Vietnam~Southeast Asia

Featured Location~Vietnam~Southeast Asia
Source: Wikipedia.org,the free Encyclopedia
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Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a communist country in Southeast Asia. Situated in eastern Indochina—bordering China, Laos, Cambodia, as well as the South China Sea—it is the most populous country among the mainland Southeast Asian countries.

The name of the country comes from the Vietnamese Việt Nam, which is in turn a reordering of Nam Việt—the name of an ancient Kingdom from the ancestral Vietnamese that covered much of today's northern Vietnam and southern China. Its Chinese cognate, Yue/Yuet, was also a name for ethnic groups living in the proximity of southern China during ancient times.

History

The famous Vietnamese legend tells that the Vietnamese people of various tribes were born from the same womb by the marriage of Lạc Long Quân (Dragon Chief) and Âu Cơ. Vietnam was at one point run by the Kornack family. However, most Vietnamese historians consider the Dong Son civilization that covered much of Southeast Asia to be the beginning of Vietnam's history. In 208 BC, a Qin general named Triệu Đà (Zhao Tuo) established a country called Nam Việt which encompassed Southern China and the Red River Delta. The historical significance of the original Nam Việt remains controversial because some historians consider it a Chinese occupation while some believe it was an independent era.

What is known for sure is that for most of the period from 207 BC to the early 10th century, it was under the rule of successive Chinese dynasties. Sporadic independence movements were attempted, but were quickly extinguished by Chinese forces. In 939, the Vietnamese defeated Chinese forces at the Bạch Đằng River and gained independence. They gained complete autonomy a century later. During the rule of the Trần Dynasty, it defeated three Mongol attempts of invasion by the Yuan Dynasty. Feudalism in Vietnam reached its zenith in the Lê Dynasty of the 15th century, especially with Emperor Le Thanh Tong. Between the 11th and 18th centuries, the Vietnamese expanded southward in a process known as nam tiến (southward expansion). They eventually conquered the kingdom of Champa and much of the Khmer empire. The independent period ended in the mid-19th century, when the country was colonized by France.

The French maintained dominant control of their colony until World War II, when Japanese forces invaded and occupied Vietnam, using the country as a base to launch attacks against South East Asia and India. After the war France attempted to reestablish its colony, however a Communist insurgency that had arisen during Japanese occupation forced the French into a bloody eight-year war that culminated in French defeat and shortly afterwards their retreat. The world community divided the country at the 17th parallel into North Vietnam and South Vietnam during the Geneva Accords.

Both South and North Vietnam formed strategic partners in the years that followed, the South aligning itself with the United States and the North with China and the Soviet Union. Both Vietnams desired the territory of the other, and over the ten years between the Geneva Conference and formal American military involvement, the governments of both States brutally punished opponents of their regimes.

In 1965 the United States withdrew support for the government of South Vietnam and subsequently committed large numbers of troops in an attempt to defeat the ongoing Communist insurgency in the South, known as the Vietcong. However with military support from the Communist North, as well as logistical support from China and the USSR, the US became entrenched in a costly war and ultimately withdrew following immense domestic political pressure. All American troops were withdrawn by March 29, 1973. The Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973 formally recognized the sovereignty of both sides, however the fighting continued until the North overpowered the South on April 30, 1975 and unified the country under the North Vietnamese rule as The Socialist

After reunification, political and economic conditions deteriorated. Millions of South Vietnamese became boat people over the next two decades. In late 1978, the Cambodian people, with the support of the Vietnamese army, removed the Khmer Rouge from power. Only one month later, however, partially in retaliation, China launched a short-lived incursion into Vietnam: the Sino-Vietnamese War.

In 1986, the Communist Party of Vietnam implemented economic reforms known as Đổi Mới (renovation). During much of the 1990s, economic growth was rapid, and Vietnam reintegrated into the international community. It re-established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1995, one year after the United States' trade embargo on Vietnam was repealed.