Why doesn't Vietnam get more attention and flak from the West about it's Human rights abuses ?

[gerritcole]

Gonna disagree with most people here and say that I don’t think it has much to do with the War (it’s kind of incredible how little that colors perceptions of the country itself today all things considered). More broadly, Westerners don’t pay much attention to the politics of non-Western countries (other than Palestine, I guess) unless they’re paid to or have a family connection.

Like even on this forum full of international politics nerds, this is one of the first threads about Vietnam, a 100M+ people, rapidly-developing economy of growing geopolitical import.

Eh, I agree with your first sentence but I am not sure I fully agree with the rest. I think there's something specific about Vietnam where Westerners know less about it than a lot of other non-Western countries (you point out the scarcity of threads even here, which I believe would stand out if you picked a different developing country of 100M+ people in comparison); I would surmise a guess that that's because it has a very stable system of government with no notable conflicts since the one everyone talks about, and in addition it is not an electoral democracy making it uninteresting to us nerds.

On the front page of international general discussion rn there’s only 6 to 8 threads (depending on how you count a few of them) that are about non white nations, for better or for worse, this subforums discussion revolves around white foreign nations. See a paucity of threads on china, India, Nigeria, Indonesia, etc . This is not a criticism just an observation

[CumbrianLefty]

Gonna disagree with most people here and say that I don’t think it has much to do with the War (it’s kind of incredible how little that colors perceptions of the country itself today all things considered). More broadly, Westerners don’t pay much attention to the politics of non-Western countries (other than Palestine, I guess) unless they’re paid to or have a family connection.

Like even on this forum full of international politics nerds, this is one of the first threads about Vietnam, a 100M+ people, rapidly-developing economy of growing geopolitical import.

Eh, I agree with your first sentence but I am not sure I fully agree with the rest. I think there's something specific about Vietnam where Westerners know less about it than a lot of other non-Western countries (you point out the scarcity of threads even here, which I believe would stand out if you picked a different developing country of 100M+ people in comparison); I would surmise a guess that that's because it has a very stable system of government with no notable conflicts since the one everyone talks about, and in addition it is not an electoral democracy making it uninteresting to us nerds.

They're on their third president in two years! Though to be fair to you, I didn't know that until I was writing this reply haha.

With the note that the forum in general has gotten a lot worse wrt international news over the years (even as broader media coverage has gotten better for Anglophones), idk if we even have a single active general discussion thread for an Asian country other than Israel now that jaichind's gone, even the bigger ones.

Wait, what happened there?

Though yes, did notice the Ukraine thread had got quieter recently

[Kamala's side hoe]

The cases of China and India are instructive. Ordinary people are willing to tolerate a certain level of authoritarianism if their material living standard improves, especially if they are part of cultures that don't have durable traditions of individual liberty and self-government.

I am actually mad that the media once again conjured a horserace narrative out of thin air. Just like 2019, i didn't buy into it this year.

Even my extended family, who despise Modi and the BJP with all their being and soul, feel optimistic about India's economic prospects and stature in the world, even if they hate what is happening socially/politically.

When even his haters have to admit this, you know he was always going to win this even without the blatant shenanigans.

I even have to admit that in many ways, Modi has delivered for the average Indian much more than the UPA governments. Things like Ayushman Bharat or the toilet-building program are things that solve people's actual daily needs and should have been done decades ago.

There is a not-so-small group of Chinese dissenters who feel ignored by both the American political establishment (unless they are needed as an anti-China mouthpiece) as well as the Chinese community overall as the country and new arrivals continuously advance and grow around them

it will be interesting to dive deeper into how some of these dissenters, similar to other Americans, feel deeper into the rabbit hole of entrenched ignorance and conspiracy theories

Falun Gong had recently been outed as a massive supporter of Trump and QAnon, but I think the warning signs were there since the 00s. But I wonder if there was a point where they could’ve not joined the dark side of American politics
[2023] NBC- How the conspiracy-fueled Epoch Times went mainstream and made millions

The same sort of turn towards stubborn nostalgia and ignorance can also been seen in the more militaristic portions of south viets in America as well, who even lead assassinations of those who would call out uncomfortable truths
[2015] Terror in Little Saigon: An Objection and a Response

[Kamala's side hoe]

But yes, a US-based, English-language elections/current events message board is inevitably going to be biased in favor of coverage of Western liberal democracies over non-Western countries and non-liberal democracies.

It never ceases to amaze me how people don’t understand civics. They think the President is a dictator who can make and repeal laws.

Yes, I've had interactions with people on social media who are mad that Biden didn't just have the SCOTUS judges arrested for overturning Roe or who think he can dismiss Ron DeSantis and have him arrested for the "Don't Say Gay" law. Honestly it seems like a lot of them want to live under a tyrant like Xi Jinping or Putin and are angry and upset that Biden isn't that.

It's part of why society globally is becoming more autocratic in character, whether you're living in China or Russia or a Western state. Even our country, Congress has significantly less power now than they did even 30 years ago compared to the President. I mostly blame Congress for that, it's easier to blame a Cabinet official than to make an unpopular vote, and controlling the interpretation of laws (the courts) has become more important than making new laws and repealing old ones.

To quote Canadian political commentator David Herle when he was lambasted about his take on a Canadian internal political issue from people he thought were his political allies: "it seems process does not matter to people, only outcomes do". That's pro-autocrat political philosophy.

There’s a theory that 21st century technological advances and the rise of the Internet has made illiberal institutions and societies more “effective” than liberal ones. In an environment where information is cheap, liberal institutions that aggregate information become “wasteful” and “redundant”. Idk how true it is, but it helps explain phenomena like the rise of misinformation in WEIRD societies.

https://open.substack.com/pub/noahpinion/p/how-liberal-democracy-might-lose

Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) and Hirshleifer (1971) represent two very different worlds - a world of costly information vs. a world of cheap information. In the world of costly information, anything that brings down the cost of gathering information makes the aggregator - in this case, the stock market more efficient. But in the world of cheap information, competition over that information produces waste and makes the market less efficient.

So if liberal democracy is mainly a collection of information aggregators, we can use these two papers as metaphors to imagine two very different worlds -a world of costly information, vs. a world of cheap information. In the world of costly information, liberal institutions like free markets, free speech, and elections reduce information costs, and make the ultimate social outcome more efficient. But in a world of cheap information, tournament effects costly, wasteful, negative-sum competitions over the private control of information might dominate.

In other words, my scary little conjecture is that as information gets cheaper, liberal information-aggregating institutions might become less and less useful, while totalitarian information control goes from a liability to an asset because it limits wasteful tournaments.

[Badger]

It’s become a core truth in our anti American boomer dominated culture that we were the bad guys in the Vietnam war. Anything to challenge that has to be swept under the rug.

Well basically, you were. Sorry about that.

If nothing else, your actions effectively bringing the Khmer Rouge to power would be quite enough.

I’m not going to defend the way in which the war was conducted which was horrible but the only difference between Korea and Vietnam is that in Vietnam the communists won. Should we have let them have Korea too?

That was the sort of ignorance that led to our Hubris in the war. Communist North Asian country invading Southern anti-communist country. Korea part 2, right? Wrong. The biggest difference is that South Korea's military government wasn't a beacon of Human Rights or democracy, the people of South Korea by and large supported it. South Vietnam that was not remotely the case. Korea was a good war, Vietnam was colossal mistake getting into, not just as you put it how the war was conducted.

[Bismarck]

It’s become a core truth in our anti American boomer dominated culture that we were the bad guys in the Vietnam war. Anything to challenge that has to be swept under the rug.

Well basically, you were. Sorry about that.

If nothing else, your actions effectively bringing the Khmer Rouge to power would be quite enough.

I’m not going to defend the way in which the war was conducted which was horrible but the only difference between Korea and Vietnam is that in Vietnam the communists won. Should we have let them have Korea too?

That was the sort of ignorance that led to our Hubris in the war. Communist North Asian country invading Southern anti-communist country. Korea part 2, right? Wrong. The biggest difference is that South Korea's military government wasn't a beacon of Human Rights or democracy, the people of South Korea by and large supported it. South Vietnam that was not remotely the case. Korea was a good war, Vietnam was colossal mistake getting into, not just as you put it how the war was conducted.

Well certainly one of the major differences between Korea and Vietnam was the failure to establish a credible alternative government in the south. Post the coup against Ngo though I’m not sure that the RVN leadership was any more or less credible than Syngman Rhee circa 1948. Rhee was successful because the United States won, he only looks like a great figure in retrospect. Certainly he wasn’t beloved or considered particularly competent by the Americans at the time. 

[CumbrianLefty]

Rhee was actually pretty terrible, though - it is reliably claimed that South Korea's economy lagged behind the North's when he was in charge. Which would be the stuff of science fiction these days.

[Kamala's side hoe]

The cases of China and India are instructive. Ordinary people are willing to tolerate a certain level of authoritarianism if their material living standard improves, especially if they are part of cultures that don't have durable traditions of individual liberty and self-government.

I am actually mad that the media once again conjured a horserace narrative out of thin air. Just like 2019, i didn't buy into it this year.

Even my extended family, who despise Modi and the BJP with all their being and soul, feel optimistic about India's economic prospects and stature in the world, even if they hate what is happening socially/politically.

When even his haters have to admit this, you know he was always going to win this even without the blatant shenanigans.

I even have to admit that in many ways, Modi has delivered for the average Indian much more than the UPA governments. Things like Ayushman Bharat or the toilet-building program are things that solve people's actual daily needs and should have been done decades ago.

Relevant podcast episode from just before the India 2024 elections:

On this episode, the host talks to Akshar Patel of The Emissary about his recent sojourn in India. Patel began The Emissary because he felt there were many gaps in the media representation of India. The host asks whether The New York Times’ claim that Modi is a strongman is correct, and whether India is an illiberal democracy. Patel notes that despite a Westernized super-elite embedded in global Left politics, India is fundamentally a conservative society where communal identity and background reign supreme. He observes that this collectivism is recognized in laws and social norms, though urbanized contexts are breaking down traditional barriers.

[jojoju1998]

It’s become a core truth in our anti American boomer dominated culture that we were the bad guys in the Vietnam war. Anything to challenge that has to be swept under the rug.

Well basically, you were. Sorry about that.

If nothing else, your actions effectively bringing the Khmer Rouge to power would be quite enough.

I’m not going to defend the way in which the war was conducted which was horrible but the only difference between Korea and Vietnam is that in Vietnam the communists won. Should we have let them have Korea too?

That was the sort of ignorance that led to our Hubris in the war. Communist North Asian country invading Southern anti-communist country. Korea part 2, right? Wrong. The biggest difference is that South Korea's military government wasn't a beacon of Human Rights or democracy, the people of South Korea by and large supported it. South Vietnam that was not remotely the case. Korea was a good war, Vietnam was colossal mistake getting into, not just as you put it how the war was conducted.

Well certainly one of the major differences between Korea and Vietnam was the failure to establish a credible alternative government in the south. Post the coup against Ngo though I’m not sure that the RVN leadership was any more or less credible than Syngman Rhee circa 1948. Rhee was successful because the United States won, he only looks like a great figure in retrospect. Certainly he wasn’t beloved or considered particularly competent by the Americans at the time. 

It’s become a core truth in our anti American boomer dominated culture that we were the bad guys in the Vietnam war. Anything to challenge that has to be swept under the rug.

Well basically, you were. Sorry about that.

If nothing else, your actions effectively bringing the Khmer Rouge to power would be quite enough.

I’m not going to defend the way in which the war was conducted which was horrible but the only difference between Korea and Vietnam is that in Vietnam the communists won. Should we have let them have Korea too?

That was the sort of ignorance that led to our Hubris in the war. Communist North Asian country invading Southern anti-communist country. Korea part 2, right? Wrong. The biggest difference is that South Korea's military government wasn't a beacon of Human Rights or democracy, the people of South Korea by and large supported it. South Vietnam that was not remotely the case. Korea was a good war, Vietnam was colossal mistake getting into, not just as you put it how the war was conducted.

Hmm... Once again, I'll share my big post about this.


You guys are being historically inaccurate.

Yadda yadda, whatever

Bottom line is that the US and its allies promised elections for a united Vietnam in the 1950s, only to swiftly backtrack once it became clear that Ho Chi Minh would win. All else flowed from that basically.

That's not exactly accurate.


There has been new research done by Vietnamese-American Historians in the last 20 years, the Vietnam Centric narrative that has disproved both the Western Left and The Western right's narratives about the Vietnam War.

1. Western Leftists for example, talk about the centrality of Ho Chi Minh and the primacy of his role in the 20 years, 1955-1975. However, this wasn't exactly the case. For one thing, Ho Chi Minh was already sidelined from actual power by the late 1950s, he was just a figurehead by the time of his death. The real powerbrokers such as Le Duan were far more brutal and had more sympathies for Pol pot than Ho Chi Minh ever did.

2. Regarding the Election controversy in the mid 1950s : Once again, people don't understand that Ho Chi Minh and the Northern Vietnamese factions, was not the ONLY option for Vietnam. There was already for some time, a thriving if not.... somehwhat disorganized liberal nationalist movement as described by Tuong Vu.

https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/building-a-republican-nation-in-vietnam-1920-1963/

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501745133/the-republic-of-vietnam-19551975/#bookTabs=1

These people, these supporters were never going to vote for Ho Chi Minh.

By the way, all of this information is brand new, in the last decade.

People in the West often refer to the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem which ended in 1963. But by 1969, South Vietnam was doing " okay ". Of course it was never going to be fully democratic and non corrupt, but Nguyen Van Thieu was already on track to implement major reforms, that unfortunately didn't come fast enough.

But think about this : South Vietnamese Cultural life was THRIVING. Songwriters such Trinh Cong Son ( who wrote songs against the Vietnam War, without much repercussions ), Tu Cong Phung, Vu Thanh An, they were all thriving, while in North Vietnam, similar songwriters were banned from even writing, even mildly critical songs. And by 1970, Saigon had 27 newspapers criticizing the South Vietnamese Government.

You never had any of this in North Vietnam, AT ALL. But of course, I'm Vietnamese, and I know about these songwriters, and musicians ( Thank You Thuy Nga Paris By Night ! ). As Pham Duy, the most famous Vietnamese composer in the 20th century, said he chose to live in South Vietnam rather than North Vietnam for the artistic freedom.

3. The main problem with the mainstream Western Narratives, is that it made South Vietnam into a proxy, a patsy for the West, when new historical research showed that South Vietnam was far more independent than the US would have liked it to be.

Actually, there's been new research that shows that Ngo Dinh Diem, was far more visionary than his critics ( or supporters ) assumed, and that the US killed him off, or approved of his killing, because he din't tow to the Western Line. https://www.amazon.com/Misalliance-United-States-South-Vietnam/dp/0674072987

But, that started the downfall for South Vietnam.

[jojoju1998]

People in the West often refer to the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem which ended in 1963. But by 1969, South Vietnam was doing " okay ". Of course it was never going to be fully democratic and non corrupt, but Nguyen Van Thieu was already on track to implement major reforms, that unfortunately didn't come fast enough.

But think about this : South Vietnamese Cultural life was THRIVING. Songwriters such Trinh Cong Son ( who wrote songs against the Vietnam War, without much repercussions ), Tu Cong Phung, Vu Thanh An, they were all thriving, while in North Vietnam, similar songwriters were banned from even writing, even mildly critical songs. And by 1970, Saigon had 27 newspapers criticizing the South Vietnamese Government.

You never had any of this in North Vietnam, AT ALL. But of course, I'm Vietnamese, and I know about these songwriters, and musicians ( Thank You Thuy Nga Paris By Night ! ). As Pham Duy, the most famous Vietnamese composer in the 20th century, said he chose to live in South Vietnam rather than North Vietnam for the artistic freedom.

3. The main problem with the mainstream Western Narratives, is that it made South Vietnam into a proxy, a patsy for the West, when new historical research showed that South Vietnam was far more independent than the US would have liked it to be.

Actually, there's been new research that shows that Ngo Dinh Diem, was far more visionary than his critics ( or supporters ) assumed, and that the US killed him off, or approved of his killing, because he din't tow to the Western Line. https://www.amazon.com/Misalliance-United-States-South-Vietnam/dp/0674072987

But, that started the downfall for South Vietnam.

All very interesting and to an extent I might agree. But wasn't the main problem with Diem's regime that he basically tried to impose Catholicism on a fundamentally Buddhist realm? By all accounts that made him extremely unpopular and led inter alia to that forever iconic Thich Quang Duc episode?? And indeed its not impossible it weakened support for the idea of South Vietnam longer term.

There's still no getting away really from how rapidly the entire country just collapsed in spring 1975, or how there was no serious attempt to carry on some sort of insurgency loyal to the idea of SV after that (it could have happened, significant numbers of AVRN troops remained even when Saigon fell) Its hard to avoid comparisons with Afghanistan three years ago isn't it - and in both cases the winners were not just astonished, but maybe even somewhat ill-prepared, for how quickly total victory came.

It's because Thieu's reforms came too late.


It's also because the South Vietnamese Army was incredibly.... effed up in it's strucutre. The people who were talented, never got promoted, while people who had " connections ", were.