BY THI LAM, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
Editor’s note: However much the world welcomes the normalization of U.S. and Vietnam relations, the move has revived a ghost from the Cold War - the domino theory. And that could consign Vietnam once again to play the role of _les peuples martyrs._ PNS commentator Thi Lam, who served as a general in the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam, is author of _Autopsy: The Death of South Vietnam (1985)._ This is the second of a two part series looking at the impact of normalization on Vietnam. The first written by Gen. Lam’s son. Andrew Lam, explored the cultural reahabilation of Vietnam’s love affair with America.
History is an eternal recommencement,-- wrote a French historian. This is painfully true for Vietnam.
As a Vietnamese veteran who fought in the Indochina and Vietnam wars to contain Communism. I am saddened to see my country once again become the outpost for a new version of containment. For all practical purposes, the normalizing of diplomatic t ies between the U.S. and Vietnam revives the old domino theory that envisioned Communist Vietnam toppling its pro-Western neighbors following its victory in 1975. The theory was widely discredited when Hanoi met its own "Vietnam" in Cambodia. Now, with Beijing building up its naval force in the South China Sea and asserting its territorial rights to the oil rich Spratly Islands, Vietnam has regained its strategic value in U.S. eyes as a counter-balance to the even-graver threat of Chinese expansionism.
And Vietnam appears only too willing to accommodate. There are unconfirmed reports that Hanoi would welcome the U.S. Navy back to Cam Ranh, recently used by vessels from the former Soviet Union’s navy. The return of the U.S. 7th Fleet or even the port calls of U.S. vessels at Cam Ranh would be viewed by Vietnam as an effective deterrence to China’s rising ambitions in the strategic Western Pacific region.
Concerns about Beijing’s new aggressiveness are also shared by the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which will soon welcome Vietnam into their ranks. Ironically, the very ASEAN nations that feared being toppled by Vietnam in the late 1970s are now eager to provide economic assistance and technical expertise to their former foe under a doctrine Newsweek dubbed containment by velvet gloves.
Whatever the names given to the new political realignments in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is rapidly emerging as the battlefield for the new Cold War with China. Lost in the excitement following normalization is the fact that, 20 years after its "Great Spring Victory," Vietnam is reverting to its role as a pawn on the international chessboard, a "catch-all" for the superpowers, in the words of one American journalist. Once again Vietnamese people are going to suffer and sacrifice, as they have done for the past half century, for the global cause of independence and freedom.
The dilemma for Vietnam today is that it needs the presence of its old enemy on its soil to help counter its former ally’s expansionism, knowing full well that the consequent influx of new ideas, technology and money will also accelerate a democratization that could ultimately bring down its corrupt and unpopular regime. Between the loss of territorial integrity and the loss of independence, the current Vietnamese leaders appear to have opted for the latter. They hope that the boost in foreign investments and consequent improvement of the economy will, in the short term, strengthen their hold on power and somehow ward off the hour of reckoning experienced by so many former communist East European countries.
As for the United States, it is once again in a position to exert its leverage in this strategic area of the world. But it also has an opportunity to condition the granting of most-favored-nation status on the improvement of Hanoi’s human rights record. This, of course, would help ensure a stronger and more stable Vietnam better able to protect U.S. investments and contain China. Twenty years after its humiliating defeat, the U.S. is closer than ever to realizing its original goal of an independent and democratic Vietnam for which 58,000 Americans died.
What concerns me about reviving the domino theory is that the Vietnamese people could find themselves once again doomed to play the role of "les peuples martyrs" - those citizens of certain nations who, from time to time, are called upon to assume the burden of suttering for the human race.
My hope is that the current sabre-rattling and muscle-flexing by China is merely a cover for the internal political jockeying for power in anticipation of Deng Ziao-Ping’s death and that China’s new leaders will have the sense to avoid regional conflict. Despite the current chaos in Vietnam, I also believe that a new generation of leaders could emerge firm enough to remain independent even while they guide the country toward greater freedom and democracy.
By providing an effective deterrent to China’s expansionism, and, in President Clinton’s own words, "by engaging the Vietnamese on the broad front of economic reform... and democratic reform," the United States could help advance the cause of freedom in Vietnam. Only then can my country break the "eternal recommencement" of a history of wars and human tragedies which have plagued it for so long.