[Ngo-sanrm] Geo-politics, Vietnam's security, GMOs

Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Working Group ngo-sanrm at ngocentre.org.vn
Tue Apr 30 08:48:29 BST 2013


Even in this article -- mostly about geopolitical concerns in the region vis-a-vis Vietnam, the U.S., and China -- the issue of Monsanto and GMOs crops up again.  The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which are being conducted in secret, are expected to open the door more widely for companies like Monsanto, Dow, and Syngenta to come into countries like Vietnam and bring GMO seeds and crops with virtually no restrictions that can be imposed by the Vietnamese government.

CHUCK 


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CHUCK SEARCY
Mobile:    +84 (0) 903 420 769
Email:       chucksearcy at yahoo.com
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http://www.thanhniennews.com/index/pages/20130425-brother-enemies.aspx

Brother enemies   
Last Updated: Thursday, April 25, 2013 06:30:00 

Chinese aggression pushes Vietnam toward the US, but experts urge caution 

   
This April 23, 2013 US Navy handout photo shows Cmdr. Justin Orlich, 
commanding officer of the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 
93) giving a tour of the ship to nuns from the Con Ga Church in Da Nang, Vietnam. Chung-Hoon is currently supporting a Naval Exchange Activity 
(NEA) in Da Nang. Photo: AFP  
During a short hiatus in the US bombing 
of North Vietnam, an American intellectual was invited to visit Hanoi in 1970 and lecture at a local college.
The first morning he arrived he was taken to the war museum to listen to “long lectures with dioramas about 
Vietnamese wars with China many centuries ago.” 


“The lesson was clear,” the American 
intellectual said on condition of anonymity. “[The US] happens to be 
destroying [Vietnam] now, but you’ll leave. China will always be here.”

The Americans left and are back, this 
time as an ally, in a development that has intrigued observers and 
scholars because it takes place at a time East Sea tensions have risen 
again between Vietnam and China.

More than 1,000 years of occupation and 
three deadly wars in the 1970s and 1980s provides the historic context 
for the anti-China sentiment that has run deep in Vietnam for long, 
analysts say.

They also say that given the longer 
periods of French colonialism and Chinese aggression against Vietnam, 
and given the strategic importance of the US in the world after 1975, it should not come as a surprise that the Vietnamese people and their 
government are ready to put the past behind them more quickly with the 
US.

“The Vietnamese have been more willing to forgive the US than other countries with which they have been at war,” 
said Edwin Martini, author of Invisible Enemies: The American War on Vietnam, 1975-2000 and an associate professor of history at Western Michigan University.

“American visitors to Vietnam, myself 
included, have long been fascinated by the Vietnamese willingness to 
‘forgive, but not forget’ the horrors of the Vietnam War, particularly 
when compared with the legacies of French colonialism and the deeply 
rooted historical tensions with China,” Martini told Vietweek.

A 2010 Associated Press-GfK Poll, 
considered “one of the most exhaustive surveys to date of contemporary 
Vietnamese attitudes,” found that 56 percent of 1,600 Vietnamese 
surveyed across the country said they rarely, if ever, think of the 
Vietnam War, which ended in April 30, 1975. 
Only 11 percent said they think about it 
often. Fifty-five percent said the war had not affected them directly, a result that may reflect how young the population is: two-thirds of the 
90 million strong Vietnamese population were born after the war.

"The Vietnamese have a tradition of being tolerant and forgiving and looking to the future rather than the past," the AP report quoted Pham Chi Lan, former vice chairwoman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as saying.

Thirty-eight years after the end of 
Vietnam War, such perceptions are gaining relevance in the context of 
increased Chinese aggression over the extensive claims it is illegally 
making over the strategically important and resource-rich East Sea, 
internationally known as the South China Sea.

Naval muscle

The US Navy destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and 
the salvage ship USNS Salvor docked April 21 in the central port of Tien Sa in Da Nang City. The deployment of the guided-missile carrier comes 
at a time when China has publicly flexed its naval muscles in waters off the Vietnamese coast.

Two days later, Le Thanh An, the US Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City,  visited the Da Nang-based 
administration office of the Hoang Sa (Paracels) Islands  and held 
discussions with local government officials. Vietnam appointed a Da Nang government official as Hoang Sa mayor in 2009 in a 
largely symbolic move to assert sovereignty over the archipelago, which 
has been occupied by China since 1974.

Also in Da Nang, the US announced on April 24 that funding for a project to 
clean up dioxin, the toxic chemical left behind by Agent Orange at a 
former American airbase, would double to US$84 million.
These events have been widely covered in 
the press and well received by the public, who also express hopes that 
the US presence in the region will act as a bulwark for Vietnam against 
China’s belligerence. 

  
But several experts have said the event 
must be considered from a global geopolitical point of view: Da Nang is a strategic deep water harbor in the East Sea, where China is rapidly 
expanding its military, economic and civilian presence.

"There is a geopolitical significance to 
these activities and their location in central Vietnam," said Carl 
Thayer, a maritime analyst with the University of New South Wales in 
Australia.

Since US President Barrack Obama 
announced a “pivot” toward the economically resilient Asia-Pacific 
region in late 2011, the US has maintained it will play a neutral role 
in the East Sea dispute. 


But critics say the pivot toward Asia in 
foreign and defense policy has already rattled the region and increased 
tensions between Washington and Beijing with the latter viewing it as a 
move to contain its military and economic growth.

“The US wants to play a role in every 
place in the world, and may see Vietnam as one key to a stronger 
military presence in Asia,” said Chuck Searcy, a US war veteran who has 
spent 18 years working to clean up the war-leftover land mines and 
unexploded ordnance in Vietnam.

“Vietnam must be very cautious about 
alignments which might be misinterpreted, which could create problems 
that escalate out of Vietnam’s control, problems that might have been 
prevented,” Searcy said.

Embargo delay

The two former foes normalized relations 
in 1995 after a post-war, US-led embargo had strangled Vietnam for two 
decades, but it is not well known that the normalization could in fact 
have taken place much earlier.

In his seminal book, Brother Enemy, author Nayan Chanda says American banks and oil companies were invited 
to Hanoi as early as 1976 to explore possibilities of trade and 
financial relations. 


“They [the Vietnamese government] wanted 
to seek everyone’s help. It was this embargo that prevented western 
countries from helping Vietnam,” he told Vietweek in a 2010 interview.

But this fact is not brooded over. A 
majority of Vietnamese believe that normalization of ties with the US 
was a crucial factor in the stunning economic growth in Vietnam.

“The country’s economy has changed a lot 
since the US normalized relations with Vietnam,” said Tang Van Trong, 
who joined the navy of the US-backed regime during the war. “Without the normalization, livelihoods and opportunities would not have improved 
for everyone.”

Trans-Pacific Partnership 


Many people have high hopes that Vietnam 
and the US will soon ink an agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership 
(TPP). Pledges have been made from the two sides to fast track the TPP 
negotiations.

The pact is seen as key to ensuring the 
United States helps to write the rules for trade in the Asia-Pacific 
region and is not left on the outside as countries organize 
manufacturing, agriculture and service sectors around China, a Reuters report said.

It aims to phase out tariffs on most 
goods traded between the countries over 10 years and tackle "21st 
century issues" such as the role of state-owned enterprises in trade, 
government innovation policies, cross-border data flows and supply chain management, it added.

US government offcials have said the TPP 
should help US exports in machinery, aircraft, medical instruments, 
agriculture and other sectors.

Those who defend the TPP say the deal 
would encourage multinational companies to invest in Vietnam, because 
they would be able to export to the US easily.

“The US is Vietnam’s largest export 
market. If you can lower barriers to entry then Vietnam will benefit,” 
said Jonathan Pincus, a Ho Chi Minh City-based economist with the 
Harvard Kennedy School’s Vietnam program.

“What you have to give up in order to get that access is up to the negotiations,” Pincus said.

But few Vietnamese reports have focused on what experts say are  legitimate concerns about the TPP.  


“The negotiations and text are shrouded 
in secrecy, yet leaks indicate that the US is trying to use the treaty 
to impose restrictive intellectual property rules that could prove 
incredibly damaging to developing countries,” said Michael  Geist, a law expert with the University of Ottawa.

“This is certainly true for Vietnam, which should be very cautious about an agreement that may not be in its national interest.”

Analysts concur that the US-Vietnam - China relations balance is a major issue affecting the TPP. 


Monsanto specter

One example of what awaits Vietnam as it 
forges closer ties with the US has been seen in the facile entry of  
Monsanto into the country. The single largest producer of Agent Orange 
during the war, the US corporation has been allowed to carry out lab 
research and tests on the highly controversial genetically modified 
organisms (GMOs) in Vietnam.

Critics of GM crops say this is not good 
news since they are illegal and most Vietnamese remain clueless about 
and indifferent to the worldwide debate swirling around them. Besides, 
since GMOs are categorized in Vietnam under the fancy umbrella name of 
biotechnology, there is a belief among some people that genetically 
engineered crops are an excellent agricultural innovation.

Indeed, while the news of two Chinese 
spraying an unknown kind of chemicals on pineapple plants made it way to the front page of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, one of the two 
top dailies in Vietnam, the local media coverage on the effects of GMO 
has received scant coverage.

“I do wonder what the reaction in Vietnam would be if and when the Vietnamese people find out that the GMOs being pushed in the area are largely produced by Monsanto,” Martini said.

Heart and mind struggle

The US and China seem destined to compete for the heart and mind of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, analysts say.     

  
The fundamental question for Southeast 
Asia is whether it can resist these new outside influences – currently 
manifest in the East Sea disputes - and sustain its own centrality in 
maintaining the security of the region.

"Unfortunately for Southeast Asia, this 
struggle will tacitly force Asian countries to choose between the two," 
said Mark Valencia, a Hawaii-based expert on the East Sea dispute.

Valencia pointed out that  supposed neutrals like Indonesia and Malaysia are now, reluctantly or not, 
leaning toward the US.  Of course Singapore, as a “strategic partner,” 
and the Philippines, as a US ally, are already “there", he said. 


Thailand is a holdover US military ally 
from another era. But if its behavior during the Second World War is any guide, it will bend toward the most powerful, he said.

And the US has even made political 
inroads in Myanmar — heretofore a staunch China supporter — while former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unusual but 
understandable visit to incoming ASEAN chair Brunei in September 2012, 
he added.

But this Western “invasion” has not 
completely erased the ancient influence of Chinese culture—and the 
respect for, and fear of, China. 
"Many Southeast Asian countries are fundamentally realistic and take the long view. China will always be there," Valencia said.

"Their valid concern is that this 
upstart—the US—and its power, both soft and hard, may eventually recede 
like the outgoing tide only to be replaced by a Chinese storm surge."
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