Bigfella

In the same way that British India & the Dutch East Indies were - that is not at all.

There were 3 major ethnic groups within those borders. The largest (Vietnamese) being many times larger than the other two combined:

1) Vietnamese: who occupied the Red River & Mekong deltas & most of the arable land between the coast & the mountains that run along what are now borders with Chins, Laos & Cambodia.

2) Khmer: Living mostly along the Mekong River & around the great lake Tonle Sap with a few living in the Mekong delta. A distinct culture with its own history.

3) Lao: The smallest of the 3, living either in the Mekong valley or on the Plain of Jars. There are actually more ethnic Lao in Thailand than in Laos, and it would probably have been a Thai province if not for the French.

Lao & Khmer cultures are Therevada Buddhist and, like Thai & Burmese culture, heavily inflenced by Indian culture (centuries ago, not now). Thus many of the great temples such as Angkor were originally Hindu. It makes more sense to group them with Thailand than Vietnam.

These cultures have little in common with Vietnamese culture, a Chinese-derived culture based around Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism & ancestor worship and using Chinese forms of education & government. Indeed, inside the famous Citadel in Hue is a smaller version of the Imperial City in Beijing.

Traditionally Laos & Vietnam have not had all that much to do with each other beyond trade. There is a whacking great mountain range between them. Significant dealings between Khmer & Vietnamese go back several hundred years, when the Mekong delta up to Saigon was largely Khmer. Vietnamese settlers moving south from their traditional homes in ther Red River delta & along the coastal strip slowly pushed out the Khmers. Eventually there was armed conflict, which the Vietnamese won.

Put simply, Indochina was a colonial fiction. As India, Indonesia & other former colonies have shown, however, these fictions can sometimes get a life of their own.

On the Sino-Vietnamese War, there were a bunch of causes. At base, the Vietnamese just don't like or trust the Chinese. Centuries of occupation will do that. I believe that there were still disputes about the exact position of the border. Mao did indeed stitch up Ho at the Geneva Conference. I suspect that Ho would have been content with a unified Vietnam, but China wouldn't even back that. The fact that China was making nice with Nixon hardly engendered trust either, so it is hardly surprising that as soon as the war in Vietnam ended The DRV began shifting toward Russia. China not happy.

Two shorter term issues: Vietnamese persecution & eventual expulsion of ethnic Chinese (some 80% of 'Vietnamese' in Australia are ethnic Chinese) and the invasion of Cambodia - sparked by delusional attempts by Pol Pot to reassert Cambodian sovereignty over parts of Southern Vietnam. China was Pol Pot's major backer & only real ally. China might well have invaded to 'punish' Vietnam anyway, but these events made it inevitable.

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Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

gf0012-aust

You sure about those numbers? When I was in Feds I worked in a couple of areas, one was the early intercepts of refugee boats into australia and the post handling out at quarantine (East Arm). I later worked closely with the established community as I was part of the interview teams. We had a close working relationship with ICRA and DImm. I was in those jobs for 3 years.

I had an extraordinary amount of difficulty dealing with older vietnamese as they refused to talk to me due to having a chinese heritage. I often had to conduct interviews via their children as they wouldn't acknowledge me. In the end it became untenable and I had to shift to background interview roles.


In all my involvement with refugees I can safely say that I did not once come across any chinese viets. They were primarily sth vietnamese native, french/vietnamese or "amorese" (as we referred to the american/vietnamese orphans)

Bigfella

GF,

first, long time no speak. Hope you are well & enjoying Canberra in wintertime

I don't have a firm basis for the figures that I can google for you, but I'll tell you what I think I know.

Many of the Vietnamese who came to Oz in the first wave after the fall of Saigon were ethnic Vietnamese. The Chinese didn't start to cop it really badly until a couple of years later. Many went to China where a lot of them stayed, though some of those have come here since. Others went to Hong Kong & Malaysia. Most would have arrived in Oz in the early-mid 80s.

My guestimate is based on conversations I've had with ethnic Vietnamese here, and a Vietnamese student I used to work with (ie. she was here from Vietnam). My mother used to work with the Viet community in melbourne & noticed a high proportion of Vietnamese. Also, I live on Victoria Street, and virtually every Vietnamese business also has its name up in Chinese characters.

I wouldn't die in a ditch for the '80%' figure, but I thought it was a solid majority. Still, I could be wrong. It happens.

Keep warm mate.

gf0012-aust

Canberra is cold and crappy weatherwise. As for pollies are concerned I've had a gut full already. This mob are the same as the prev lot unfort. The wheels will start falling off sooner than I thought.

As for the Viets, I first got involved with Refugee intercepts and interviews in 1977 for about a year. I started doing relocation interviews in the early 80's and in that time, there were no chinese/viets. I'd base my life on it as we interviewed all of them.

there might have been a shift later, but the initial flood were sth viets (usually ex govt), french/viets and laos/cambodian backgrounds. We had significant probs with the Viets and Chinese in the refugee camps - and in fact had a few knifings which were hushed up at he time. We also had some significant probs that ICRA were privy to when they had some early gang probs between young sth vietnamese kids and the local chinese. Unfort they didn't realise that the chinese already in aust were completely different to the chinese that they had come across near the nth vietnamese borders.

the worst problems we had were viets, cambodians and chinese. they loathed each other with a passion.

Officer of Engineers

As others have discussed, Hanoi's hatre of China allowed Vietnam to exploit the Sino-Soviet rift. Moscow did not strip Vietnam from China's orbit.

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Chimo

glyn

[quote=gf0012-aust;504157]

I had an extraordinary amount of difficulty dealing with older vietnamese as they refused to talk to me due to having a chinese heritage. I often had to conduct interviews via their children as they wouldn't acknowledge me. In the end it became untenable and I had to shift to background interview roles.


Can you explain why they were so difficult towards you please?

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Semper in excretum. Solum profunda variat.

Skywatcher

Incidentally, is the actual Chinese Vietnamese border still classified? Apparently Hanoi didn't want to talk about what agreement it had bargained with the PRC.

gf0012-aust

Fundamentally because in the 70's I had hair like chong out of cheech and chong, so I looked a bit "wild". The nature of my work was that we were allowed to grow our hair to fit in to the community etc.... in addition they always knew that I was part chinese, and at that stage, with that particular cohort, they would have nothing to do with me.

taken in context of the late 70's:

long hair (and in a government compound);
chinese background;
I worked for the government of the country they were seeking refugee status in;
they'd come from a country where govt officials were not shy of situational brutality;
finally, I used to roll up with the payroll team once per fortnight. because it was a fair distance from the city, the payroll team were permitted to have an armed guard - so we always had a bloke with a shotgun in the car.

all in all. I would have been seen by the refugees as someone who exerted power and influence (nothing further from the truth unfortunately for me!), and ispo facto, government employees were also something to be fearful of.

At that stage some of them were coming from refugee camps in Indonesia and Malaysia (like Mersing) - and in Mersing the local Commander was not shy of beating people and extorting money.

glyn

PlaneCrazy14

many forget to realize that this was partly a religious war. monks vs. catholics. u cant win wars if your "allied citizens" (south vietnam) dont support u. look at wats going on in iraq. plus robert mccnamara made some bad decisions that lead to lyndon johnson's demise. all mccnamara wanted was more and more firepower.

Skywatcher

There was also that ridiculous plan of McNamara's to put in a bunch of electronic listening devices along Ho Chi Minh trail. That has to be one of my favorite high technology fandoogles in the annals of warfare, right up there with the Tiger II and Wasserfall missile.

Bigfella

The REALLY funny thing about it was the underlying assumption that White folks & their technology would necessarily defeat poor uneducated little 3rd world folk. Typical technocrats.

In actual fact the Vietnamese worked out what was going on pretty quickly & ways to mess with it. There were examples of them playing tape recordings to fool audio sensors or driving the same truck/marching the same guys past motion detectors to give false readings. I'm sure that some of the sensors gave legit info, but once you fool a few you bring the legitimacy of all info into question.

Bigfella

Plane,

It was actually a LOT more complex than that. In addition to 1-1.5 million Catholics there were 2 million Hoa Hao - a sort of millenarian Buddist sect based in the Mekong Delta and 2 million Cao Dai - a syncretic religion based north of Saigon. Very few Vietnamese were strictly Buddhist, but almost all followed a sort of 'threefold' religion, combining teachings of Buddhism, Confucian principles & ancestor worship. Buddhist monks are traditionally respected by all the local religious traditions.

Both the Hoa Hao & Cao Dai controlled distinct areas of territory & had paramilitary wings. They had a fair degree of autonomy under the French & Bao Dai - who had bigger fish to fry. While they resisted control from central government, both groups disliked the communists even more.

The big problem for the RVN was that Diem, a near-fanatical Catholic, was convinced (in part by US advisors) that he had to bring the Cao Dai & Hoa Hao under Saigon's control BEFORE taking on the communists. In actual fact, by taking them on he simply turned them from anti-communist to either neutral or helping the VC.

Another problem Diem had was that he had no established political base in the South. He & his family were from the North & he had spent a number of years in the US. Most of the Catholics in the Sth were refugees from the North. Diem leaned heavily on them & on his family for support. The result was that Northern Catholics - doubly on the 'outside' in the South - were his main support base. Other key support for Diem came from landowners & the largely Chinese business community. Not hard to see how the average peasant would look upon the Diem regime with suspicion. A ready made PR gift for the communists.

The conflict with the monks was a piece of stupidity on Diem's part. Some of the monks were undoubtedly agitiators, but Diem's reaction was dangerously self-defeating. The big issue for the monks was when they came into conflict with Diem's family, most notably an older brother who was the Catholic Bishop of Hue. The Archbishop was such a doctrinaire old-school Catholic that he was eventually excommunicated by the Church for refusing to accept the reforms of 'Vatican 2'. When he butted heads with the monks Diem & another brother Nhu sent troops into monastries. The protests ramped up, and so did the reaction from Diem. In the end it was a key element in his overthrow.

There continued to be some conflict between the monks & the RVN, in part a legacy of Diem's period. Stupid & unecessary.

CGXC runner

We should have
A) Invaded N. Vietnam, but only to Hanoi. China didn't intervene in Korea until we hit the Yalu River.

or

B) Bombed the living crap out of them until they surrendered.

and to rap it up I would like to say we DID win Vietnam, when we pulled out in '73 the Vietcong was decimated and the NVA wasn't a threat. WE should have left residual forces there though like we did after WWII to prevent the NVA invasion in '75.

Shek

So what I'm reading is that we lost the war to keep South Vietnam from falling to the communists. We failed to establish the government and Army that could do this. What a decent interval!

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3