Rather than enjoying the newfound peace after driving out the United States, Vietnam invaded Cambodia after border skirmishes in 1978. China, friend of Cambodia, then invaded Vietnam in 1979.
At home, Communist ideology made for empty stomachs, and international trade embargos and faltering support from the Soviet Union made life difficult for the Vietnamese. Though postwar Vietnam was autonomous, proud, and full of principles, the rice hampers were empty. By 1988 all Soviet aid was gone. Millions were starving and inflation neared 1,000%. Desperate boat people, many of the unfortunate Vietnamese who had complied with the Americans, took to the seas on leaky boats, and many met horrible fates at the hands of the South China Sea's deadly pirates.
Faced with disaster, the Vietnamese government began implementing the new ideas of Doi Moi, a free-market policy that decentralized business, allowing private citizens and farmers to own land and the Vietnamese currency to trade on international markets. To ingratiate itself with the international community in the hope of aid and trade, Vietnam withdrew its army from Cambodia in 1989, and as the 1990s began, the country began opening to the world. After peace with Cambodia and Vietnam's move to market economy, the United States lifted its long-standing trade embargo against Vietnam in 1994, and the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1995. Vietnam also joined ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and recent years have seen one milestone after another toward cooperation: including a visit by President Bill Clinton in 2000, huge economic-aid packages and commitments to cooperation, answers to long-standing questions about U.S. POWs, and U.S. assistance to victims of Agent Orange. Vietnam hosted the Asian Games in 2003, putting its best foot forward in what was a coup for international opinion. American Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with Vietnam's defense minister in Washington, D.C, in 2003, and the USS Vandergrift pulled into port in Ho Chi Minh City at about the same time, the first U.S. Navy ship to dock in a Vietnamese port since hasty withdrawal in 1975. Telling signs.
Per-capita income in Vietnam is estimated at a meager $500 per person, but it increases steadily each year, especially in urban centers (although rural poverty and lack of good medical services are still major problems). Vietnam now stands poised alongside the many Asian "Tiger Economies"; it's already a world leader in the production of coffee, fish, and shrimp, as well as a major manufacturer. Communist rhetoric still exists as part of an all-encompassing nationalism, but the Vietnamese look toward a bright and very different future in the free market.
