From: mdo@socrates.umd.edu ("Mike T. Do")
Subject: [NEWS] U.S. SEEN AS BEING UNDER PRESSURE TO LIFT EMBARGO ON VIETNAM
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Reply-To: "Mike T. Do" <mdo@socrates.umd.edu>
Date: 10 Nov 92 02:58:59 GMT

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FROM WASHINGTON POST (11/09/92)




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Washington Post Foreign Service
By William Branigin

Hanoi - Nov 8 - The resumption of Japanese aid to Vietnam after a 14 hiatus
is putting pressure on the United States to lift its economic embargo against
this country, according to diplomats and government officials here.
    While the embargo once served to isolate a belligerent Vietnam that was
seen as a threat to its neighbors, today it is the United States that is
isolated in trying to maintain economic sanctions against a country that now
counts many former adversaries among its leading trade and investment
partners, the sources said.
    The U.S. embargo, imposed after Hanoi's takeover of South Vietnam in 1975
forbids American firms to trade or invest in Vietnam and stipulates U.S.
opposition to loans to this country by multilateral institution such as the
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
    Despit a shifting diplomatic climate, Washington has maintained the
embargo over the years to press Vietnam for a full accounting of missing U.S.
servicemen and for cooperation in efforts to reach a peaceful solution in
Cambodia.  Hanoi's lack of access to loans from international agencies has
impeded Vietnam from launching large internal development projects and
expanding its infrastructure.
    Up to now, the United States has been able to count on the support of
Japan in blocking multilateral lending to Vietnam.  But after reportedly
postponing the move three times since early this year because of U.S.
objections, Japan on Friday broke ranks with the United States by formally
agreeing to lend Vietnam $369 million on concessional terms.
    Although Tokyo's position on IMF and World Bank loans is not yet clear,
the resumption of Japanese official development assistance to Vietnam, which
had been suspended since Hanoi's troops invaded Cambodia in December 1978,
now opens the way for large-scale private Japanese investment.
    "The embargo is dead," a European ambassador said.  "It's a question of
weeks or months" until it is formally lifted, he said.
    The Japanese action notwithstanding, "the embargo itself has been a bit
of a farce for a very long time now," said the envoy of a country closely
allied with the United States.  Various American consumer products are freely
available, and some U.S. firms have managed to set up shop here through
subsidiaries incorporated in other countries.
    Vietnamese officials hope that President Bush will lift the embargo
before leaving office in January.  In any case, the official believe, given
Hanoi's cooperation lately in efforts to account for missing U.S. servicemen
and the clamor of American businessmen for a change in policy President-elect
Clinton probably will not maintain the embargo for long.
    However, the Vietnamese seem not to have come to grips with the political
difficulties that Clinton might face in taking such a step, or with opposition
to normalization of relations from some members of Clinton's Democratic Party
Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb) said recently that in addition to the long standing
U.S. instence on a full accounting for missing Americans, Washington should
also demand that internal political changes to introduce democracy in Vietnam
be a condition for normalization.
    Diplomats here derided that idea.
    "You don't bring democracy to a county with a whip," one said.  "It's
essentially a non-starter.  People who examine the fall of the Sovie empire
will get a great laugh from this."
    Ironically, Vietnamese advocates of democratic reforms privately express
the hope that the lifting of the embargo and normalization with the United
States will help them achieve their aims.
    Moreover, with trade and investment burgeoning and foreign businessmen
vying to get a foothold in what they view as Asia's last lucrative frontier,
Vietnam at this point appears to be in a stronger postition than ever to
reject conditions for normalization, diplomats said.
    Foreign investment in Vietnam now totals about $3 billions, still paltry
compared with some of its Southeast-Asian neighbors but an increase of $1
billion from a year ago.  Taiwanese and Hong Kong companies have invested
more than $1.2 billion, about 40 percent of the total.
    In the last year especially, the transformation of Hanoi from a crubling
Communist backwater to a bustling capital has been accelerating as Vietnam's
free-market economic reform program of doi moi, or renovation, has taken hold.
Even more dynamic have been the changes in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon,
where capitalism and entrepreneurial skills had been flourishing before 1975.
    A few years ago, Hanoi had only a few state-owned hotels, a handful of
semi-private restaurants, scarce consumer goods, no taxis and a generally
drab, cowed populace that was nervous about dealing with foreigners and
incurring the suspicion of the state.
    Now there are dozens of new or renovated hotels, foreign airline offices,
restaurants, videotape rental outlets, art galleries and shops.
    The Communist political system, with its stultifying bureaucarcy and
repression of dissent, persists along with such economic ills as high
unemployment and a low per capita income of around $200 a year.  But people
general seem more open, financially better off and considerably more hopeful
than they were before the economic reforms.
    "Step by step, we can feel the change," said Nguyen Thi Lan, a 51-year-old
vendor of tea and oranges, as she sat beside one of Hanoi's scenic lakes.
Interviewed a year ago, she has spoken of her "hard life" and daily struggles
with rising prices.  Now, she said, rice is more plentiful and has actually
dropped in price by about a third from two years ago.
    Although she is still poor by any standard, she spoke with some optimism
about the future.
    "Ther are quite bit changes here, and I hope they will be bigger," she
said.  "The hardship we faced in my family has been reduced."

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