Strategic Posture Review: Vietnam

Contemporary Vietnam, officially known at the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), was formed in 1976 after a four-and-a-half decade armed struggle led by the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) against French colonialism and U.S. intervention. When the war against France came to an end in 1954, Vietnam was partitioned, and North Vietnam became Southeast Asia’s first communist state, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

During the early years of the Democratic Republic, China was its chief provider of foreign assistance as well as its main model of development. For example, Vietnam carried out land reform in the mid-1950s and then reorganized the countryside into socialist agricultural producers’ cooperatives. ...