Going from Tet Offensive in 1968 to Doi Moi in 1986

Foreign Trade University

The Lunar New Year isn't just celebrated by the Chinese. Chinese New Year is one form of the Chinese New Year. Other forms of Lunar New Year follow the Chinese New Year cycle, such as the Tết Nguyên Đán of Vietnam, the Japanese Lunar New Year, and the Seollal in South Korea. There's also the Tibetan New Year and the Mongolian New Year. I remember when talking about Vietnam celebrating the Lunar New Year together with the Chinese, my fellow Chinoy made the squity-eyed gesture to talk about most Vietnamese looking like Chinese. Should we even be surprised that there's a Vietnamese student who looks like the deposed Alice Guo, aka Guo Hua Ping? 

What was the Tet Offensive about?

Right now, I want to talk about the infamous Tet Offensive, which was a Lunar New Year attack of January 31, 1968. The Western concept would prefer to talk about it on January 31 instead of the Lunar New Year. A Filipino would probably say, "So what if it was Lunar New Year? The actual solar date is more important," more often than not in a history class. The Tet Offensive was part of the Vietnam War, where it was a loss for both sides. This detail on the outcome of the Tet Offensive showed the problem with a Vietnam War mindset:

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong paid dearly for their deviation from the guerrilla warfare strategy that had so frustrated U.S. commanders. Initial United States Information Agency estimates placed the number of communists dead at 60,000 (a figure that was subsequently revised down), with 24,000 weapons captured. Never before had the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong suffered such casualties. Moreover, the South Vietnamese people rejected the North’s call to rebellion.

U.S. and South Vietnamese casualties numbered 12,727, including more than 2,600 fatalities. Although U.S. commanders generally held a low opinion of the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN), South Vietnamese soldiers fought with bravery and tenacity during the Tet Offensive. This was especially true during the battle for Hue, where ARVN troops and U.S. Marines liberated the city after engaging in some of the fiercest close-quarters combat of the war. The South Vietnamese government reported that 7,721 civilians were killed in the fighting during the offensive, while an additional 18,516 were wounded. Throughout the country, some 75,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. More than 670,000 people were declared refugees, raising the total number of internally displaced persons in South Vietnam to some 1.5 million.

U.S. and South Vietnamese officials declared that the communists had suffered a resounding military defeat, and this was certainly the case. Communist leadership in Hanoi had gambled on a conventional assault that they thought would sweep aside ARVN forces and topple the “puppet” government in Saigon. Instead, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong advance was checked by surprisingly resilient ARVN defenders, and most cities—with the notable exception of Hue—were liberated within days of the initial attack. In addition, the widespread loss of life and destruction of property triggered a decline in support for the Viet Cong among the South Vietnamese populace.

The Tet Offensive would cause damage on both sides. Although Vietnam didn't get reunified until April 30, 1975. By then, Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam, had already died on September 2, 1969. Vietnam had to fight for more years. It wasn't until a North Vietnamese T-54 rammed through the Independence Palace. 

From the Vietnam War economy to Doi Moi in 1986

I'm amazed that some people think that Vietnam is an example of a self-industrialized economy or that it supposedly "rejected" FDI. However, it's always good to cross-examine sources. Instead of just relying on the same sources all over again (because there's no perfect source), we need to take a look at Vietnam, and we realize that around December 1986, we see this new radical change in direction for the country:

In the late 1970s, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world. Its economy had been destroyed by war with the USA, a trade embargo, and the communist government's restriction of private enterprise. So, at the Vietnam Communist Party’s 6th National Congress in December 1986, radical economic reforms were introduced, known as Doi Moi, meaning ‘renovation’. The reforms transformed the country from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented one, unleashing huge economic growth and improving living standards. 

Vietnam went from the Vietnam War mindset to a market-oriented one, even though it labels itself as a Communist country. I read through From Third World to First and thought about the late Lee Kuan Yew's interactions with the Vietnamese. This was an interesting note that LKY gave in his book on pages 309-310:

The Vietnamese cunningly exploited the fears and desires of the countries of ASEAN that wanted to befriend them. They talked tough over their radio and newspapers. I found their leaders insufferable. They were filled with their own importance, and prided themselves as the Prussians of Southeast Asia. true, they had suffered, taken all the punishments that American technology had inflicted on them, and through sheer endurance plus their skillful propaganda, exploiting the American media, defeated the Americans. They were confident that they could bear any power in the world, even China, if it interfered with Vietnam. For us, the puny states of Southeast Asia, they had nothing but contempt. they declared they would establish diplomatic relations with member states of ASEAN individually, and refused to deal with ASEAN as a group. Their newspapers criticized the existence of U.S. military bases in the Philippines and Thailand and spoke collusive relations between China and Singapore.

Such a mindset is used by those who support the Communist Party of the Philippines. The same could be said by the MAKABAYAN Bloc. One example is that of the Kabataan Partylist, and this is one of their quotes from one of their WordPress blogs:

It believes that the Philippines, as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, is plagued by a system which allows foreign and big business interests to dominate, while the majority of our countrymen are left poor and hungry. We are living in a society where foreign subservience, peasant landlessness, and rampant corruption are the top three ills. To that end, Kabataan Party-list strives to galvanize the Filipino youth in upholding, protecting, and defending our interests and in harnessing our full potential as a sector.

That would be a far cry from the Vietnam Youth Union. The National Defence Journal of Vietnam gives out this important detail: 

Currently, the cause of national construction and defence are posing new and more challenging requirements for the work of building and developing human resources in general and the intellectuals, especially young intellectuals, in particular. The Fourth Industrial Revolution continues to develop robustly, fundamentally changing the social labour forces. Our country is promoting deeper and wider international integration, industrialisation and modernisation associated with the development of a knowledge-based economy,... This poses new requirements for people working in the science field that science must be built to become a direct productive force in all fields. Therefore, thoroughly grasping and implementing Resolution No. 45-NQ/TW, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union needs to continue to promote its role and responsibility in building the young intellectuals with the following measures:

Firstly, deploying diverse forms of propaganda about the Party and State's guidelines and policies on the development of Vietnam's young intellectuals, raising the awareness of the position, role and importance of the intellectuals and the young intellectuals. Promote the application of digital transformation, innovate content and methods, improve the effectiveness of propaganda and mobilisation work to enhance the consensus of the intellectuals for the Party's guidelines and policies, and State law. Focus on promoting the honour, morality, dedication, and responsibility of young intellectuals towards the Fatherland and the nation.

Second, continue to research and perfect the system of mechanisms and policies to innovate and improve the quality and effectiveness of training, fostering, using, remunerating and honouring the intellectuals and the talents, creating a favourable environment for young Vietnamese intellectuals to develop and contribute. In particular, there should be mechanisms and policies to mobilise intellectuals, especially the industry-leading ones, to directly train the next generations to make strong and comprehensive changes in the training of highly qualified human resources, and the development of talents in higher education institutions and scientific research institutions.

Third, discovering and honouring outstanding young intellectuals in a careful manner. Actively and effectively deploy the Creative Youth movement; create favourable conditions and environments for early training, discovery and honour of young intellectuals. At the same time, effectively leverage mass media, the press - publishing system, and social networks to propagate outstanding young intellectuals; the products and works of the young intellectuals; share models of honouring, supporting, connecting, and promoting young intellectuals at home and abroad.

Fourth, improving the quality of awards, contests, and competitions to promptly discover domestic and overseas Vietnamese talents, and create positive motivation for the young intellectuals to take part in training, improving themselves, and have the opportunity to be recognised and praised for their efforts.

Fifth, enhancing the support of young intellectuals to get access to opportunities of work, research, develop ideas, products, and start-up to legitimately enrich themselves, the community and the country. Support the implementation of startup ideas and projects of young intellectuals in practice, making practical contributions to the country's development. In addition, there should be solutions to support young intellectuals to access capital to start their business. Actively innovate the content and methods of operation of intellectual organisations, etc., contributing to the successful implementation of the Party's resolution, building a contingent of young intellectuals with dreams, ambitions, and aspirations to develop themselves, make contribution to the country, and follow the entire intellectuals of the country on the path of integration, development, and make the country increasingly rich, prosperous, civilised, and happy.

Such thinking is stuck in the Vietnam War. However, things went differently when Vietnam decided to implement Doi Moi. The late Nguyen Duy Cong (Do Muoi) worked with LKY. The results were never the same as the Vietnam War mindset. Instead, Global Asia says the following:

FROM ISOLATION TO PROSPERITY

 

By the mid-1980s, the development model Vietnam had borrowed from the former Soviet Union and its East European allies had revealed numerous flaws and was proving outmoded. On the political and diplomatic front, tense relations with China, the heavy burden of Vietnam's troop presence in Cambodia and strict sanctions imposed on it by the US placed Vietnam in a difficult bind. On the one hand, the country was blocked from cultivating new relations with other countries; on the other, it had become ever more dependent on the Soviet Union for political support and economic and military assistance. 

The turning point came with a dramatic reduction in Soviet economic and military assistance after the mid-1980s and the economic hardship this caused. For the sake of the country's survival, Vietnam's leaders were forced to adopt economic and political reform, or Doi Moi. In essence, Doi Moi in its early stages was focused mainly on the removal of self-imposed barriers to progress and the utilization of various market-oriented measures, including liberalization of the domestic market, encouragement of foreign direct investment, or FDI, and the private sector, and reduction in subsidies to state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

These steps quickly brought positive results. From a country faced with perpetual food shortages, Vietnam in 1989 for the first time exported 1.4 million tons of rice. It has since remained a rice exporter. In 2008, it exported 4.7 million tons, becoming the world's second largest rice exporter after Thailand. Indeed, Vietnam's exports were instrumental in stemming the threat of a severe international food crisis in early 2008.

What impresses most, however, is the continuous high economic growth rate that Vietnam has recorded in the 20 years since the introduction of Doi Moi. Vietnam recorded average annual economic growth of 6.5 percent over that period, one of the highest rates among developing countries. And with annual per capita income of $1,000 in 2008, Vietnam was removed from the list of the world's least developed countries. The high economic growth rate in turn helped reduce Vietnam's poverty rate from 70 percent in the mid-1980s to 37 percent in 1998 and 19 percent in 2007.

One should ask about how Vietnam is performing now, despite being a Communist country. It should be amazing to look at the things Doi Moi did that the Tet Offensive or the Vietnam War couldn't, such as:

1. The Lego company chose to invest in Vietnam.
2. Vietnam's great leap forward in agriculture.
3. Establishing a state-owned university in foreign trade called the Foreign Trade University.
4. Did better than the Philippines during COVID-19.
   
5. Last 2025, surprise or not, Vietnam did better than the Philippines in terms of ASEAN.

In short, it was because Vietnam changed its economic policy to fit with the times. Any ongoing economic restriction isn't hard-coded in the constitution. Instead, all the protectionist policies (which are passed when the economy overheats) are only implemented through legislation. It makes it easier to pass laws to ease and restrict the economy when needed.