Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam
Flag Coat of arms
Capital	Hanoi
Largest city	Ho Chi Minh City
Government	Marxist-Leninist socialist state
• General Secretary	Nguyễn Phú Trọng
• President	Nguyễn Xuân Phúc
• Vice President	Võ Thị Ánh Xuân
• Prime Minister	Phạm Minh Chính
• Deputy Prime Minister	Lê Văn Thành
History
• Reunification and end of US occupation	2 July 1976
Population
• 2021 estimate	98,510,000

Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country on the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia. The 2020 census counted a population of 98.51 million people. The country borders China to the north and Cambodia and Laos to the west. The capital city is Hanoi while the most populous city is Ho Chi Minh City (also known by it's previous name of Saigon). The Vietnamese constitution states that Vietnam "is a socialist rule of law state of the People, by the People, for the People".

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is one of only five Marxist-Leninist states in the world today (alongside China, Laos, People's Korea and Cuba). Since 1986, it has adopted the Doi Moi economic reforms, becoming a socialist-oriented market economy.

History

Ancient history

Vietnam was ruled by China for 900 years and often had peasant rebellions against the Chinese. During the Han dynasty, there was a rebellion led by the Trung sisters, who were defeated in 43 CE.

French colonization

Ham Nghi became emperor in 1884 at 12 years of age. His officials condemned French colonization, leading to the royal palace being raided by the French in 1885. Ham Nghi fled to the forest with his regent, Ton That Thuyet. After Ham Nghi's deposition, France signed the Treaty of Tientsin with the Qing dynasty, relinquishing all Chinese claims on Vietnam, and installed his brother Dong Khanh as emperor. Ton That Thuyet and his supporters formed the nationalist resistance movement Can Vuong, which fought against the French with guerrilla warfare. They also attacked Vietnamese Christians. In 1888, Ham Nghi was captured and exiled to North Africa.

Phan Dinh Phung, a former royal official under Ham Nghi, introduced military discipline with uniforms and ranks.

Resistance War against the United States

After the second world war, Vietnam became independent from its former colonial rulers, France. However, while the north was under a socialist government led by Ho Chi Minh, the south was under a US puppet dictatorship. This led to the Vietnam war, in which the north fought against the south and the US. The north was also aided by communist guerrillas in the south, called the National Liberation Front, but often known by the nickname of "Viet Cong." The CIA targeted and killed tens of thousands of suspected guerrillas through the Phoenix Program. In March of 1968, American forces killed hundreds of civilians in the My Lai Massacre. The soldiers that tried to prevent the massacre were considered traitors by other soldiers and US congressmen. The US began withdrawing in 1969, and the south was liberated on April 30th 1975. The United States dropped more bombs on Vietnam than all of the bombs that were used in World War II and sprayed large amounts of Agent Orange, a chemical weapon, on Vietnam.

Politics

Vietnam is a Marxist-Leninist one party socialist republic. The ruling party is the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Economy

After reunification in 1975 Vietnam became a centrally planned economy. In the late 1980s the economy was suffering from a decline in Soviet aid, the decomposition of the Eastern Bloc and the effects of the post-war embargo by the USA. In 1986 the CPV adopted a series of market reforms known as Đổi Mới which would transition the country to a socialist-oriented market economy.

According to a forecast by PwC in February 2017, Vietnam may be the fastest-growing of the world's economies, with a potential annual GDP growth rate of about 5.1%, which would make its economy the 20th-largest in the world by 2050.