Vietnam history

Vietnamese history is rich with folklore, heroism, and bravery, shaping the national character of the Vietnamese into a proud, graceful people, always eager to share with foreigners their long struggle to assert themselves against outside aggression and domination.

The country is still known mostly for the 20th century war that humiliated a superpower and sparked worldwide protests against the conflict. But the economic changes brought about by Doi Moi, the economic renovation policy enacted in 986, have brought massive changes both to the landscape and society, changes that are accelerating at a break neck pace. When visiting Vietnam, it is clearly a country on the move, and the young, vibrant population is taking the opportunities available to them to create the future they want.

The Red River Delta is where Vietnamese history began. Archaeologists have discovered remains of primitive civilizations dating back to almost half a million years, but most artefacts date back 10,000 years to the Neolithic period, and include crude farming implements and stone tools.

Though experts believe Vietnamese culture to be 4,000 years old, it wasn’t until the 3rd century
BC when the Dong Son culture developed, relics of which can still be seen in museums across Vietnam today. The centre of the Dong Son culture is not far away from present day Hanoi, using the rich fertile waters of the river to irrigate their crops.

What is now central and southern Vietnam was originally the location of the Cham and Funan civilizations respectively, both Indian influenced cultures that adopted Sanskrit as their native language, developed beautiful carvings and artistry, and dug immense canals to develop their agriculture. As trading societies, both had direct contacts with India, the Middle East, Persia, and beyond.

Vietnam’s history and culture has been heavily influenced by China, Vietnam’s northern neighbour, who conquered Vietnam in the 2nd century BC, and occupied the country for nearly 1000 years. The strong theme of heroism and the struggle for freedom and independence would enter Vietnamese culture at this time, with rebellions led by the Trung sisters against the Chinese, in AD 40 serving as one of the most famous examples.

During the Chinese occupation, Vietnam was administered as a province of China, and adopted their language, style of dress, Mahayana Buddhism, and scholastic mandarin system. In the 7th century, China renamed the country, Annam, which means “The Pacified South.”

Eventually, political instability in China sparked a revolt against Chinese rule, and it was Ngo Quyen who led the successful rebellion that created the first independent Vietnam in 938 AD. For the next three hundred years, the country was ruled by the Ly Dynasty, which imposed a fierce policy of colonization of the Cham kingdom to the south, who had fought frequent wars with the Vietnamese. It was this southward expansion that greatly expanded the border of Vietnam, eventually destroying the Cham culture, whose monuments today in places like Chau Doc, Hoi An, Nha Trang and Phan Rang stand as the only reminder of their existence.

The first continued contacts with the west began with Portuguese traders who established an outpost at Hoi An, at that time known as Fai Fo, where Chinese and Japanese traded in silk, ceramics, and other precious cargos, along the trade routes to Europe, which used Fai Fo as a stopover. 

The eventual arrival of missionaries eventually made Vietnam one of the most Catholic countries in Asia, with churches and missions spreading northward towards Hanoi. The Vietnamese language changed as well, when the French Missionary Alexandre De Rhodes developed a Romanized system, converting the Vietnamese sounds into an easy to read script called Quoc Ngu.

It wasn’t until the 8th century when the Funan culture followed the same fate as the Chams, because the Nguyen lords finally dominated the weaker Trinh lords in the north, and pushed all the way south to-wards the end of Vietnam. Within ten years, Nguyen Anh named himself emperor of Vietnam, which now had reached the territorial size the country retains to this day.
The oppression of Catholic missionaries sparked France to attack Danang in 1847, and in 1859, Saigon followed. Though the 860’s, Hanoi, and northern Vietnam followed, and in 1883, after attacking Hue, the French forced the imperial government to accept the Treaty of Protectorate, bringing most of Vietnam under colonial rule.

Immediately, anti-colonial resistance sprang up, resistance that tapped into Vietnam’s long struggle against the Chinese, that would eventually turn into a full-blown civil war, as the Vietnamese people suffered under heavy taxation, forced labour, and other injustices.

In 1890, the man who was to become known as Ho Chi Minh was born in the central province of Nghe An. In 9, he boarded a steamer for France, beginning his overseas career that would take him to Russia, and even Harlem in the USA, but most importantly, introduce him to other key anti-colonialists and Leninism that would inspire him to lead his nation towards freedom and independence.

The Viet Minh was formed as a unified anti-colonial resistance army, and full scale civil war broke out in 1945, lasting through the defeat of the French after a fifty seven day siege at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, signalling the end of French involvement in Indochina. The Geneva Accords signed shortly after the defeat that divided the country at the 7th Parallel into North and South Vietnam, divided by a De-militarized Zone.

By 1963, American advisors were on the ground in Vietnam, followed in 1965 by a sharp increase of troops when a US warship came under attack in what was called the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (later it was revealed the incident never occurred).

The anti-American resistance became known as the Viet Cong, a communist guerrilla organization that fought against the soldiers in fierce battles that raged through the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

By 1973, the United States, under intense international and domestic pressure to stop the war in Vietnam, after enduring mounting casualties, pulled the last of its troops from the country after signing the Paris Peace Accords.
Less than two years later, the North Vietnamese troops marched into Saigon, which was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, reunifying Vietnam for the first time in over 100 years.

During the late 970’s and 980’s, Vietnam was busy rebuilding the damage from decades of war, surviving on Soviet aid. In 986, Vietnam inaugurated the Doi Moi policy, which started free market reform, triggering an economic revival that lasted through the early 990’s, when Vietnam joined ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian nations, and normalized relations with the United States, which paved the way for rapid economic expansion.

As the 21st century begins, Vietnam is rapidly developing into a major Asian economic power, with growth holding steady at 8% for more than a decade. The WTO, World Trade Organization, is considering admitting Vietnam as a member, which will be a further boost to the country’s ambitions of integration into the world economy.