Laos-Vietnam Relations

by Dr. John C. Walsh

The American War in Vietnam had many effects, some unintended and some unwanted. One of these was the creation of a socialist state in Laos which was then fraternally joined with the socialist state of Vietnam. This brought about a wholly new phase in the relations between the two states, which have historically been estranged and often unfriendly, despite the often intensive interactions between people from the two nations. Now, the future seems to hold a new era of Lao-Vietnamese co-operation that is causing many people to believe that the influence that will be wielded over Laos by Vietnam is unwelcome or, even, hegemonic.

Vietnam occupies the long coastal strip that joins southern China, close to Hainan island, all the way to the Mekong delta, in the extreme south of mainland Southeast Asia. It is a narrow strip of land with mountain ranges dividing it from the interior of the continent. Although Vietnam is composed of a wide variety of different ethnic groups, they have been united over the course of centuries in both the resistance to Chinese domination and acceptance of Chinese cultural practices and institutions. By contrast, Laos, to the west, occupies a landlocked region of mostly thickly forested mountains over which some four and a half million people are rather sparsely spread. Laos too contains a wide variety of ethnic minorities and only about 60% are members of the Tai family of peoples of which Laos are the main component. Historically, the Chinese had little interest in penetrating this interior region and kings and princes in the various city-states that have been established in Laos have been mostly concerned with the Khmers to the south and the other Tai princes to the west and the north.

Consequently, relations between Laos and Vietnam were rarely of crucial importance, although they had their fair share of the warfare that has been endemic to mainland Southeast Asia throughout all of known history. Vietnamese mandarins tended to follow the belief that the kingdom of Vientiane and its administrative units came under Vietnamese rule and that formal treaties were based on secure border institutions. However, it is wise to be cautious about attributing too much formality to these relations.

During the American War in Vietnam, the presence of around 75,000 members of a North Vietnamese ‘secret army’ enabled the Pathet Lao to secure control of the country, which was then re-established as the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic, in the same process that also happened in Cambodia. This process necessitated a fair amount of re-education and political education and Laos was ill-prepared to cope with this, given its low level of population and the poverty of the educational sector and the economy generally. Gradually, Vietnamese were brought in to hold crucial positions and to train Laotians, both in Laos and Vietnam and, consequently, their influence on the political and cultural life of Laos grew. Many Laotians apparently felt that this level of influence became excessive – ‘apparently’ because suppression of free speech makes it difficult to know exactly what the people of the country really think. Nevertheless, it would not be very difficult to believe that a people with such a long history would resent the overshadowing of its self-determined future by the protective wing of the older brother. It also poses an ideological issue since the self-determination of the Lao peoples, supposedly provided by the socialist system, is precluded by the Vietnamese hand.

As a result, the current spate of new development projects that seem to herald a new era of even more economic co-operation between the two countries are also considered by some to be further evidence of Vietnamese influence. An example is the road bridge connecting Xiengkhoang province in northern Laos with the Vietnamese province of Nghe An, together with the planned construction of a two-storey immigration and customs building, at a total cost of around USD5 million. Is this evidence of Vietnamese power or simply one neighbour helping another with an area of infrastructure that will benefit both of them?

Over the next few months, I hope to be monitoring events in this region closely and will make further reports in due course.

References and Further Reading

Evans, Grant, The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975 (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1998).

Gunn, Geoffrey C., Theravadins, Colonialists and Commissars in Laos (Bangkok: Wite Lotus Co. Ltd., 1998).

Luther, Hans U., Socialism in a Subsistence Economy: The Laotian Way: An Analysis of Development Patterns in Laos after 1975 (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute, 1983).

Stuart-Fox, Martin, Buddhist Kingdom, Marxist State, Studies in Asian History No.2 (Bangkok: White Lotus Co.Ltd, 1996).

Tran Van Quy, "The Quy Hop Archive: Vietnamese-Lao Relations Reflected in Border-Post Documents Dating from 1619-1880, in Mayoury Ngaosrivathana and Kennon Breazale, Breaking New Ground in Lao History: Essays on the Seventh to Twentieth Centuries (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2002), pp.239-59.

Vietnamese News Agency, "Laos Opens Vietnamese-Funded Bridge to Traffic" April 4th, 2005)

Note

This article is based on n ongoing research project being conducted by the author with the title ‘Lao-Vietnamese Economic Co-operation.’

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