Vietnam stretches one thousand miles from China in the north to the Gulf of Thailand in the south. The Gulf of Tokin and the South China Sea border the eastern side of the country. In the west, the Annamite Mountains separate Vietnam from Cambodia and Laos. To the north, along Vietnamese-Chinese border are the Hoang Lien Mountains, containing the highest point in Vietnam. Hanoi is the capital and Ho Chi Minh City, previously Saigon, is the largest city. Vietnam is divided into five municipalities and fifty-nine provinces.
The surrender of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DVR) in the south in 1975 gave rise to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the following year. Vietnam has a dual-executive. The head of government is Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung. While, President Truong Tan Song, is the head of state. The legislature is unicameral, consisting of 500 National Assembly members. According to the Vietnam Constitution, the only political party allowed to exist is the Vietnamese Communist Party (CPV or CP). In recent years, “Vietnam has gone from being one of the world’s poorest nations into one of Southeast Asia’s most
…show more content…
In the North, the Vietminh were militarily successful and held tight control over the entire region. As Vietminh forces increased by the thousands, the French were no longer able to assert their authority over the country. The Geneva Peace Conference of 1954 ended the French Indochina war and ended in the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel. The conference establishes a Communist government under Ho Chi Minh in the North, while the South remains under the authority of Bao Dai. However, the DRV under Ngo Dinh Diem replaces Bao Dai shortly after the division. An election to determine the fate of Vietnam was to occur in 1956, but the DRV rejected the election, leaving the country
Vietnam has a very rich and cultural diverse background dating all the way back to 1066 when William the Conqueror invaded and paved the way for English colonization. The French had been colonizing since the 19th century. The French role in Vietnams history is critical; they started out by bringing these simple peasants to the latest technology of farming and hunting (Yancey 37). The French helped these people out greatly in the beginning, but like all stories of occupation go they just got worse. They started forcing rules and laws on the people of Vietnam. Thus started the First Vietnam War, also known as the Indochina War between France and Vietnam. "The French possessed military superiority, but the Vietnamese had already the hearts and minds of the country. (38). Even from the beginning the Vietnamese had the odds to there favor. The French looked at the wars in numbers and how many lost on each side. They gathered from all the battles that they were winning because the Vietnamese casualties far outweighed the French; nonetheless they were wrong. To a certain point the French were fighting a game that they could not win at any cost. The French had the military superiority but the Vietnamese had the manpower and the Guerilla tactics. The Indochina War ended with French loosing terrible at Dienbienphu, where a whole French garrison was wiped out.
The Vietnam War was a war over communism that started in 1950, when Ho Chi Minh, the national leader of Vietnam, introduced a communist government into North Vietnam. In 1954 it was decided to split the country at the 17th parallel, and was ruled under opposing governments, Bao Dai leading the south and Ho Chi Mihn the north. North Vietnam went to war with South Vietnam with the north being supported by Russia and China, as they were also Communist countries, and the south being supported by Britain and the USA.
In 1949, Mao Zedong led the Peoples Revolution, which established a Communist State in China. Communism has now been introduced to Asia. In this period, after World War II, Communism was a popular ideology being introduced throughout the world. Vietnam was one of the many countries under the threat of Communism. At this time, Vietnam was a French Colony. As time went on tension started to come between the French and the Vietnamese people. As tension increased so did the fighting between the French and The Vietnamese. Finally in 1954, The French decided that they could no longer withstand the revolts of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese were now free of French rule. However, many problems still remained in Vietnam. After the war there was a conference to discuss the troubles in Vietnam and all of the other troubles in Asia. That conference was called the Geneva Conference. Vietnam sent two delegations to the conference. One of the delegations represented Viet Minh (which was Communist in their leanings) and the other represented Bao Dia's government, which was backed by the United States. Both claimed to represent all of Vietnam. At the conference there was a discussion about dividing Vietnam at the 17th parallel to solve the troubles between the two delegations. Now there were two Vietnams. One, in the north, was under Communist rule and the other, in the south, was not. While the Geneva Conference was being held, the United States was already concerned about Communism being spread. The United States then decided that the only way to solve the problems would be to contain Communism including in Vietnam.
In 1954, French involvement in Vietnam ended and led to the Geneva Conference where a ceasefire agreement was negotiated. From the Geneva Accords, Vietnam was divided into two portions, North and South, at the 17th parallel. At the time, North Vietnam was communist and was gaining followers quickly (Rogers). The United States had previously created something called the Truman Doctrine, a policy to counter communism and allowed the US to provide political, military, and economic assistance
Robert S. McNamara's book, In Retrospect, tells the story of one man's journey throughout the trials and tribulations of what seems to be the United States utmost fatality; the Vietnam War. McNamara's personal encounters gives an inside perspective never before heard of, and exposes the truth behind the administration.
In his article, “To Be Patriotic is to Build Socialism”: Communist Ideology in Vietnam's Civil War, Tuong Vo challenges a standard view of the civil war between North and South Vietnam – the war is power struggle between the two camps. Based on newly available documents and other primary sources, Vu argues that “[V]ietnamese communists never wavered in their ideology loyalty during the period when key decisions about the civil war were made (1953–1960)...a modernizing socialist ideology rather than a mere for national unification was driving the Vietnamese civil war from the north” (Vu 2009, 34–35). In the same vein, Zinoman in his forthcoming article, Nhân Văn–Giai Phm and Vietnamese “Reform Communism” during the 1950s: A Revisionist Interpretation, challenges a well established view about the NVGP movement, a surge of domestic political protest that peaked in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during 1956 that takes its name from two incendiary journals – Nhân Văn [humanity] and Giai Phm [masterworks]. He points out that foreign scholars and local intellectuals interested in the NVGP affair succeed “in conveying a plausible image of NVGP as a robust movement of political dissent against the party-state” (Zinoman forthcoming 2011, 3).
When president of south Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem decided that the election of 1956 should be canceled, America strongly agreed so that Minh could not gain control of the whole country. Diem was a Catholic, which angered the country consisting mostly of Buddhist. In opposition to Diem, a new regime was conjured up in south Vietnam called the Vietcong. Vietcong were residents of South Vietnam who were in favor of the communist rule in North Vietnam.
Throughout Vietnam’s history geography has play a role during it and because of it’s location, climate, soil it was an ideal place for farming which would soon attract invaders. The Chinese, French ,and Japanese all wanted something from Vietnam which included agriculture abundance, colonial possessions, and natural resources. They all controlled Vietnam at this time. Japan surrendered when vietminh declared it’s independence and the United States did not support this independence. The French and Vietminh went into war where the french had lost and Vietnam was divided ( French took control of
(4)The U.S. used realpolitiks in The Geneva Conference because the United States negotiated with a communist country over another country. (5) On April 27, 1954, the Conference produced a declaration which supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Indochina thereby granting it independence from France. In addition, the Conference declaration agreed upon the cessation of hostilities and foreign involvement (or troops) in internal Indochina affairs. Northern and southern zones were drawn into which opposing troops were to withdraw, to facilitate the cessation of hostilities between the Vietnamese forces and those that had supported the French. The Viet Minh, awaited unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956. Most of the French Union forces evacuated Vietnam, although much of the regional governmental infrastructure in the South was the same as it had been under t...
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
...ence of 1957 would support the cession of foreign involvement in Vietnam. However the French would not relinquish any territorial claims until the electoral conference in 1956. It was there that the French finally gave up its remaining control in Vietnam, however, the United States and South Vietnam rejected the decisions made between the two conferences and thus began a new chapter in Vietnam’s history with American involvement and further wartime.
He sees that it is the weaker party , which only has a personnel strength of approximately 50,000 personnel to fight against America and its allies with modern equipment and weaponry . In addition to strength in terms of personnel , the leader of Vietnam 's Ho Chi Minh communist movement also realize that military equipment and soldiers fighting capability is very limited . But in terms of mastery of the battlefield as well as the support of the community in the Vietnam war , it is a positive factor and excellence in the fight against the Americans .
Dai Viet was the former name of Vietnam. Dai Viet replaced the name of the chinese; Annam and they made political, economic, and cultural progress. Ngo Quyen was the head of the new Vietnamese province. For half a century, independence didn’t bring peace or government stability. In the early 11th century, Vietnam was unified under Ly Thai To. Ly Thai To was the founder of the Ly dynasty. Dai Viet fought against the Islamic and also butted heads with the Cambodian Empire. Because of the wars, Ly dynasty started to decline. The Yuan Dynasty came from China in 1279 and they sent armies more than 30,000 soldiers to take back the Red River Delta to the Chinese. Draining
It was a situation that mushroomed. The actual goal was to preserve an independent, noncommunist government in South Vietnam, but by April of 1975, the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) ruled the entire country ("Vietnam War," 1991).
Vietnam was a struggle which, in all honesty, the United States should never have been involved in. North Vietnam was battling for ownership of South Vietnam, so that they would be a unified communist nation. To prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism, the U.S. held on to the Truman Doctrine and stood behind the South Vietnamese leader, Diem.