[Feature] The future of Vietnam and the future of North Korea

Leaders of APEC member countries, wearing traditional Vietnamese clothing.

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held November 18-19 in Hanoi, security was tight. Soldiers with loaded machine guns stood guard, surrounding residences and assembly halls housing visiting delegates. Yet the staff stayed relaxed. One inspector explained the stepped-up security measures as a reflection of "the scale of importance that this summit meeting holds to Vietnam."

"This APEC summit is an excellent opportunity to show our friends in the world Vietnam's thousand-year-old history, as well as the results of the Doimoi Reforms of the last 20 years," emphasized Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Gia Khiem.

There is reason for this excitement. APEC member nations supply 75 percent of the total foreign investment in Vietnam, provide 50 percent of the country's developmental assistance, as well as make up 79 and 73 percent of their import and export markets, respectively.

Furthermore, Vietnam has already been approved for membership as the 150th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the next meeting of which will be held on the 7th in Geneva. Vietnam is also being considered as a candidate for a seat on the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member in 2008-09.

"The American, Chinese, and Russian presidents paid official visits to Vietnam due to the APEC conference," said the Korean ambassador to Vietnam, Bae Jae-hyeon. "This is the most significant moment so far in Vietnam's struggle to connect with the West."

Achieving a record economic growth of 8.4 percent last year, Vietnam's average growth throughout the 1990s was an impressive 7.6 percent. The country has made it a goal to have a gross domestic product (GDP) of US$94 to 98 billion, or a 2.1-fold increase over its GDP in 2000.

South Korea's resident diplomat in Vietnam lists the stumbling blocks preventing sustained Vietnamese growth as follows: a shortage of infrastructure to support high speed growth, corruption, an overly-bureaucratic government, a lack of legal systems, a deficiency of civilian savings to spur investments, an undeveloped capital market, industries unfit for competition, and inflation.

Generally speaking, the necessary reform measures are the establishment of a solid economic base that can hold up in the international market, as well as the elimination of corruption. One Korean resident of Vietnam, on condition of anonymity, said that "government officials making a mere 50 dollars a month live in luxurious homes equipped with televisions, the walls of which hung with tapestries. It's a hard country to get by in for industries that don't pay any bribes."

The sum of foreign direct investment last year reached US$50.5 billion, 60 percent of which came from fellow APEC countries including Taiwan (7.93 billion), Singapore (7.60 billion), Japan (6.19 billion), South Korea (5.28 billion), and Hong Kong (3.70 billion). Though the level of investment has steadily risen, it is starting to level off. It is for this reason that the APEC summit is an important opportunity to draw in investment from other countries.

Last summer's opening of a multiplex on a big department store shows one side of new Vietnam. According to Shin Yeon-hi, who works in Vietnam on behalf of the Korea International Cooperation Agency, "There is one staff member stationed per screening room, who simultaneously interprets the lines of all of the characters. It is the sole movie theatre in which one can see foreign movies with subtitles and without the sounds being dubbed over. Though the price for a ticket is three times more than those at other movie theatres, I have seen several movies there, starting with Mission: Impossible III."

The Vietnamese are not only concerned about turning their eyes to the outside world in the hopes of making money. Throngs of natives still gather to view the glass-encased tomb of Ho Chi Minh. "People call him by the affectionate nickname Uncle Ho, or 'bac Ho,' said Lee Go-eun (24), a teacher of Korean in Vietnam. "The Vietnamese will probably respect Uncle Ho forever," he predicted. The 'Uncle Ho' phenomenon and the Multiplex may be seen as the two pillars of Vietnam's policies of simultaneously pursuing "independence, sovereignty, peace" on the one hand and "diversification" on the other.

I think of North Korea when I look at Vietnam. They have points in common. Both are Asian countries that engaged in war with the U.S., and both cling to socialist ideologies. However, their current conditions are quite different. Vietnam established diplomatic relations with the U.S. in 1995 after a long effort, and cultivated U.S. as its greatest export market. On the other hand, North Korea cannot move past a state of antagonism with the U.S., and descends only further into conflict.

Can Vietnam become a model for North Korea? U.S. Congressman Jim Leach, who failed in his bid for re-election this year, stressed the Vietnam model at every opportunity during his visit to North Korea last August. After all, he reasoned, despite the war waged between the U.S. and Vietnam, the two nations were able to restore relations without one undergoing a regime change.

By Lee Jae-hun, reporting from Vietnam

Translated by Daniel Rakove

Please direct questions or comments to [[e-mail]]