Context: This article was written on the occasion of the Tonkin Gulf Massacre, the first time Chinese vessels shot and killed 14 fishermen from Hau Loc (Thanh Hoa) while out fishing at sea. This event occurred on January 8, 2005 (see more on Wikipedia).
My dear friends,
During the past few days, I could not help but think about the incident where Chinese naval vessels opened fire and attacked Vietnamese fishermen, as well as other issues between Vietnam and China.
My feelings right now are very mixed! As someone who has lived and worked in China, having witnessed them develop and execute their strategies everywhere whether good or not yet perfected, I cannot help but worry about the future of Vietnam, my motherland.
The country of China has a very capable leadership team with clear strategies and visions, as well as very tough and ruthless tactics. Every Chinese citizen boils in their blood with a very high sense of nationalism and a yearning to get rich everywhere.
Meanwhile, where are we right now? My heart aches and I cannot help but worry for my beloved land.
As an economist, for a long time now, I still have not seen any reasonable economic development strategy to assert Vietnam’s position in the next 20 years and not have to fear the giant shadow of our Chinese “friend.”
While we are rejoicing and self-satisfied with a GDP growth rate of only 6–7%, the Chinese are trying to curb their overheated economic growth rate of 10–12%.
When we take pride in Vietnam being the first, second, or third largest rice exporter in the world, the Chinese have already bought a portion of IBM and sent people into space.
Our debts, which have already increased very rapidly in quantity, are also about to mature, and Vietnam will soon enter a period of being forced to repay debts. And while I still have many ambiguities regarding the effectiveness of projects funded by these loans, international banks like the WB and ADB are simultaneously begging China to borrow more of their money.
The income gap between the rich and the poor in Vietnam is growing larger by the day, and I am terrified to witness another Latin American country or another Philippines. Our healthcare system is immensely distorted. Our patients have to pay sky-high prices for medicine and certain service fees. Sadly, many of our very “gentle mother-like” physicians have deceived patients into paying those costs!
The private economic sector, despite growing very fast, also has to endure unfair competition with the state-owned economic sector. Corporate income tax rates in Vietnam are too high, failing to encourage businesses while easily leading to tax evasion, corruption, and opaque collusion between state-owned and private companies.
At the same time, China’s private sector is thriving. China’s richest man possesses assets worth over a billion US dollars. He is the owner of an online gaming company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He is only just over 30 years old.
We are wasting millions of dollars because of corrupt oil and gas exploration projects. Meanwhile, the Chinese have begun purchasing oil fields abroad.
We construct a dilapidated My Dinh Stadium full of flaws with tens of billions of dong wasted, while the Chinese are busily preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Our corruption index ranks among the worst in the world. Yet we, with an arbitrary attitude, stand ready to bring anti-corruption critics to court. At the same time, the Chinese government wastes no bullets in the “rain” of execution gunfire against corrupt high-ranking officials.
Last month, we nearly shut down VnExpress and severely reprimanded Mr. Truong Dinh Anh, the editor-in-chief of this online newspaper, because they courageously questioned the Mercedes car purchase affair. Last week, we arrested reporter Lan Anh of Tuoi Tre newspaper because she wrote monitoring articles about a pharmaceutical distribution scandal. A few days ago, we also shut down Tintucvietnam for reasons that I cannot comprehend.
While our education system is like a tangled mess, China has begun accepting international students from all over the world and building world-class universities like Tsinghua, Peking, and Shanghai universities.
With so many PhDs, master’s degree holders, professors, and doctors of science in our esteemed Ministry of Education, we still cannot even perfect the primary education system. Our teachers are ready to beat young, vulnerable children without mercy. Miserably, these children do not know that no one has the right to beat them.
Our talented students are sent to study abroad in the US under a “National Budget Scholarship Program” with a frugal sum of merely $700–900 per month. Worse, they are not even paid on schedule. This scholarship is approximately at the lowest allowable level that homeless people in the US receive.
Meanwhile, Chinese students and professors are present in every corner of top American universities, sending home the most advanced information from biochemistry and biotechnology to even nuclear technology information.
As for our Ministry of Education, countless inadequacies in the education system cause Vietnamese students to encounter endless troubles in studying abroad and researching in advanced education systems.
Why do we make studying abroad for research students so difficult?
Just getting a decently printed transcript is difficult. To this day, I still see awkwardly translated transcripts typed on a typewriter. I still see students having to beg teachers just to get a second transcript.
Lecturers at our universities rarely give students grades of 9 and 10 because they hold a very silly reason that grades of 9 and 10 are not meant for students. And that puts Vietnamese students at a severe disadvantage when applying to major US universities.
Meanwhile, in China, countless centers open up to help students prepare conditions for studying abroad and consult on application files.
Our human development strategies are virtually non-existent. A few times we have talked about utilizing talent, but those were merely empty words. Where is the transparency in utilizing and nurturing talent? In the end, seniority and “diplomatic skill” still carry more weight than erudition and effective work methods.
I have a friend who graduated with a PhD abroad, just over 30 but possessing a lot of wonderful experience. He has full capability and qualities to assume fairly high positions. He passed all requirements, but in the end was rejected simply for being “too young” and told to wait a while longer.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are recruiting foreign experts and overseas Chinese to serve as managers and CEOs of their top state-owned enterprises.
And now, what are we doing?
Watching our compatriots massacred right on our country’s territorial waters, we are unable to unite and utter a single word. Remember the incident where the US bombed the Chinese embassy a few years ago, when a wave of Chinese protests erupted across the entire world.
I cannot help but feel sad thinking that if we were to do the same, we would get into trouble with our own people because we fear a “rupture of sentiment” with this Chinese comrade.
We were ruled by feudal China for thousands of years. During those miserable years, we were enslaved economically, physically, and spiritually. If we do not have a clear vision and strategy to develop the economy, build human resources, improve and perfect the education system, prevent corruption, and learn advanced knowledge, I fear that Vietnam’s dark past above will return.
A very ordinary Vietnamese person
