale, and continuing exodus from Vietnam, of those who opposed the rise of the new or­der. Fearing for their lives, they had to flee the country as refugees to foreign lands. No refugee movements are easy; but none perhaps have been as tragic as the refugee movements from Indochina since 1975.

Physical Features:

Physically, Vietnam is largely a mountainous nation but can be divided into four distinct regions: One, the Annam Cordillera of mountains extending from north to south through west-central part of the country, and along the Laotian and Cambodian borders in the west and covering most of the country; second, the Song Hoi or Red River delta in the north; third, the Mekong delta in the south, and fourth, the narrow, coastal plain in the east along the South China Sea.

The Annam Cordillera is extremely rugged, densely forested and impenetrable. It is a south­ward extension of the Yungui Plateau of southern China, and covers nearly two- thirds of the country. It rises to more than 6,000 feet (1,830 meters) in altitude, and widens into a plateau-like surface in the southern half. The fertile Red River delta, roughly triangular in shape, and is bounded in the north by rugged mountains that ex­tend to the Chinese border.

The river and its several tributaries are in part out for lo­cal freight transportation and irrigation, but are subject to frequent flooding. The Mekong delta in the south is nearly four times larger than the Red River delta and given to floods that bring sediments which increase the fertile land each year on the flood plains. The low-lying narrow coastal plains connect two river deltas.

The climate is tropical monsoonal with hot winters in the south and cool winters in the north. From April to the end of October, the summer monsoon sweeps over the southern half of the coun­try, bringing heavy rains, averaging about 80 inches (2,000 mm) a year. In the north, rainfall averages 60 inches or so.

Cultural Patterns:

Vietnam has one of the most complex ethnic-linguistic patterns in Southeast Asia, and the population is di­vided into several disparate groups, although 87 percent are classified as Viet­namese. Ethnically, the Chinese, Phos, Tais, Khmers, Hmongs, and Nungs are relatively insignificant in numbers, each claiming between 2-4 percent of the popu­lation. The Vietnamese underwent considerable sinicization during a millen­nium of Chinese rule.

They belong to the Mon-Khmer linguistic group of the Austro-Asiatic language family but exhibit strong Chinese influences. Indian influ­ence is noticeable among the Khmer and Cham groups. The Chams, whose language belongs to the Austronesian family, formed an Indianized Kingdom of Champa from the 2nd century to the late 16th cen­tury; only small numbers now remain in the south-central coastal plain and in the Mekong delta.

The Khmers are scattered throughout the Mekong delta. Other mi­nority groups are the tribal people primarily inhabiting the highlands sur­rounding the Red River delta and parts of the Annam Cordillera. Several of the small communities that live in the Central high­lands are still largely oriented around the family, and were collectively known by the French as Montagnards (“Highland­ers”).

Many of them link themselves to the Cham, Malay, and Indonesian peoples, and some to the Khmers, and thus are dis­tinctly non-Vietnamese. The Tais speak Tai languages. Most of these tribal minori­ties have experienced little Chinese or Indian influence, but were exposed to the western (French from the late 19th cen­tury and American during the early 1970s) influence.

The relations between Vietnam and China became strained during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and a large number of Chinese left the country. There were over 2 million Chinese at the end of the Indo-China war m 1975; now they number a little over a million. Vietnamese is the of­ficial language; French, Chinese, English and Khmer are also spoken.

Two-thirds of Vietnam’s population is listed as adhering to Buddhism, and 8 per­cent to Christianity. Confucianism, Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism (clearly Chinese influence rather than that of the Hinayana of the Southeast Asian neighbors) entered and permeated into Vietnamese society over many centuries. In due course, these were intertwined, modified, and Vietnamized to become a Vietnamese folk religion that coexists with animistic beliefs held by the tribal people.

Roman Catholi­cism was introduced in the 16th century and spread rapidly following the French occupation in the mid-19th century. Most of the Catholics were concentrated in the north before the country’s partition in 1954. With the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam, all of the foreign Christian clergy were expelled. Although the country’s current constitution has guaranteed freedom of religion, in practice government controls have not been re­laxed significantly.

Resources and Development:

Agri­culture is by far the most important sector of economy, employing about three- fourths of the work force, and producing a third of the value of the nation’s domestic product. Agriculture is also the main source of raw materials for the processing industries and an important contributor to exports. After years of shortages, the coun­try was exporting rice by the late 1980s.

It is the most important crop, grown on nearly four-fifths of the cropped land, principally in Red River and Mekong River deltas, the country’s primary areas of permanent cultivation. The central coast land is given to destructive typhoons, and the central highlands areas are regions of low productivity.

The nation is now producing over 29 million tons of rice; other major food crops are cassava (pro­duction over 2 million tons annually), corn (1 million tons), soybeans, peanuts and sweet potatoes. Agriculture is labor-in­tensive and much plowing is carried on by water buffalo.

During the French rule, considerable effort was made to develop commercial plantation agriculture. There are many plantations of banana and fruit trees, coco­nut, and sugar cane, most in the Mekong River delta and the southern region; and the plantations of coffee, tea and rubber in the central highlands.

The production of rubber was particularly disrupted by the war during the 1970s and production of most plantations also declined. Other cash crops include tobacco, and jute. Fishing is important in the Mekong basin, and ac­counted for 10 percent of all export earnings in 1999 (rice contributed nearly 12 percent).

Forestry is a major industry. Furniture, pulp, and paper are the impor­tant products, and together with agricultural products are sources of con­siderable export earnings. Deforestation and forest devastation during the war, and soil degradation, however, threaten the in­dustry, but there is increasing domestic demand for forest products.

Vietnam’s mineral resources are sub­stantial, particularly in the north. There are large reserves of coal, petroleum, phos­phates, chromite, tin, manganese, antimony, bauxite, gold, iron ore, lead, tungsten, and zinc. Mining has been im­portant, particularly of coal and oil which are major export items. Other minerals are produced primarily for domestic industry but also exported in some quantities.

A number of offshore oil deposits have been discovered in the South China Sea, mainly off the southern coast; the production has steadily increased. In 1994, crude petro­leum accounted for a quarter of all export earnings. By world standards, the produc­tion is yet small, but has added to Vietnam’s strategic significance.

Before the French occupation, Viet­nam possessed an insignificant commercial and manufacturing sector, although during the colonial period, significant changes to the economy occurred. The French devel­oped export crops such as rubber, tea and rice. Beyond this, their economic interests lay in creating a market for French manu­factured goods.

Vietnam, therefore, did not take to industrialization on a substan­tial scale. Since independence the North (North Vietnam) took to socialist ideol­ogy, and the basic industries were nationized, and farms collectivized. The South (South Vietnam) with its limited mineral resources, concentrated on light industry and export crops.

After the war in 1975, the unified Viet­nam embarked on the road to instituting centrally-planned economy and empha­sized the development of heavy industry. A concentrated effort was made to rapidly transform the private, capitalist industry in the South into a state-run activity.

The production of coal and the production of off-shore oil and gas reserves, and the de­velopment of transport and communication were to receive special attention. In order to curb population pressure in the Red River delta, a substantial number of people were moved to the less-developed sections of the nation, particularly the central high­lands and Cambodian borderlands—the goal was to move 10 million people over two decades.

But from the outset, the plans ran into problems resulting primarily from mismanagement, corruption, bureaucratic snags and shortage of capital. By 1978 the economy was in a crisis and the state pol­icy was reversed in favor of greater emphasis on the production of agricultural and consumer goods. Food and industrial output has since been steadily on the rise, though progress is spotty. Foreign eco­nomic assistance remains inadequate.

Food processing (especially rice mill­ing, processing of seafood, coffee, and tea) is the largest industrial activity. Textiles are of growing importance; silk production revived after a period of decline in the 1970s. Cement and chemical industries (particularly fertilizer production) are other important industries.

Rubber is processed primarily for export, but is also used in the manufacture of a wide range of consumer items for domestic needs. Steel manufacturing is a major heavy industry. The production of bicycles, machine tools, electrical equipment, paper and leather goods have significantly increased since 1980; much of their growth may be attrib­uted to the development of hydro- electricity.

Vietnam’s population has grown rap­idly since reunification in 1975; it has been rising at a rate of 1.5 to 2 percent annually, aggravating the food shortage situation. By the early 1990s, however, the food produc­tion situation had considerably improved, and Vietnam became a food-grain exporter again after a lapse of three decades.

Vietnam experienced trade deficits during the war, and deficits continued since at a much smaller scale. Economic re­forms of liberalization instituted during the late 1980s and early 1990s became more meaningful with the breakup of the Soviet Union and collapse of the commu­nist governments in Eastern Europe, as the trade with these countries sharply de­clined.

Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong became the major trading partners. As exports of crude petroleum, f light textiles, and agricultural products to the new trading partners grew, deficits declined. Mineral fuels, motor vehicles, machinery and food stuffs are the principal imports.

Transportation between the north and south has been difficult, with traffic lim­ited to the narrow coastal corridor. Hanoi, the capital, (population over 2 million) and the traditional administrative center and transportation hub of northern Vietnam, is connected by railroad to China, and through the narrow coastal corridor linked to Vietnam’s largest city of Ho Chi Minh City, (its former name of Saigon changed after the unification of the coun­try).

Hanoi is located on the Red River, and IS an important shipping point for ag­ricultural and industrial products of the north. Majority of its industries deal in the production of machine tools, locomotives, plywood, textiles and chemicals. The city received heavy bombing by the U.S. dur­ing the war (1965-68 and 1972), and was destroyed but regained functions in ruined structures.

Ho Chi Minh City:

Ho Chi Minh City (population: 4.3 million) lies in the delta area of the Mek­ong. It is the country’s largest port, and the commercial and industrial center, be­sides being a focus of the country’s highways, railroads, and of the Mekong’s waterways. Its major industries are textile mills, paper mills, and shipyards, machine as­sembling plants, rubber and food processing. The city was modernized dur­ing the French rule, and became the capital of the state of South Vietnam in 1954.

Prospects:

Vietnam contains several mineral and agricultural resources, the de­velopment of which suffered during a period of turmoil and warfare during the 1960s and 1970s, and since then from mis­management of the economy. The actual potential for economic growth has been hindered in effect by population growth, environmental degradation and rigid eco­nomic policies.

Paradoxically, the nation’s important economic resource is the literate and energetic population. The physical re­sources of long coastline, and areas of scenic beauty are well suited to the devel­opment of tourism; but lack of infrastructure has inhibited full utilization of these. Since the mid-1990s there have been some hopeful signs for the future development.

The nation has been steadily opening up to the west, and there is a move to a partial privatization of the econ­omy and a relaxation of the rigid govern­ment controls. Foreign investment is being lured. In 1994 the United States lifted an embargo on trade, and investment. Coca- Cola opened its first bottling plant. Mobil has been exploring for oil, and several American, European and Japanese compa­nies have started their establishments.