3 - Vietnam's Doi Moi and Its Quest for Normalized Relations with China

Summary

Introduction

After Vietnam was reunified in 1975, the CPV enthusiastically embarked on a new project: transforming the country along the socialist path. There was a widespread sense of optimism among communist leaders that the war-torn country would soon recover and prosper through a socialist transformation. However, the new task turned out to be far more challenging than they had imagined. The country's economic performance in the first ten years after reunification shows that Vietnam “won a war but lost the peace” (Kolko 1995, p. 351), with economic failures causing the people's living standards to deteriorate dramatically after 1975. The situation got even worse after Vietnam was forced to engage in two costly armed conflicts, one against the Khmer Rouge and the other against China. Sustaining war efforts put excessive strains on the already war-torn economy and contributed to the outbreak of a socio-economic crisis in the mid-1980s, causing a sharp decline in the CPV's legitimacy. Against this backdrop, the CPV decided to adopt the Doi Moi (Renovation) policy at its sixth national congress in late 1986, with a view to reforming the national economy before the socio-economic crisis could threaten the regime's survival.

In order to implement Doi Moi, the CPV started to introduce within a short period of time a series of new policies, which included developing a multi-sector market-based economy, renovating the economic structure, stabilizing the socio-economic environment, promoting science and technology, and opening up the country's foreign relations. It should be noted that by 1986, hostile relations with China and Vietnam's engagement in the Cambodian conflict were still destabilizing Vietnam's immediate external environment, which was unfavourable for its economic development. Disengaging from the Cambodian quagmire and especially normalizing relations with China emerged as Vietnam's top foreign policy priorities.

Focusing on Vietnam's domestic–foreign policy nexus, the current chapter will look into the link between Vietnam's adoption of Doi Moi and transformations in its China policy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The chapter argues that during this period, changes in Vietnam's foreign policy in general and its China policy in particular originated first and foremost from the CPV's domestic agenda of promoting economic reform and protecting the regime's survival. As the CPV considered hostile relations with China as detrimental to both its economic reform and regime security, it gave renewed emphasis to improving relations with China.