NEWS ANALYSIS, NOVEMBER 18, 2000

During President Clinton’s trip visiting Vietnam, many foreigners have had the question concerning how people in Vietnam think about the United States and the Americans. Are they still nourishing rancor against the Americans? Or are many of them sympathizing with that big, most civilized country and its people?

President Clinton was welcomed but not warmly by Hanoi leaders. There was military ceremony and speeches and cultural presentation, but just that. Meanwhile, large crowds of Vietnamese were lining the route from Noi Bai airport to Hanoi, along downtown streets, in front of Daewoo Hotel where Clinton and his family were staying, and in the National University campus where Clinton was addressing the students, to cheer the U.S. president and first lady.

Larger crowds of cheerful people were also welcoming the American president in Saigon. While the visit had not been reported in details by Communist Party-controlled media prior to the arrival of President Clinton, such spontaneous welcome is an answer to the question mentioned above.

Such attitude towards an American leader was uncommon in the Communist regime. Previously, people especially students would be organized into groups to cheer a visiting chief of state according to a well prepared plan. After 1954, almost no such large spontaneous rally to welcome a state guest had ever occurred under the Communist regime. The average Vietnamese do not like most foreigners, particularly Westerners, except for some special personages.

In a country of more than 80 years under brutal French colonialist regime and 9 years in the 1946-54 war which saw villages burning, rapes, massacres everywhere, in each Vietnamese there is a speck of xenophobia. The Communist propaganda against the Americans in Vietnam succeeded in making people in North Vietnam and people in the Communist-influenced areas in the South believe that American GI’s were doing exactly what French colonial soldiers had been before 1954.

The people have reasons to think so. The Americans and the French looked the same, were wearing uniform of the same style and color, the same helmet. Although lies could bring forth quick success, they always boomerang on the liars in the long term. When people saw the American soldiers for themselves, they found out what the truth was.

The larger proportion of South Vietnamese people who had contact with the GI’s or just learned about them did not harbor that hatred although they had little sympathy with them because of the different ways of life. This group includes common people, war profiteers and those who were doing businesses of providing services to the American personnel and installations in Vietnam (contractors, clerks, workers…). Night club and red-light house owners, contrabandists are neutral, as they only supported the Americans who brought them dollars, not politics.

American sympathizers have been those who were trained by and working with the Americans, military and civilian installations. Tens of thousands of managers, entrepreneurs, technicians and engineers now still living in South Vietnam have contributed their expertise to the economy of southern provinces, especially the city of Saigon, now the strongest economic center of Vietnam.

In North Vietnam and areas under Communist influence in the South, a majority of the population were against the Americans during the war as a result of the party tightly controlled information and political indoctrination. This group includes people whose relatives were killed by South Vietnamese and American fire power, Communist cadres who secured powerful and profitable positions or earn large profits from corruption or from good connections in the party and government systems. Still there are a small number of old faithful party members, the true incorruptible revolutionaries who are worrying about the market economy reform that they call the sources of widely spreading social evils that are undermining the party power.

After 1954, despite several "political cleansing" campaigns, there are a considerable number of anti-Communist people in North Vietnam who stay inactive. Many in this group are still living with undying animosity against the regime and waiting for the right time to stand up. Of course they are highly pro-nationalist, and "American-sympathizers."

Moreover, in the early 1970's, many North Vietnamese were said to be "idolizing the Americans" by the Communist Party. In 1971, Hanoi's Prime Minister Pham Van Dong in a speech at the Political Institute, harshly criticized the numbers of common people, party members, even army officers for excessively praising the American science and technology, especially military "smart weapons and equipment."

Things have changed largely after Vietnam was unified under the Communist regime in April 1975. A few months living under the new rulers, most South Vietnamese learned enough about the Communist realities to solidify their attitude. Among them, those who had secretly supported the Viet Cong clandestine activities during the war have suffered the most painful remorse.

All of that ignited the explosion of mass refugees not long after April 1975. More than two million Vietnamese risked their lives to flee Vietnam for Western countries. Their relatives and friends staying in Vietnam are naturally "pro-American" Vietnamese.

Since 1986, the Communist Party and its government adopted the policy of "doi moi" (renovation), more and more Americans have been coming back visiting or doing business in Vietnam. The real images of the American, much different from the French, still deeply imprinted in the mind of millions of South Vietnamese, began to soften anti-American attitude in the North. The younger generations born after the war ended have tendency to look at the Americans not as enemies, but as prospective good friends.

In addition, since 1975, millions of portable radios were sold to people in North Vietnam from South Vietnam and later from smugglers have helped North Vietnamese contact with the free world through Vietnamese language programs of the BBC, the Voice of America, the Radio France International, and for the last few years, the Radio Free Asia, not including the Australia Radio, Japan Radio and the Protestant Radio Chan Troi Moi (New Horizon). Radio information proves the very effective in improving the general knowledge of the Vietnamese, particularly the peasants.

Publications, especially anti-Communist newspapers and magazines smuggled into Vietnam play an active role but they only serve a small number of readers who are influent in foreign languages.

Many intellects in Hanoi and Saigon estimate that before the war ended, more than 50 percent North Vietnamese and 30 percent South Vietnamese were pro-Communist, i.e. anti-American. About 30 percent in the North and 30 percent in the South were neutral. And some 20 percent in the North and 40 percent in the South were anti-Communists, thus American sympathizers.

They reckon that after April 1975, nearly 80 percent in both North and South Vietnam are American sympathizers though not all of them are anti-Communist.

A large portion of the youth in Vietnam today are attracted by the Internet and other products of the infomation age. Another large portion of them are leading debauched life, spending their time in carnal amusement, modeling their clothes and hair style after young South Koreans, Americans and Europeans. The movement also results in higher number of drug addicts, crimes, prostitutes and AIDS victims. All of that in Vietnam today far exceed the rate of social evils in South Vietnam before 1975.

As to foreign investment, many extremist patriots are saying that in reality, the Americans and those from other developed countries are coming not only to invest but also to economically colonize Vietnam. They said Hanoi Communist leaders are serving foreign interests as the capitalists' puppets, much more faithfully than the former "American puppets in Saigon." Some even angrily assert that Hanoi leaders are selling out Vietnam and its people at too low the prices.