Week 4: Politics Reflection

Tien presents about how children who were born in Vietnam immigrated to the U.S.  There were two immigrant acts of 1982 and 1987 that provides children who were “Con Lai (children of mixed blood) the opportunity to immigrate to the U.S. the U.S has a long history of invasion. For instance, the U.S military stay in Korean and Japan for more than 50 years, according to Sue-Je Lee Gage. The U.S also involved in the Vietnam War for more than two decades.  During its invasion periods, soldiers had left many of their offspring children behind when they come back to their country.  However, those children of the U.S citizen had to meet certain criteria for approval. There was also discrimination about the look of children. They would not get qualified if they did not look “American.” “American” can be understandable as white. Thus the child would not get approved if he or she looked “Asian.” Hence, there was no explicit policy for offspring children.  This is a racist against appearance.  Racism is an issue that remains unsolvable in many countries, including the U.S.

Michael presents about the theory of the Vietnamese Communist Governent, According to Adam Fforde,  there exists long length of gap between its theory and reality of the Vietnamese Communisim. My father always told me: “Don’t listen to what Communist says, look at what Communist does!” he meant that Communist do not act like what they said. There is always a contradiction between Communist’s theory and contradiction. For example, there policy was “you work by your potentials, but you earn by your needs.” Income and benefits depended on the number of people in a household. Thus, a doctor could earn less income than a worker if the doctor had only two people in his house, while the worker had five people in his house. This policy seemed fair at first because that would make everyone the same and earn the same benefits. However, there was a break between these ideas. If everyone earns the same, then who would want to become a doctor? Who would want to work harder than others if he or she earns the same as others do? Therefore, the Communist ideas were far to reach the reality.

Ricky presents about how the Vietnam economy is depended on China economy. According to Brantly Womack, “China and Vietnam have much in common. There is no country more similar to China than Vietnam, and there is no country more similar to Vietnam than China. They share a Sinitic cultural background.” Despite their common, their economies are asymmetry. “Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 was 3% of China’s. China is the world’s second largest merchandise exporter and third largest importer; Vietnam ranks 50th and 41st, respectively.” This shows that China always look at Vietnam as its tiny little brother. It can invade Vietnam anytime. The incident of Hoang Sa and Truong Sa is an example. Currently, China still invading Vietnam by taking over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa islands. Those islands are proven that belong to Vietnam.  This controversial issue triggers the grudge against China of the Vietnamese. Also, China held the Vietnamese fishermen while they were fishing around “Hoang Sa” island. China claims that those Vietnamese fishermen were fishing illegally.

Question:

 Why does such gap exist in the theory of the Vietnamese Communist?

Why is Vietnam economy so depended on China economy?

Trieu Nguyen