Thailand and Vietnam still not best friends amid improved ties

Thailand and Vietnam still not best friends amid improved ties

Once enemies, Thailand and Vietnam have for the past two decades tried to improve ties. Though friendly, relations between them have been less than cozy, writes Teena Gill for Inter Press Service.

BANGKOK: Two decades of formal diplomatic ties and ironing out of numerous political differences has improved ties between Thailand and Vietnam, but the two Southeast Asian nations are still not the best of friends.

Enemies throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, it was only in August 1976, a year after the North Vietnamese Communist victory over United States forces in South Vietnam, that the two countries began patching up their differences.

Since then, the Cold War has ended, socialist Vietnam has adopted a market economy and become a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), while Thailand is emerging as one of the largest investor countries in Vietnam.

And in the spirit of improved ties, Thailand last month officially announced a series of cultural economic events to celebrate the 20th anniversary of normalization of bilateral ties. But, as an Asian diplomat in Phnom Penh says, it may be some time yet before Thailand fully embraces Vietnam as a friendly neighbor.

This is because ever since Vietnamese troops set foot on Cambodia in 1979 to oust Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, the Thais have been paranoid that one day Hanoi might try to make a similar incursion into their territory.

Even now, every time Thai armed forces conduct joint military exercises with the U.S. army, one of the scenarios envisaged is that of Vietnamese troops entering Thailand in 'hot pursuit' of Khmer Rouge extremists.

Economic competition for resources especially in the Gulf of Thailand where Vietnamese and Thai fishing fleets often cross over into each other's territory is another contentious issue between the two countries.

In May last year a Thai Navy boat, the HMS Klongyai had a gun battle with three Vietnamese patrol boats which had apprehended six Thai trawlers in the Gulf of Thailand for alleged trespassing. Two Vietnamese were killed and another captured in the incident.

While the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia in 1989 cleared the air considerably, the assumption of power at around the same time of Thailand's first elected government in more than a decade helped Thai-Vietnam relations.

Then Prime Minister Chatchai Choonhavan is credited with having changed Thailand's Cold War foreign policy drastically in favor of making peace with communist countries in Indochina with the slogan of converting "battlefields into marketplaces".

Since the early 1990s with the United Nations-sponsored end to civil war in Cambodia, and Vietnam's shift away from a socialist to a market economy, Thailand and Vietnam have come closer on the economic front.

During the first six months of 1996, Thailand emerged as the fifth largest investors in Vietnam after Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Japan while bilateral trade between the two countries has grown form 3.5 billion baht in 1991 (US$145 million) to 12.7 billion baht ($530 million) last year.

Thai companies in Vietnam have however acquired a bad reputation due to the activities of unscrupulous entrepreneurs looking for fast cash. Several Thai projects -- in fishing and mineral resources exploration in particular -- are among those that have had their licenses canceled in recent years by Hanoi authorities.

Poor understanding of Vietnamese culture by Thai managers has also led to the collapse of businesses due to poor response from consumers. Still, some of Thailand's biggest companies like conglomerates Siam Cement and the Charoen Pokphand group have managed to establish a foothold and even expanded operations.

Apart from private business ventures, several government initiatives like the East-West corridor project that link Thailand and Vietnam by road via Laos are also planned. The route of the corridor will link Mukhadarn province in Thailand to the Laotian border town of Savannakhet and Dong Ha in Vietnam ultimately leading to the port of Danang.

The construction of the corridor, already agreed to by Lao, Vietnamese and Thai authorities, will help Thailand transport goods faster and cheaper to export markets in Japan, South Korea and the U.S. West Coast.

Thailand also been active in helping Vietnam, which joined ASEAN in July last year, to adjust to new economic and business practices required by the regional body.

Earlier this year, the Thai finance ministry signed a cooperation agreement with Vietnam to help Hanoi rework its customs and tariff procedures to meet ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) requirements, under which ASEAN nations are expected to cut tariffs on most goods trade between members to less than five percent by 2003. However Vietnam has been given until 2006 to bring its tariff structure in line with the other countries.

The Vietnamese authorities have welcomed such assistance, and perhaps another decade of stability in the region may finally see the two countries warmly embrace.

-- IPS