Introduction

Abstract

Unifying parts of a nation with dissimilar or antagonistic socio-economic profiles is a thorny problem. This book is a case study of an Asian socialist country grappling with the absorption of a large capitalist region. Vietnam is not the only country facing such problems. In the post-war period, either directly or indirectly as a result of the carving up of the globe into ‘spheres of influence’ of capitalism and socialism, a number of previously unified nation states have found themselves divided in two. Defeated Germany was the first to be split, but in the majority of cases (China—Taiwan, North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam), the divisions have come about because the aspirations of local peoples did not coincide with the interests of the Potsdam Conference of the Allied Powers. As far as Asia was concerned, these interests were largely based on the pre-war colonial status quo. In each case, national liberation movements were opposed by the colonial powers, including the United States, both for imperial reasons and out of fear of their socialist content. From the wars which followed, divided states emerged — with one part sustained by US aid and/or military intervention, the other part under communist rule.