MIM Notes 193 
September 1, 1999

United $nakes moving in on Vietnamese wealth

by MC45

The Amerikan and Vietnamese heads of state have agreed "in 
principle" to "normalize" trade between the two countries.(1) In 
1994, Amerika ended an economic embargo against Vietnam. In 1995, 
it restored diplomatic relations for the first time since the 
Vietnam War. If details are hammered out and approved by both 
governments, Vietnam will leave the ranks of countries stigmatized 
by Amerikan capital and join the vast majority of Third World 
countries in "most-favored nation" (MFN) trade status.(2)

There is nothing truly "favored" about MFN status; it only means 
that exports to the united snakes will no longer be heavily taxed. 
Lifting tariffs means nothing but freer exploitation of the 
Vietnamese people and increased extraction of their resources by 
Amerika.

An u.$. trade representative said that "this agreement will assist 
in transforming and modernizing the Vietnamese economy."(2) Yet 
Vietnam's economy will not become modern or profitable without the 
labor of Vietnam's people. Marx demonstrated that value comes only 
from labor and nothing else. To hear the imperialists talk, a 
persyn would think that capital yields value. This fetishism of 
money is nonsensical. How could a dollar bill, lounging around, 
simply turn into two dollar bills? This is the mysticism of 
private property talking.(3)

MIM opposes economic sanctions and embargoes placed on countries 
like Vietnam, Cuba and Iraq as acts of aggression designed to 
impose the will of the u.$. imperialists on sovereign peoples. At 
the same time, it takes a strong socialist state to ensure that 
trade serves the people and the building of socialism. The 
Vietnamese state is socialist in name, but capitalist in deed. 
Therefore it is unable to defend the hard-won self-determination 
of the Vietnamese people. Twenty-five years after Amerika stopped 
bombing Vietnam, Amerika will now adopt that nation as a neo-
colony. In the age of imperialism, the highest stage of 
capitalism, a 'modern' economy for most countries means neo-
colonial status for the benefit of imperialist nations and their 
lackeys.

So who gets the goods?

Public relations folk spin their yarns about assisting 
underdeveloped countries. But in its reports to investors, the 
Amerikan government more directly reveals the status and 
implications of current relations with Vietnam.(4) A small 
sampling of the Commerce Department's market research reports for 
July reveals an update on establishment of Vietnam's stock 
exchange, liberalized regulations for corporations bidding on 
Vietnamese industry, and expanding opportunities for foreign 
agribusiness on Vietnamese soil.(5)

The Commerce Department comments that "further development of 
Vietnam's oil and gas sector represents great opportunities for US 
exports of goods and services." Such 'development' is not charity 
as the Amerikan government has claimed through the bourgeois 
media. The Commerce Department is in the business of helping u.$. 
companies make money overseas.

According to the u.$. Commerce Department and CIA, Vietnam pursued 
a policy of emphasizing heavy industry over agriculture through 
the late 1980s and most of the 1990s. The Maoist approach to 
development of such an economy is to firmly support agriculture as 
the base of the national economy, while pursuing industry as the 
leader of development. If a country cannot feed its workers, then 
it cannot build industry. But industry must lead development of 
productive forces, as this is the only way to improve and advance 
agriculture, and make expanded production possible. Within 
Vietnam's planned (but not socialist) economy, emphasis on heavy 
industry and foundations for foreign agribusiness benefit only 
imperialist and comprador interests.

In its efforts to invite trade and get rid of the embargo, Vietnam 
has pursued the twin paths to generating agribusiness superprofits 
in its recent agricultural policy: privatizing more of this 
sector, and turning more land to cash crops. So the peasants of 
Vietnam have put more of their time into farming expensive crops 
that do not meet their basic needs, like cashew nuts and 
coffee.(6)

Part of the drive for Vietnam to expand foreign agribusiness 
investment is based on the impossibility of employing large 
numbers of people in the industrial sector. Vietnam is a poor 
country and still suffers from the devastation wreaked by the u.$. 
military more than 20 years ago. During the Vietnam War, Amerika 
dropped bombs on Vietnam totaling twice the explosive power of all 
the bombs dropped in World War II.(7) Today, the Amerikan Central 
Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates Vietnam's per capita Gross 
Domestic Product (GDP) at $1,700 for 1997, compared to $30,200 for 
the united snakes. Official unemployment is 25 percent.(8) The 
overwhelming majority live in the countryside and 80 percent of 
Vietnam's workers are employed in agriculture.(6)

Agribusiness is a favorite among MNCs because of the necessary 
high amount of labor involved relative to fixed capital, making 
the rate of profit high. Agribusiness simultaneously exacts a high 
rate of profit for imperialists and devastates national economic 
growth.

Vietnam is looking good for oil too, in spite of the fixed capital 
investment required for this industry. The Chair of PetroVietnam 
(the state oil company), has said that 20 percent of drilled wells 
in his country find oil. Even if this is an exaggeration to woo 
investors, the number is high compared to 10 percent or less in 
other countries.(9) On July 26, the special Vietnam oil section 
(VAMEX) of American Sterling Projects, Inc. recognized the value 
of a selection of tested wells in Vietnamese waters in the East 
Sea. VAMEX will share production with PetroVietnam.(10)

Unocal has been in on the action for months. That company's 
Vietnam Exploration section announced in February that it holds a 
45 percent working interest in drilling a 1.3 million acre section 
of the Malay Basin, off Vietnam's southwestern coast.(11) And in 
March, PetroVietnam hosted an international exhibition at which 
four large u.$. corporations displayed their oil and gas 
"exploring, extracting, refining and transporting" wares in hopes 
of exploiting resources in the area.(12)

Just as emphasis on MNC agribusiness development hurts the 
national economy, imperialist investment in heavy industry is 
determined by profit. Foreign investors want the most efficient 
production possible. While building an oil refinery inland would 
bring industry to and benefit more parts of the country, it is not 
inviting to multi-national corporations because of increased 
capital investment to develop infrastructure.(13)

Free market logic says that there is nothing wrong with selling 
Vietnamese oil and determining development based on foreign 
profit. But in the real world, imperialism's so-called development 
strategies wreak havoc everywhere. MIM works to understand and 
expose the brutality that will accompany the sale of Vietnamese 
oil to foreign leeches.

The Ogoni people of the Delta country in southern Nigeria have 
learned this lesson many times over at the bloody hands of Shell 
Oil and the comprador government. "Thirty-five years of oil 
drilling yielded $30 billion (or more) in revenue for Shell and 
destroyed the land of the Ogoni people. Shell installed pipes 
running through the middle of farms and villages. On average, four 
oil spills a week destroyed crops and polluted the air and water 
on the Delta."(14) 

The Nigerian military has done the day-to-day dirty work of 
repressing protests against Shell's operations. Ken Saro-Wiwa and 
several of his comrades were executed for opposing imperialist 
practices. Dealings between complicit Third World governments and 
multi-nationals ensure that the will and the livelihood of the 
masses will be overrun with force if necessary.

Jingoism vs. "free trade"

Amerikan opposition to opening trade with Vietnam focuses on 
blaming the Vietnamese people for the war Amerika fought against 
them. This opposition comes from militarist Amerikans and from 
Vietnamese exiles that supported the quisling regime Amerika 
installed in south Vietnam to legitimize the war.

MIM Notes reported earlier on the case of Truong Van Tran. He 
demonstrated admiration for the Vietnamese people's heroic 
struggle to free their country of foreign invaders. Protesters 
reacted with violence against Mr. Truong and carried signs blaming 
Ho Chi Minh for the deaths of one million Vietnamese and opposing 
normalizing relations with Vietnam. In truth, the Amerikan 
military killed more than one million Vietnamese in a war that had 
no support from the vast majority of the Vietnamese people.

Reactionary veterans' organizations say Amerika should continue 
its war against Vietnam (and Laos, Cambodia and the former Soviet 
Union) until all soldiers who fought the Vietnam War are "walking 
on or buried under American soil." The purported existence of live 
Prisoners of War and of known remains of Amerikan military 
personnel being intentionally held by the Vietnamese government 
were used for years as a barrier to ending the war with Vietnam. 
Once the war was over, the government forgot the POW/MIA issue 
until the 1980s. The Reagan administration resurrected it as a 
barrier to trade and other supposedly peaceful relations with 
Vietnam.

Bruce Franklin detailed the jingoistic logic behind the issue in 
his book "MIA: Mythmaking in America".(15) Now in response to more 
open relations with Vietnam, POW/MIA organizations are linking 
Vietnam's trade status to the "full accounting" of dead and 
missing Amerikan military personnel.(16)

Amerikan soldiers killed during imperialist invasion are part of 
our reasoning for opposing militarism and imperialism together. 
Communists value humyn life and its potential infinitely more than 
imperialists -- who value nothing so much as the expansion of 
capital. Imperialism and militarism are twin plagues. To the 
people of Vietnam, this meant the murder of more than one million 
people by Amerika to thwart the struggle for national self-
determination. To Amerika, this meant sacrificing the lives of 
soldiers for this evil and unattainable goal. Our hope for the 
Vietnamese people is that they will be able to someday throw off 
the yoke of imperialism for good. For our part, MIM builds support 
for such anti-imperialist struggles within the belly of the beast.

Notes:
1. Weekend Edition, National Public Radio 25 July, 1999.
2. Washington Post 26 July, 1999, p. A20.
4. www.tradeport.org
5. www.tradeport.org/ts/countries/vietnam/mrr/
3. ITAL Fundamentals of Political Economy END, Shanghai People's 
Press, p. 55. (Available from MIM for $15.)
6. "New Opportunities for U.S. Agribusiness" 
www.tradeport.org/ts/countries/vietnam/mrr/mark0235.html 15 July, 
1999
7. "Remember the Vietnam War," MIM Notes 41.
8. CIA World Factbook, 1998.
9. Vietnam News Agency 2 August, 1999.
10. Asia Pulse 28 July, 1999.
11. www.unocal.com/globalops/vietnam.htm
12. www.tradeport.org/ts/countries/vietnam/mrr/mark0008.html 31 
March, 1999.
13. "Don't Ring Us: Vietnam can't count on old friends for help," 
by Faith Keenan, Far Eastern Economic Review 6 August, 1998. 
http://www.feer.org/Restricted/98aug_6/vietnam.html
14. MIM Notes 135 reported on the documentary film "Delta Force" 
and struggle of the Ogoni people.
15. Review of Franklin's book is at 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/ (choose "Reviewed 
Books" and "Asia")
16. http://www.ojc.org/powforum/home0.htm