Quote: https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/11/12/ ... -profiles/ It seems geopolitics makes strange bedfellows and as part of Vietnam's rivalry with China, they allow the fiercely anti-Communist, Epoch times to operate in Hanoi, and even host pro-Trump troll farms. I remember reading an Epoch times article on how Trump will be the one to finally end the last remnants of Communism, praising his tough line on China, Cuba, Venezuela. But then hypocritically it also praised his soft line on Vietnam as opening up and bringing them into the world system. The exact same thing they criticize as appeasement for any other socialist nation. Kamran Heiss
That's very interesting heiss93, I had no idea it was that bad. It's incredibly tragic that Vietnam has been moving in the direction of the US, less than half a century after being bombed into the stone age by them. But I understand the geopolitical bind they're in, too, since the USSR's not around anymore and they have that ongoing dispute in the South China Sea with the Chinese where, frankly, I think Beijing's claims are utterly unreasonable.
Actually Vietnam's problems (and search for alternative partners) started in early 1988, when, just weeks after Gorbachev announced a reduction in troop deployments on the Chinese border and a withdrawal from Afghanistan, China and Vietnam fought it out for the Johnson South Reef and Hanoi lost. Actually, in the Vietnamese-language article on that incident (which is quite thorough and pretty neutral), the USSR's traitorous behaviour is mentioned in some detail, including 1) the lack of broad condemnation of China's occupation of the islands, despite the Vietnamese ambassador's request to do so, 2) the non-intervention or mobilization of Soviet naval forces, 3) and Vietnam's subsequent move away from Moscow toward 'multilateralization' of its foreign policy. https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xung_%C4% ... ng_Sa_1988 "The thing about capitalism is that it sounds awful on paper and is horrendous in practice. Communism sounds wonderful on paper and when it was put into practice it was done pretty well for what they had to work with." -MiG
I don't have much to add. But on the topic of late Soviet-Vietnam relations, this was on the front page of wikipedia today and I found it interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_Monument Kamran Heiss
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