Two Minnows is among the Finalists in the 2020 International Book Awards in the military history category. This Memoir reads like an adventure novel even though it is the non-fiction real life story of a platoon leader of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the last few years of this complicated war. Once they start reading, it is difficult to stop, as readers have been "complaining."Being an officer of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, he had experienced and witnessed the tragic fate the South Vietnamese had to go through when the RVN had to face a well-equipped (by China and the Soviet) well-trained unstoppable enemy while fighting with no ally support and limited supplies and ammunition. The war became unbalanced after the oppressive Paris Treated (designed by Pres. Nixon's tricky team) was signed and all allies had withdrawn. Knowing what the victors would do to the South, he decided to flee to wherever that had even a shred of Freedom, in spite of Peace coming at the door. He chose to abandon his own parental family and fail his cultural duties of an eldest son, which were to stay and take care of his aging parents and innocent siblings. His journey, as a political refugee, one of the first "boat people," took him thousands miles away in the Golf of Thailand on flimsy boats. Detailed accounts of how cheap life could be for refugees as if they had seemingly no more human rights. They had become as insignificant as little minnows. Nevertheless, with perseverance, like a phoenix being reborn, he was able to soar like a phoenix being reborn, relocating from the refugee camp of Malaysia to his new home of Minnesota. He dedicated 30 years of his new life to serving the kids and community of Minneapolis, and his retirement to voicing in support for those who had risked their well-being and life to save the Democracy of his "ancestral land Vietnam" : the Vietnam Veterans. Factual history had to be told! For updates, see Facebook Page "Vietnam: Peace or Freedom Books
When South Vietnam was abandoned by its American allies and consequently defeated by the North Vietnamese in 1975, all its military records were lost to the enemy. This has led to a paucity of factually based analyses of the war by South Vietnamese authors. In a project lasting some ten years, and financed by his own hard-earned resources, Colonel Viet has researched, documented, and analyzed the Vietnam War from the perspective of South Vietnamese armor forces, elements in which he himself played an important role as leader, teacher, and innovator. His travels to interview hundreds of people with first-hand knowledge of these matters took him back and forth across the United States (and to Canada, France and Australia) and enabled him to piece together the story as recalled by virtually every senior South Vietnamese who was involved, along with many of lesser rank but important experience, and many Americans as well. The result is a unique and invaluable work, one recounting from the early days of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam its organization and development, its combat operations, and its interaction with American advisors and then later with deployed American units. Viet tells this story as an historian would, not glossing over the shortcomings and failures of his fellow Vietnamese soldiers (or of the Americans), but also providing definitive accounts of their successes, their innovations, their courage and determination, and the hardships experienced and survived in the course of a long, difficult, and ultimately unsuccessful struggle. In Colonel Viet's words: "In order to give the truth back to history, we did not hide anything, whether it be victory or defeat." Finally, in a very touching portion of the work, Colonel Viet memorializes his fallen comrades of the armored force and commemorates the service of all the American advisors to the armored force he was able to identify.
Vietnam’s foreign policy towards China and the United States (US) involves a delicate process of reconciling and balancing competing perceptions, goals and interests within the country. This leads to foreign policy decisions that may respectively lean towards either China or the US, depending on specific circumstances and issues, while trying to maintain an overall equilibrium between the two powers. Vietnam’s foreign policy adopts the paradigm of “cooperation” and “struggle” in its relations with major powers, and defines “national security” as encompassing both national sovereignty and regime security. Given the common ideology and imperative of preserving political control of their respective communist parties, China may be a critical partner for Vietnam in terms of regime security but is often an “object of struggle” on national sovereignty. On the other hand, the US is Vietnam’s partner in the South China Sea but an “object of struggle” when it comes to regime security. The Vietnamese public’s favourable sentiments towards the US, contrasted with their distrust towards China, pose a challenge for the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in mobilizing public opinion to bolster its legitimacy while preventing any potential threat to its political authority. A friendly relationship with China is essential for Vietnam’s favourable external environment, warranting Hanoi’s accommodation and deference to Beijing on non-critical issues. However, it has meticulously avoided dependencies and vulnerabilities to China through diversifying economic ties and engaging in “soft balancing” with other powers and through ASEAN. Party-to-party links provide China with powerful access to Vietnamese leaders, but the US is catching up by giving assurances to respect Vietnam’s political system, and strengthening “party diplomacy” with the CPV. In its relationship with the US, Vietnam prioritizes economic ties, addressing war legacy issues, leveraging US support to build capacities in traditional and non-traditional security, and avoiding geopolitical posturing that could provoke China. Vietnam-US relations are characterized by pragmatism, with both sides prioritizing shared geopolitical and economic interests over ideological differences. The sustainability of this approach is uncertain, given the CPV’s tightening of domestic control and the “securitization of the Vietnamese state” in the anti-corruption campaign. Vietnam has thus far benefited from the US-China rivalry but it faces substantial challenges ahead, including heightened vulnerabilities to an assertive China in the South China Sea and Lower Mekong, potential trade tensions if Donald Trump is re-elected as US president, and risks in balancing its ideological ties with Beijing while maintaining its strategic alignment with the US.
In recent years the narrative surrounding China’s “peaceful rise” has given way to a more ominous story of friction, ambition, and great-power rivalry. As Chinese foreign policy has grown more nationalist and assertive, its intensifying competition with the U.S. has assumed center stage. The impact on China's neighbors, by contrast, and their evolving responses, have received comparatively less attention. The Realist theory of international relations suggests the rapid accumulation of power by one nation-state will prompt its neighbors and peers to adopt Balancing strategies. They will strive enhance their internal defense capabilities and forge new external security partnerships to hedge against this potential new threat. Have these predictions rung true? Are key Indo-Pacific capitals Balancing, and drawing closer to the U.S. as insurance against Chinese aggression? Or is China a new breed of rising power, challenging traditional theories of international relations in a newly-globalized, economically interdependent world? In Asia’s Quest for Balance: China’s Rise and Balancing in the Indo-Pacific leadingauthor-experts from Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam explore these questions and more, decoding China’s complex and evolving relationships with its neighbors and exploring how their responses are altering the security landscape of the region. Contributions by Jay L. Batongbacal, Elliot Brennan, Tetsuo Kotani, Evan A. Laksmana, Joseph Chinyong Liow, Hunter Marston, Rory Medcalf, Sylvia Mishra, C. Raja Mohan, Prashanth Parameswaran, Jeff M. Smith, Tran Truong Thuy, and Ha Anh Tuan
An image is powerful not necessarily because of anything specific it offers the viewer, but because of everything it apparently also takes away from the viewer."--Trinh T. Minh-ha Vietnamese filmmaker and feminist thinker Trinh T. Minh-ha is one of the most powerful and articulate voices in independent filmmaking. In her writings and interviews, as well as in her filmscripts, Trinh explores what she describes as the "infinite relation" of word to image. Cinema-Interval brings together her recent conversations on film and art, life and theory, with Homi Bhabha, Deb Verhoeven, Annamaria Morelli and other critics. Together these interviews offer the richest presentation of this extraordinary artist's ideas. Extensively illustrated in color and black and white, Cinema-Interval covers a wide range of issues, many of them concerning "the space between"--between viewer and film, image and text, interviewer and interviewee, lover and beloved. As an added bonus, the complete scripts of Trinh's films Surname Viet Given Name Nam and A Tale of Love are also included in the volume. Cinema-Interval will be an essential work for readers interested in contemporary film art, feminist thought, and postcolonial studies.
This book examines changing gender roles, relations and hierarchies in an ethnic minority community in Central Viet Nam. After decades of war, the community continued its self-sufficient way of life in this remote forested mountainous region, but in recent years has been forced to respond to severe climate threats combined with sudden and destabilizing socioeconomic and regulatory change. Through the use of both qualitative (interview-based) and quantitative research methods, the book offers insights into the complex interactions between climate, regulatory and socioeconomic changes – including, paradoxically, the emergence of significant problems for both the community and the environment in the wake of policies designed to protect the natural environment. Facing greatly increased food and livelihood insecurity, the women and men of the community were pushed into the mainstream market economy without being fully prepared to participate in an economy that is still very new to them. These sudden transitions caused major shifts in gender roles and hierarchies, opening up new possibilities for women to increase their social status in a highly patriarchal context, but also at a cost for both women and men as women’s burdens increased and men’s traditional roles and livelihoods were lost. The book examines recent trends, including unanticipated changes and new possible policy-related approaches, and draws international comparisons with other ethnic minority, indigenous and remote communities facing similar complex forces of change. This book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of climate change, gender, environment, and public policy and development studies.
The new edition of this classic reference offers a problem-based approach to pediatric diseases. It encompasses almost all pediatric subspecialties and covers every pediatric disease and organ system. It includes case studies and over 750 lavish illustrations.
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