I forgot to mention Vietnam is one of the most pro-American country outside the state itself!!!! Long live Vietnam and U.S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I disagree that VN is one of the most pro-American states. Most Vietnamese in VN are very neutral toward the American, they don't hate them but they don't love them either. Most Vietnamese don't even know much about America anyway. The most and only "pro-American" I have to say is the old generation Viet American

Wrong! Vietnam Viet probrally knows more about America and her culture than thier own culture!

Things are changing and they're changing fast for little Vietnam. Out with the old and in with the new. East meets West. Blue jean meets traditional Ao Dai. Pho meets Hamburger! You can say, Vietnam wasn't much of a country 10 years. But nows things are different. I haven't been back to Vietnam in almost 17 years, but from what i can remember Vietnam was slum. A place where i was born. A country called "Vietnam". Vietnam seems almost like a dead country on life support. Now whenever i look up the word Saigon or Hanoi i was shocked with what i'm seeing. Sky high skyscrapers popping up in every corner and every district on every boulevard. Western culture could be seen to be in every part of the country. North, South, Central. With country clubs reserves only for the rich. Streets kids breakdancing battling it out in the middle of rush hour. Kicking it with their homies, friends, family, girlfriends. Kids wearing a sport jersey dubbing a famous American sport star. "More than two-third of the Vietnamese population are under 30!!!" That's considered to be a big deal today, in a capitalist consuming world and they're a big part of it. Vietnamese politician isn't the brightest when its come to social reforming or any others reforming during the past 3 decades. Our government was nothing more than a bunch old fashion, dumb thinking, Marxist geeks. I say, "in with the new, and out with the old"!!! "The Vietnamese population are hungry and they want changes. And they want it now!!!!"

Wrong! Vietnam Viet probrally knows more about America and her culture than thier own culture!

Vietnamese politician isn't the brightest when its come to social reforming or any others reforming during the past 3 decades. Our government was nothing more than a bunch old fashion, dumb thinking, Marxist geeks. I say, "in with the new, and out with the old"!!! "The Vietnamese population are hungry and they want changes. And they want it now!!!!"

everyone knows western culture kicks @$$ no need to live life in pretend and hypocrisy, you will be assimilated or already had

^ your current governement is the government where you reside, so where might that be?

Please go back and read where you got the 84/85 IQ.

Despite the former S Vietnamese pro US attitude and propaganda, old Vietnamese especially those from the North still remember what the US did to them and their families during the Vietnam war. It is highly unlikely that Vietnam is going to be pro-US anytime soon nor allow US forces in Vietnam.

Despite the former S Vietnamese pro US attitude and propaganda, old Vietnamese especially those from the North still remember what the US did to them and their families during the Vietnam war. It is highly unlikely that Vietnam is going to be pro-US anytime soon nor allow US forces in Vietnam.

It's not a propaganda its reality. Who cares what the old people think, its the young generation that's matter. Any government failed to think other wise is failed government. Beside, everybody knows U.S has the best military in the world. That's what we need, an allied with a annual military budget of 500 billions USD. Compared to China annual military of only 50 billions USD.

Vietnamese tend to be very neutral toward the U.S, especially those leaders who control the country and a smart leader is someone who balance out the force of power, not to side with either one. The U.S on the other hand, is not that friendly to Vietnam either, especially when it's come to trading

Those older Vietnamese are in power, while the younger ones are not. Being communist they would not trust US, least they get back stab like what US did to China in 1989.

Do you actually think youth influence can change the old guards position who fought in the Vietnam war for the north during their younger days? If there is a student uprising expect them to be crush like what happen in Tienanmen in 1989, that is how all communist country works unless they want to lose power.

Lol chinese soldiers are by far the worst in all of Asia. History proves that.

If that is the case why Vietnam lost territory to China in 1984, really if it wasn't for the fact that China got involve in the Vietnam war the US would have invaded N Vietnam. The fight in 1979 was a test to see how much the PLA has been weaken, due to Mao's cultural revolution. But PLA still complete its objective in capturing the cities despite having a weaken military and didn't slaughtered civilians like the US did.

US 'catfish war' defeat stings Vietnam
By Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

HO CHI MINH CITY - Vietnamese exporters and officials are still smarting from an unfavorable ruling on the country's huge catfish exports to the United States - and the painful lessons it teaches when it comes to the perils of freer trade and a market economy.

A week after Vietnam lost what has been called the "catfish war" between the country and the United States, strong protests continue to spread across Vietnam, not just among business people and officials but also in local media.

"It's totally unfair and does not reflect the objective fact," said Phan Thuy Thanh, spokeswoman for Vietnam's foreign minister. "The application of unfair protective barriers to Vietnam's tra and basa catfish exports to the US over the protest of public opinion - including American opinion - shows the increasing tendency to protect domestic production in the United States."

She was reacting to the July 23 ruling by the US International Trade Committee (ITC), which found that the importation of Vietnamese catfish had caused losses to the US market, and subsequently imposed higher tariffs on imports from Vietnam.

In recent years, the United States has become the biggest importer of Vietnamese catfish, importing 13,000 tonnes valued at US$38.3 million in 2001. The figure increased to 18,300 tonnes, worth $55.1 million, between January and November 2002.

The ITC's ruling, made after a 40-second vote, clears the way for the slapping of stiff duties - 37-64 percent and retroactively - proposed earlier by the US Department of Commerce. Before the lawsuit, catfish import duties were just 5 percent.

Last month, the US Commerce Department itself ruled that Vietnamese fillets have been "dumped" or sold in the US market at unfairly low prices. The new tariffs will come into force by July 30, 2003.

"It's not us but them that are unfair," the chairman of Vietnam's Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP), Nguyen Huu Dung, said of the US catfish farmers and the government.

Since the start of the "catfish wars" in 2002, VASEP has maintained that Vietnam's catfish exports are cheaper than US products because of cheaper labor and feed costs.

At the core of the issue is resentment by US catfish farmers and processors, represented by the Catfish Farmers of America, who complained that Vietnam had captured 20 percent of the $590 million market for foreign catfish fillet by selling at prices below the cost of production.

TCFA lobbied the US Congress to declare that out of 2,000 catfish types, only the US-born family named Ictaluridae could be called catfish. Vietnamese producers had to market their fish in the United States by using the Vietnamese terms of basa and tra.

Later, US commerce officials initiated an anti-dumping case against Vietnamese catfish and declared Vietnam a "non-market" economy, one where the government seeks to determine economic activity largely through central planning, instead of market forces.

The ITC last week followed suit, voting that the US catfish industry was hurt by Vietnam's unfair competition.

For Vietnamese officials, the catfish issue shows how tough the going can get in the area of the free market, more than a decade after the country went down the road of doi moi or economic renovation.

The ITC's ruling proves that "a small group of US catfish farmers could create pressure, forcing US public servants to distort truth and present falsified evidence, to apply trade protectionism, despite the so-called 'trade liberalization and fair competition' that US politicians often preach", Dung said in a VASEP statement.

The statement quoted market analysts and economists from the US Precision Economics LLP and HM Johnson and Associates as affirming that imports of Vietnamese frozen catfish did not cause material harm to the US catfish industry.

Andrew Forman, president of Infinity Seafoods Inc of Franklin, Massachusetts, and an importer of Vietnamese catfish, said the new tariffs are unfair and will not solve the problems US catfish farmers have been facing. "It is basic supply and demand," he said.

For Vietnam, the new tariffs will cause lots of hardship, officials say. "The unfair ruling will create difficulties for thousands of catfish farmers and workers, as well as the catfish industry," Dung said.

Some half-million Vietnamese live off the catfish trade in the Mekong Delta. Already, the catfish dispute has pushed down prices at An Giang province - the biggest producer of catfish in the delta - and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of farmers.

Already, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has called on traders to buy Mekong catfish at higher prices to help farmers. Vice Minister Nguyen Thi Hong Minh proposed that traders seal contracts with producers and assure them that they will buy their products at a minimum price of VND9,000 (56 US cents) a kilogram.

Already, the Ministry of Fisheries has forecast that the dispute on Vietnamese catfish would affect the country's exports this year. It forecast that Vietnam's catfish exports to the United States would reach just $20 million this year, compared with $55 million in 2002.

"Our error in the past few years was to focus too much on the US market. The Bilateral Trade Agreement makes us look through rose spectacles and forget the ill-fated side of that giant market," Dung said. "We should have studied the market thoroughly and known the rules of the game better."

Indeed, "the fate of Vietnam's catfish offers a warning to poorer nations short on leverage in the world trading system: beware of what may happen if you actually succeed at playing by the big boys' rules", said a New York Times editorial on July 22.

Nevertheless, an optimistic Dung says there is a bright side: the "catfish wars" helped promote basa and tra catfish on the world market.

VASEP vice chairman Ngo Phuoc Hau supported Dung's assertion. He said Vietnamese catfish exporters and producers either have to raise US catfish or develop processing plants inside the United States, just as Japanese auto makers did successfully in the 1960s and 1970s.

Seafood exporters have also been scouting new markets such as France, Russia, Canada, Sweden, Britain, Australia, China and Hong Kong.

At the same time, Fisheries Ministry officials are busy reminding seafood exporters to watch out for another pending lawsuit in the United States - this time, against shrimp exports from Vietnam and other countries.

Vietnam usually use a tactic to invite the enemies to the capital and then we withdraw to the Jungle. That's how Vietnam was able to defeat the Mongols.


The Russians learn from the Vietnamese not to confront Napoleon and Hitler. Just let the enemies come to Moscow and Hanoi and then they will be exhausted and run out of energy and die eventually.