VIETNAM AND NORTH KOREA
Richer Brother,
Poorer Brother
LOOK EAST
Bill Sharp
BOTH Vietnam and North Korea are among a handful of remaining "fraternal" communist countries that grew out of colonialism and had to fight the United States along the way. Yet a closer look at both reveals huge differences.
Vietnam has experienced little peace. Securing its independence from France in 1954, Vietnam soon found itself locked into war until 1975, when it finally defeated the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government in Saigon. Immediate post-war Vietnam was in terrible economic condition, and its people suffered greatly, with shortages of both food and medicine. In 1979, China invaded Vietnam in response to Vietnam's growing influence in Cambodia and Laos.
Bill Sharp |
AFTER JAPAN'S defeat in World War II, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) was established with the help of the Soviet Union, above the 38th parallel. The 1950-1953 Korean War was an unsuccessful attempt by North Korea, China and the Soviet Union to unify North and South under the control of North Korea. The Japanese left behind a reasonably advanced economy replete with industrial and hydroelectric power infrastructure and steel mills. The DPRK is endowed with such natural resources as coal, lead, tungsten, zinc and graphite. Until the early1960s, the North was considered more economically advanced than the South, which began to launch an ambitious development plan.
THE FALL of the Soviet Union in late 1991 led to the withdrawal of Soviet aid that had buoyed the Vietnamese economy. The Vietnamese government responded by instituting the "doi moi" (renovation) market-based reforms that also brought limited political freedom. According to the Aug. 5 edition of the Economist, between 2001 and 2005, Vietnam's economy grew by 7.5 percent; in 2005, it grew by 8.4 percent. Coffee, a key Vietnamese crop, is vying with Brazil for the No. 1 position in the global coffee market. Averaging various statistical data, less than 15 percent of the population is now living at poverty level (making less than $1 a day); in 1990, the rate was 50 percent. The country is an attractive destination for foreign direct investment, having attracted close to $8 billion in 2005, with $2 billion coming from the United States. The Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) remitted $6 billion in 2005 to support relatives still in the country. There is a growing trend for Taiwanese firms to pull their investments out of China and relocate them to Vietnam, which boasts a diligent work force that is 20 percent to 30 percent cheaper than China's. Intel is investing $300 million in an assembly plant in Ho Chi Minh City; Canon and Fujitsu are seriously considering investment in Vietnam. And for those who still might be in doubt about Vietnam's attractiveness to investors, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates recently visited the country.
DEVELOPED by Kim Il Sung, the founder of the DPRK and father of the current president, Kim Jong Il, the official ideology of the DPRK is "juche" or self- reliance. It is doubtful just how "self-reliant" North Korea has been throughout its existence. Kim Il Sung perfected the art of playing China off against the Soviet Union to get most of what he needed. With the Soviet collapse, Russian aid evaporated and the threat of widespread starvation led to the North's current dependence on China for both fuel and food. Despite being closed to the outside world, North Korea began to accept food assistance from international organizations and even from nemesis South Korea. Nevertheless, despite urging from China, the North has failed to implement any meaningful economic reform for fear that it would dilute Stalinist political control.
INSTEAD, the North has built an economy incorporating counterfeit currency, illegal drug production and distribution, trade in missile technology and dependence on remittances from North Koreans living in Japan. It pays lip service to Chinese suggestions to adopt the type of economic policies that have helped both China and Vietnam, yet North Korea argues that China has abandoned communism and lost its "spiritual" purity. The North is an inhospitable place to invest, although it does maintain some South Korean investment and trade.
WITH a population of more than 83 million, Vietnam's once mighty one-million-man military now has 484,000 members sustained on a $650 million yearly military budget. There is no suggestion of acquiring or developing nuclear weapons. Vietnam's priority is economic growth, integrating into the global economy and becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, which it will likely do in the near future. Vietnam wants the United States to remain engaged in the area.
North Korea's population is approximately 23 million. Its one-million-strong military is supported by a $5 billion annual military budget. The military drains resources that would be better used in economic development, as does nuclear weapon and missile development. The North would like the United States out of the South and Japan, if not Asia.
After Ho Chi Minh's death in 1969, Vietnam developed a system of collective leadership with no one figure monopolizing attention. It has maintained the ability to peacefully change leaders; although the selection process is limited to those at the highest levels of the Communist Party, the process does represent intra-party democracy. Moreover, Vietnam has displayed a certain flexibility to respond to limited popular input. Vietnamese leadership moves slowly, cautiously and closely watches China's every move.
THE CREATION of the "Kim Dynasty" flies in the face of communist doctrine, which theoretically adheres to the abolition of feudalistic thought and practice. There is no intra-party democracy in Kim Jong Il's Korean Workers Party or input from the people.
Vietnam has worked hard to build a more constructive relationship with the United States. Former Prime Minister Phan Van Khai's June 2005 visit to the United States was the first time a leader of unified Vietnam visited the White House. President Bush will visit Vietnam in November, when the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting will be held in Hanoi. Other high-profile guests have been U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Vietnamese military personnel have attended military classes in the United States, and it is considering volunteering troops to serve as U.N. peacekeepers.
Both Vietnam and North Korea are concerned about Chinese geopolitical intentions. North Korea and the United States maintain an antagonistic relationship that suffers from neo-conservative refusal to talk with Pyongyang and from the idiosyncrasies of a shrewdly calculating despot who has an unquenchable, Donald Trump-like need for media attention. The United States badly overplayed the China card, thinking that the Chinese could get North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons development.
In reality, the North does not seem too concerned about China. Prior to the launching of seven missiles in July, China had unsuccessfully tried to persuade North Korea not to do so. Moreover, China has not been able to convince the North to return to the perenially stalled Six Party Talks.
VIETNAM is quietly and flexibly pursuing successful economic reforms and gradually joining the world community. North Korea is stubbornly and noisily adhering to its discredited economic policies and shows little interest in the world beyond its borders. The differences between the two brothers are stark, indeed.
Bill Sharp is adjunct professor of East Asian International Relations at Hawaii Pacific University. He writes a monthly commentary about events in Asia for the Star-Bulletin.