How would a surviving South Vietnam look like today
- Thread starter Slime_blob
- Start date
Like Thailand, industrialised but not a major player, militarised, heavily into the tourist industry and notorious for its sex workers?
It would depend on the long-term effects of whatever political settlement ended the war. I clearly remember that the North Vietnamese spent the whole war denying that they had any troops in the RVN. They insisted that the VC were a spontaneous uprising and if they won there would still be two Vietnams, that the idea that the VC was just a front that would be pushed aside after victory was just American propaganda.
So one possible peace deal would involve enough of the VC members, leaders as well as troops, realize and oppose that to make a break with the North workable. That is they would try to cut a deal with the South Vietnamese Government, which according to Denis Warner - in his history 'Not with Guns Alone' - they actually did try to do in the dying days of the war.
So if you have a deal made and the NVA driven out, there would still be a hostile North Vietnam across the DMZ, but a much superior South Vietnamese government and military. The VC was after all already a well-organized government in much of the country, though blending that in with President Thieu's structure would be a challenge.
The Republic of Vietnam would go into peace with a better road/port/airport structure - courtesy of the US Army constructing such to support the war effort - than was normal in South East Asia at the time. Combined with a continuing connection to the US, both economic and military with the US Navy based in Cam Ranh Bay it would probably build up at least as fast as anywhere else in the region.
So now a fairly strong and reasonably wealthy country. Countries in Asia that were military dictatorships at the time are democracies now, so there is a lot of hope there assuming the internal peace holds.
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I think it would look like real life Vietnam today complete with the stark contrasts between the glittering Sài Gòn skyline and poor rural countryside, except with less Uncle Hồ billboards everywhere and more American ads instead. Heck, I can see South Vietnam receiving a portion of the outsourcing that historically went to China in real life.
If I somehow existed in this TL my family and I would probably never move to the US; that outsourcing probably changed a lot of people's ITTL anyway...
If I somehow existed in this TL my family and I would probably never move to the US; that outsourcing probably changed a lot of people's ITTL anyway...
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I don't see that as likely; it is true that North Vietnam was an irritant to the Chinese but in a post-Soviet world both Hà Nội and Beijing would likely find more in common than Beijing and Sài Gòn.
Would there still be a South Vietnam ITTL? Like, I can't help but think that ITTL post-Cold-War it'd be more like East v West Germany than North v South Korea - isn't it likely that there'd be a 'Wall Coming Down' moment in Vietnam?
I think not. The North Vietnamese leadership unlike the East Germans would be capable of keeping their population down and should they reunify with the South they would lose out on a lot. While I can see the North Vietnamese making economic reforms in line with Deng's reforms, politically both nations would want to keep their establishments separate from one another as to preserve the advantages they've built up over the years. So essentially, two Vietnams that are essentially the same, separated only by their political stance.
edit: Okay, maybe not the same, the South ITTL would have 40+ years of unrestricted economic growth instead of shooting itself in the foot from 1976-1986 while the North would have been starving itself up until the New Change (aka the Đổi Mới), so the overall standard of life in the state capitalist North would be poorer than it is OTL, buoyed up by the South—but what I'm saying is that the overall systems might be the same, in Vietnam specifically it's the political establishment that makes the difference..
That assumes Hanoi doesn't continue to antagonize South Vietnam, and also doesn't side with the USSR to an extent that permanently wrecks Beijing-Hanoi ties.