ABSTRACT ON VIETNAM

• Became independent from Imperial China in 938 AD, following the Battle of Bạch Đằng River.
• Successive Vietnamese royal dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century.
  • The French maintained control of their colonies until World War II, when the war in the Pacific led to the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in 1941 – which was a base for military interventions on British territories.
  • In 1941, Viet Minh – with leader Ho Chi Minh, started guerrilla, which succeed after Japanese defeat in 1945
  • 1946, French vessels bombarded the port city of Hai Phong, and the Viet Minh's guerrilla campaign against French forces began soon after. The resulting First Indochina War lasted until 20 July 1954.
• The First Indochina War eventually led to the expulsion of the French in 1954, leaving Vietnam divided politically into two countries. Fighting between the two sides continued, with heavy foreign intervention, during the Vietnam War, which ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975.
  • The 1954 agreement pointed to a provisory division of the country into two, the south under the pro-French forces, and the north under Viet Minh forces, but the south pushed elections and the north started guerrilla against the pro-colonial south to unify
  • The Vietcongs gained ground as the government of the south got very instable having coup after coup
  • In 1965 US forces engaged in ground combat against the north
  • 1968 tet offensive against key spots on the south, shoking the US
  • Vietcongs got supply through the Ho Chi Minh trail across Lao and Camboja, and the US bombed those countries without even consulting the US Congress
  • US starts getting its forces out in 1973, Saigon is captured in 1975 and the unification is formalized in 1976
  • In 1978, the Vietnamese military invaded Cambodia
    • This action worsened relations with the Chinese, who launched a brief incursion into northern Vietnam in 1979.
      • This conflict caused Vietnam to rely even more heavily on Soviet economic and military aid
• In the aftermath of the war, the unified Communist nation was politically isolated and economically backward. In 1986, the government initiated market-based economic and political reforms which began a path towards integration into the world economy – “doi moi”.
• By 2000, it had established diplomatic relations with most nations, including the US and WTO in 2007.