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

[jojoju1998]

Why ?

[CumbrianLefty]

Its not generally considered that important, plus some residual guilt over the war? Plus isn't its record slowly getting better regarding these issues.

[dead0man]

most human rights abuses out of the 2nd/3rd world don't get much attention in the West

[wnwnwn]

I suppose Vietnam wants to show itself as a growing country. Also, western leftiest won´t forget the war. Everybody has seen the "napalm girl" picture.

[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.

[JimJamUK]

Vietnam is also not exactly an ally of China, which limits its criticism from the establishment/right as well.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

[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?

[CumbrianLefty]

North Korea is a lot worse than (North) Vietnam though.

The latter's programme was always communism mixed with nationalism, in a way the other wasn't.

[Beet]

The same reason Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Israel, etc. don't...

[TDAS04]

The Vietnamese-American population tends to be staunchly anti-Communist, and has traditionally been opposed to the US opening friendly relations with the Vietnamese government. However, US-Vietnam relations still thrive, and the Vietnamese-American population isn't quite so strategically concentrated in an electoral-rich battleground state (unlike like the Cuban-Americans in Florida), so they don't have that much influence on US foreign policy. That probably helps US-Vietnam relations, but of course there are other reasons. Vietnam isn't a democracy, but it tends to receive higher human rights and freedom ratings (form such organizations as Freedom House) than the other four officially Marxist states. Not only is Vietnam rated far, far better on freedom than North Korea (duh, obviously a super-low bar), but it's also considerably higher than China, plus somewhat better than Cuba and Laos.

Of course the the fact that Vietnam is very useful to the US as far as containing China is concerned is something that matters more than a little bit. I support increasing arms sales to Vietnam and other anti-China allies; the world doesn't need China to get any more powerful. It's time to arm Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, etc. until China is intimidated from messing with these nations, as China will realize that they're horrifyingly painful, prickly porcupines that will shred any invaders.

[dead0man]

The same reason Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Israel, etc. don't...

ok, I'll bite, what is that one reason?  The obvious answer would be "money", 'cause people like to blame it on a lot of things (the root of ALL evil? impossible), but that doesn't make any sense unless the people who normally care about "human right's abuses" are super easy to buy off in secret and that's, ya know, impossible (not for any noble reason, just that there are way too many of them).

[pppolitics]

Vietnam is neither a US ally nor fighting against a US ally

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Why ?

Because the last thing the US & the west wants to do is drive Vietnam into China's hands.

Secondly, given the standard in the entire world, it's probably an above average country at this point on human rights and getting but slowly but surely better, esp given it's rapid industrialization comparable to South Korea & Taiwan in the 1980s atm (that use to have not a great record on those issues either).

If you complain about stuff like gay marriage not being a thing, it's only legal in Taiwan as of know, and about to become so in Thailand.

If we'd sanction the entire world for this, good luck sanctioning 150 countries, especially since some Florida legislators also want to sanction Spain, Norway & Ireland.

The only one you'll end up sanctioning is yourself if you sanction the entire world.

[Dan the Roman]

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.

How did the US fighting against the Khmer Rouge bring them to power as opposed to the North Vietnamese army occupying a third of Cambodia on their behalf?

This is an absurd, and totally baseless claim which has reached "common wisdom" status in online discourse yet not only is it untrue, but it makes absolutely no sense when anyone is asked to explain it.

Instead it falls back on some version of "well its true because i read Chomsky say it"  when

1. Chomsky supported the Khmer Rouge for years
2. His claim is about the us abstaining on a chinese motion to block the Vietnamese puppet government from getting recognition after 1979, which is later

In fact, it's a story spread by people who supported the Khmer Rouge takeover to place the blame on people who fought against them using misleading claims about things which happened a decade later.

[CumbrianLefty]

I have read hardly any Chomsky, and have never been one of his "followers".

Simple question - did the US, or did it not, massively bomb Cambodia despite the fact that it was a NEUTRAL COUNTRY in the war?? Causing huge destruction and loss of innocent life.

I mean, the KR itself said that nothing did more to bring them to power. And it was observed by many at the time and so wasn't a result of your pet bogeyman brainwashing people.

The reality is that the Vietnam War, like the Iraq War more recently, was both totally indefensible and did massive harm to the standing of America in the wider world.

[Dan the Roman]

I have read hardly any Chomsky, and have never been one of his "followers".

Simple question - did the US, or did it not, massively bomb Cambodia despite the fact that it was a NEUTRAL COUNTRY in the war?? Causing huge destruction and loss of innocent life.

I mean, the KR itself said that nothing did more to bring them to power. And it was observed by many at the time and so wasn't a result of your pet bogeyman brainwashing people.

The reality is that the Vietnam War, like the Iraq War more recently, was both totally indefensible and did massive harm to the standing of America in the wider world.

As I thought you have absolutely nothing.  No evidence,  no theory,  an uncited claim the KM asserted something which even if true proves nothing. Because it is not true, and it makes no sense for it to be.


North Vietnam invaded Cambodia with 100,000 troops and drove the Royal Cambodian Army out of a third of the country. Maybe the foriegn Communist Army which armed the Khmer Rouge had a greater role than the poorly executed ARVN operation which failed to drive them out?

Yes, I guess you could argue a better executed operation would have prevented it. But the failure of the Bay of Pigs can be blamed for the lack of democracy in Cuba too. The closest thing is backing Lon Nol was a strategic mistake in the same way allowing the overthrow of Diem turned out to be.

In short you are proving the point.  This is boo,er mythology spread by people who neither have any knowledge of the period or any interest in it

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

[jojoju1998]

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]

North Korea is a lot worse than (North) Vietnam though.

The latter's programme was always communism mixed with nationalism, in a way the other wasn't.

This isn't entirely accurate as I mentioned. By the 1960s, the " Nationalist " Wing in North Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh was sidelined by a more hardline " true believers " wing led by Le Duan,and it was under Le Duan that the worst of North Vietnamese policies were implemented, especially the re education camps, which destroyed much of the South Vietnamese upper to middle class intellengenista.

[pikachu]

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.

The same reason Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Israel, etc. don't...

ok, I'll bite, what is that one reason?  The obvious answer would be "money", 'cause people like to blame it on a lot of things (the root of ALL evil? impossible), but that doesn't make any sense unless the people who normally care about "human right's abuses" are super easy to buy off in secret and that's, ya know, impossible (not for any noble reason, just that there are way too many of them).

I don’t fully agree with the point I think beet is trying to make, but these are all, let’s say, problematic regimes that the US is either allied with or turns a blind eye to in the name of shared interests.

[Battista Minola 1616]

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.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

[David Hume]

Vietnam is also not exactly an ally of China, which limits its criticism from the establishment/right as well.

I mean the only ally of China is Pakistan. Even North Korea is not--they actually hate each other.

[pikachu]

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.