Modern Day Vietnam if South didn't fall

Ok, ignoring the many buterflies that would come from this, what if South Vietnam didn't fall. For all purposes let's say that North Vietnam didn't break the peace treaty and attacked South Vietnam. What might modern Vietnam be like? What would the relationship between a modern North and South Vietnam?
 
Ok, ignoring the many buterflies that would come from this, what if South Vietnam didn't fall.

Butterflies? You're talking huge, 30-foot, man-eating butterflies. There is absolutely no way South Vietnam could exist without a DMZ and pervasive US occupation of the South. That was just not going to happen after 1968 ~ 1970.

It would be a lot like Korea.

Yes and no.

Yes, as in a formerly continuous region would be divided into communist and (nominally) democratic states. This is true of the Koreas and would be true of an ATL divided Vietnam.

No, because the (North) Vietnam regime and the North Korea regime have different ideological roots.

Although North Korea is near northern China, the Kim family drew more from Stalinism than Maoism. Juche (the North Korean indigenous communist ideology) was a blend of Uncle Joe's strong-man state, Soviet-style autarky, Soviet-style central planning, with a dash of Confucianism. Kim Il Sung did not subscribe to Maoist guerrilla-style insurgency. He and was more interested in creating an industrial state/personality cult/personal capital generator.

Sure, Ho Chi Minh has a personality cult. However, the VC insurgency, and Ho Chi Minh's leadership style, was very Maoist. Notice also the way in which OTL Vietnam has closely followed Chinese policies. This can best be seen in Vietnam's copy of Deng Xiaoping's market reforms. Should OTL be a guide, North Vietnam might eventually evolve to have a similar, or even better, GDP and nominal market freedom, than South Vietnam.
 
Butterflies? You're talking huge, 30-foot, man-eating butterflies. There is absolutely no way South Vietnam could exist without a DMZ and pervasive US occupation of the South. That was just not going to happen after 1968 ~ 1970.



Yes and no.

Yes, as in a formerly continuous region would be divided into communist and (nominally) democratic states. This is true of the Koreas and would be true of an ATL divided Vietnam.

No, because the (North) Vietnam regime and the North Korea regime have different ideological roots.

Although North Korea is near northern China, the Kim family drew more from Stalinism than Maoism. Juche (the North Korean indigenous communist ideology) was a blend of Uncle Joe's strong-man state, Soviet-style autarky, Soviet-style central planning, with a dash of Confucianism. Kim Il Sung did not subscribe to Maoist guerrilla-style insurgency. He and was more interested in creating an industrial state/personality cult/personal capital generator.

Sure, Ho Chi Minh has a personality cult. However, the VC insurgency, and Ho Chi Minh's leadership style, was very Maoist. Notice also the way in which OTL Vietnam has closely followed Chinese policies. This can best be seen in Vietnam's copy of Deng Xiaoping's market reforms. Should OTL be a guide, North Vietnam might eventually evolve to have a similar, or even better, GDP and nominal market freedom, than South Vietnam.

Pretty much this. From my cursory readings into the Vietnam War-era and the South Vietnamese government, it seems that South Vietnam only survived as long as it did due to the US propping it up. It was a horribly-run quagmire that failed on almost every front on being a modern state and made a joke out of the US fighting for "freedom" in Vietnam by being run by autocrats and military dictators.

If it had, somehow, survived into 2011, it would probably be, at least economically, worse than modern-day Vietnam since the South Vietnam was heavily reliant on the US for economic support (as well as military support). The wave of deregulation and outsourcing to nations with less strict labor regulations starting in the 1970s and 1980s would probably leave the South Vietnamese economy with less room to grow their economy than OTL, leaving it a weaker nation (both militarily and economically) than their northern counterparts.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
it would be hard for Vietnam to be poorer---

"it would probably be, at least economically, worse than modern-day Vietnam since the South Vietnam was heavily reliant on the US for economic support (as well as military support). "

OTL's Vietnam is very poor despite Deng style reforms. Other Southeast Asian nations (except Burma, Laos and Cambodia) are all richer than OTL Vietnam, so I suspect an independent South Vietnam would be too, even if it was a very corrupt and unequal place. South Vietnam had the capacity to be significantly better off than OTL without approaching South Korea or Taiwan levels of development (which would be unlikely).

North Vietnam would be poor, not as eccentrically wacky as North Korea, but still quite probably with less heavy industry (but also less starvation) than North Korea.
 
Well considering modern day Vietnam is not very communist, it raises the question of whether North Vietnam would've done the same. In my opinion North Vietnam would probably stay closer to communism and not drift to more liberal ideologies in defiance of its rival to the south.
 
Whoever said that South Vietnam's economy would be more like Thailand than Korea is probably right. South Vietnam would probably benefit from its connections to Americans. There would be a lot of former US vets entering civilian life with ties to South Vietnam which would boost trade.

Politically, Nguyn Van Thieu or one of his supporters would continue to lead South Vietnam in an authoritarian manner with a facade of demoacratization. We would probably see a rise in indigenous democratization activists which would force real elections sometimes in the late eighties or early nineties just as we saw in the Philippines and South Korea.

South Vietnam might join ASEAN in the mid-eighties to bolster its foreign relations and acceptance of its government. Not much would come of this early on.

IOTL, Vietnam began Doi Moi around 1986 in inspiration of Deng's reforms and economic stagnation in Vietnam. I think something similar will still occur.

This opens up a possibility that unification talks might occur between North and South Vietnam in the early nineties after the Cold War ended. The South would be obviously richer, but without an unbridgeable gap between North and South. The Communists would just have to be willing to give up power for unification, as they are unlikely to remain in power with free elections (although I think they would win some seats and could transition into a kind of Social Democratic Party).

At the very least, there is likely some kind of economic cooperation even if political unity does not happen. The North would probably allow the South to significantly invest in them, and there might be some kind of duty preference or even customs union between the two countries. This might eventually prompt political unification after a transitional period.
 
Top