The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - What Makes Vietnam a Valuable US Ally? || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Biden recently announced that he'd be making a trip to Vietnam, which will likely occur in September when he visits other regional powers. But what makes Vietnam such a valuable asset to have in the US portfolio of allies? Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/what-makes-vietnam-a-valuable-us-ally

Hey, everybody. Peter Seine here, coming to you from the Mosquito Western Traverse on Orange Peak. Over here, we've got the collegiate piece for some of my favorite. I came in Colorado. Today we're going to talk about Vietnam. Joe Biden, as announced, I'll be going to Vietnam soon. It'll probably be in September when he's already got a series of Asian summits planned. This trip was supposed to happen a few months ago, but it got canceled because of dead ceiling talks. Anyway, Vietnam is one of the up-and-coming allies in the American portfolio and a major regional power in its own right, unique among many of the advanced or advancing developing countries.

Vietnam actually has a healthy demography, so even if it keeps aging at its current rate, it's still going to be a major regional power 30, 40, 50 years from now. But more to the point is they've got the attitude and the positioning that is necessary. Now, for those of you who remember your history, we had the Vietnam War, where Northern Vietnam and Southern Vietnam duped it out with the Russians backing the north and the Americans backing the South. Ultimately, the South lost.

The whole place was integrated into one, but integration is a work in progress. One of the things to keep in mind about Vietnam is it's basically a barbelt with about 45% of the population in the south around Saigon or Ho Chiman City, Now, about 45% in the north around Hanoi, and there's long, thin, rugged, coastal strip in between that has almost nobody. That makes the concept of political unification, even with a military occupation, somewhat difficult.

And this is something that the Vietnamese are going to be working on for the better part of the next century. That assumes that there's no unrest. That assumes there's no additional civil war. Not that I think that either of those are on the horizon, but you can never guarantee it when you've got, population so separated. One thing all Vietnamese agree on is that the Chinese

are awful. There's this park of monuments in in Hanoi where they commemorate all of their fallen and their war, kind of like what the United States does on the mall in D.C. There's a small, roughly waste, high one commemorating the 20 years of the American-Vietnamese conflict.

And then there's a taller one that's taller than me, commemorating. the 200 years conflict between the Vietnamese and the French who are the colonial power there. And then there's a two-story monument that commemorates the 2,000 years of warfare with the Han Chinese. So there's no love lost here. And if you are looking for a strategic partner, it's hard to get better than Vietnam. Because the demographics are good, they're a great trade partner, very hardworking. Their educational system is probably the best.

for their peer class. 40% of their college graduates are STEM graduates, if you can believe that. They're attempting to jump over China technologically, and because of the partnerships they've been able to work out with American educational and manufacturing institutions, they have a reasonable chance of pulling that off sometime at the end or this decade or early next. So this is kind of the partner that you want.

They also have excellent relations with the Japanese and the ties and the Australians. So they're slotting in to the American Alliance Network surprisingly well. There's just really one problem. There's nothing, nothing, nothing about Vietnam that is democratic. It's basically that a Chinese-style Politburo had top-down leadership from Hanoi. And considering that they're in the midst of a cultural unification process, I really don't see Hanoi loosening that grip. And that's going to keep Vietnam out of the American inner circle of allies.

But for everything else, it's a great match. All right. I've got to go put on a bigger hat. It's a little chilly up here.