Vietnam having new Leaders, what is your expect from them?

they will all be Nguyens. honestly, communist babarity knows no bounds.

More expenditure for defence!

Newly-elected President Nguyen Minh Triet is considered clean and anti-corruption for a communist boss, although I'm not too sure about PM-to-be Nguyen Tan Dung. Let's hope the new leadership will provide greater impetus for economic and political reforms in addition to efforts to fight corruption.

I don't know the new leaders, but i'm with Cookielover when it comes to hope for the future of Vietnam. But please, not more expenditure for defence. >.< That's just a waste of money. Money better spent on social and economic projects and reforms. A few more tanks, jetfighters, ships or rocket launchers won't make Vietnam win future wars. It's just to stroke the male egos of those top generals in the vietnamese army. Intelligent countries never go to war and find other ways to solve their conflicts. War is just a waste of capital and people. Even when you win, you lose. So better keep the money in your pocket and spent it on more worthwhile causes.

^Who says the only use military equipment has is to fight wars?

Yes I agree it is better to find diplomatic ways to avoid war, but unless you have a good enough military, you will always lose diplomatically and to avoid war you will have to give into your enemy's demands.

If anything more money needs to be spent on defense to increase Vietnam's negotiation power at the diplomatic table.

I hope they will be bettter.. I've personally seen Nguyen Minh Triet when he was still in Saigon before

We became the French colonialists' b!tches for a century in part because the Nguyen dynasty couldn't be bothered with modrnizingthe country, including the army - I wouldn't care to repeat that experience. I agree that military spending is a burden but my position is that we don't want anyone to do to us what the PRC is doing to the Tibetans.

Don't be stupid.

Increased defence spending means that VietNam will have a more secure border, better preparedness and a well-equipped fighting force to deal with potential enemies. VietNam as a sovereign nation with a four thousand year history cannot afford to let other countries trample on its soil like a playground. Our neighbours are increasingly arrogant. More defence spending not necessarily mean we will fight a war, but it does give a better defence, those who dare to invade VietNam must suffer a crushing defeat and die a painful death. That's why the military must be a priority.

Keep the costs down!

My prediction from what's going on is that Vietnam will upgrade its miliatry hardwares with the help of the US and also many officers will get training in the US. Seem like there's a dealing going on; maybe Vietnam get its hardwares for cheap and have US warships docks in Vietnam harbor on a regular basic....possibility.

CL,

chosen is more like it, not elected. People already know way before they announced this. If elected then there supposed to be a pool of candidates, I don't think there's any or just staged for show. They chose two guys from the south(o Dung and Triet) and two guys(o Manh and Trong) from the north so power is spreading out evenly.

Triet has no real power, the real power lies with Dung

Not really, the official with the most power is Chief of the Communist Party, Nong Duc Manh who is a northerner and reelected.

i am just talking about Trient and Dung, not Nong Duc Manh since he is the official leader of all the communist in Vietnam

And be domestically resourceful

Triet doesn't have the direct power, but he can be very influential to decision makings of Manh and Dung

Nguyen Minh Triet, being the president, will wield considerable power in the appointment of the members of the National Assembly and the Politburo. Although Nong Duc Manh is considered to have the most power, it is Nguyen Tan Dung who will be holding the economic and diplomatic destiny of Vietnam for the next 5 to 10 years. Let's hope the economic reformers from the south will do good for the country.

your fu-kin trippin dude! who is gonna invade vietnam? poor @$$ laos, cambodia? china cannot afford a war with vietnam or better yet the backlash from the international community.

arent you from Laos? anyway, i see nothing wrong with putting money in defense and education



arent you from Laos? anyway, i see nothing wrong with putting money in defense and education

Why blame Vietnam, the arms race is started from somewhere else. IMHO not only Vietnam but the whole ASEAN is busy with the arms race. Vietnam has no choice but to react to it. And of all other countries in the world isn't Lao the closest ally of Vietnam ?

Hehehe. Someone who thinks a bit further then his nose. Though putting in what more acceptable kind of language could be nice. In these little clashes with Vietnam's neighbouring countries, Vietnam had often been the aggressor anyway. The neighbours just retaliated. But beside that, arming yourself because you want to prevent war or want a better negotiating position is just plain old thinking. The cold war is history and countries who are still thinking this is a good strategy are mostly poorer countries with poor governments.

In these time of growing globalisation and world competition, it's the money that talks. Asian countries like Japan, N Korea and Tawain already realized this early on. And in China this realisation is beginning the come through. It's not the the countries weapon arsenal that makes other countries look up to you, it's the economic muscles the scares the hell out of them. The US would never have been as afraid of China as it now is, even if China filled their whole country with damn goodlooking weapons, had it not grown as an economic power. China now, can tramble human rights as it pleases without the rest of the world making a too big of fuss about it. And look at Japan, it's army is not worth mentioning compare to some of those big players in the world like US, China or Russia. Still these countries can't go around Japan. What about it's neighbours? Why won't they attack this poorly defended rich country and endulge themself with the spoils of war? Yes? Because it has some serious economic muscles to be reckon with. I think those Japanese leaders right after the lost of the 2nd World War, had vision. With a totally ruined country as their building block, they've realize that conquering the world in the old ways, isn't something that would come soon in the future of Japan. Instead they went a totally different way, with as result the Japan you see now, a force to be reckon with. Army wise, there are a lot of countries like Japan in the world. Look at the Netherlands, i probably can wipe out it's army if did some good burbing. Still i've never been afraid that the country would be overrun by invaders.

Ofcourse a country needs an modern army. To deal with minor incidents in a good and efficient way. But don't put too much emphasis on those conventional methods when it comes to defending the country. At least not as you are a country like Vietnam. Money going to your growth as an economic power is money a lot better spent...

Japan, North and South Korea and Taiwan are armed to teeth. And beside Japan after WWII is defend and covered by the USA it's not they have a choice after WWII. The Netherlands does have a decent modern army and it's in the NATO. Plz try to invade the Netherlands. It's Vietnam who need to worry about its defense when no big bully countries are on its side right now. The best ally of Vietnam is Lao, maybe they will cover Vietnam. No need to spent on the army.

Considering that 2 of the 3 countries you listed above started wars with Vietnam unprovoked as recent as 26 years ago, then yes Vietnam does have a good reason to spend money on defense.

As for Laos, Vietnamese troops are stationed there and have been fighting Hmong rebels who are attempting control of Laos from the Laotians.

For your information
The Japanese spend about $ 45 bill. per year for their Armforce, and that is very close to the whole GDP of the Country call Vietnam.
get back to the topic please.

The Hmong rebels in Laos are on their last legs. And they are so sick of war that if they could just turn in their guns in exchange for being allowed to live in peace, they'd do exactly that. It's about time that the Vietnamese government showed some mercy.

How is $45 billion close to the whole GDP of Vietnam? GDP of Vietnam is $232.2 billion. Please stop your trolling.

i think 45 billion is vietnam total export, as for total gdp it is around 232 billion, just surpassing malaysia this year

I think there is some some miscommunication here. Hehehe. Vietnam's GDP (purchasing power parity): $232 billion and Vietnam's GDP (official exchange rate): $44 billion. But i don't think actual figures are for good comparison. Relatives figures are better. Japan's Military expenditures in percent of GDP: 1% and Vietnam's Military expenditures in percent of GDP: 2.5%. So Vietnam is spending 2.5 time more money on it's military, relatively that is, than Japan.

But i think arc has a point here... we are drifting off topic. Roger that, arc! I hear and obey. ^^

No there was no miscommunication. If you read his previous posts he is a troll and intended to make that confusion in order to belittle Vietnam's GDP by making it seem like the spending of Japan's defense.

He purposely switched it to flame.

Laos and Cambodia are good friends of VietNam and they're not arrogant, the Chinese on the other hand, occupies a part of the Truong Sa Islands which belongs to VietNam. In the future if there is a war between VietNam and China over Truong Sa then VietNam will need a military force strong enough to beat the Chinese.

Besides, I have no problem with Vietnam usng billions on defense. I do have a problem with how they are doing it. Instead of putting money into defense industries they spend it all on importing arms from other countries.

Putting money into defense industry will give Vietanmese more industrial experience and develop industries that they can transfer to build other things like cars, computers, whatever.

Defense spending isn't just about protecting Vietnam but can also improve it's economy and education as well.

VietNam is actually protecting Laos under the 1977 Friendship Treaty


Exactly, apart from using government fund the VietNam People's Army also run businesses which generate money for the VietNamese economy as a whole. In wartime they fight in peace time they make money.

Doesn't the military already own a Cell phone telecommunications business? Vittel, I think it is. I think it recently expanded into Cambodia. The military should get even more money to generate more industries.

^Yes, Viettel is military-owned.

The Army is fourth-largest internet provider in VietNam I think, and I heard the air force also run the paramilitary airline VASCO.

Opps, sorry I was wrong about VN GDP, I'm kind of misunderstooding what Mr Phan Van Khai said in his speech lately. Here is the full sentence in vietnamese, ("chúng ta có hơn 80 triệu dân ma chúng làm ra được có 53 tỷ đô la, đó là con số ra nhỏ") but that is my point, my point is the vietnamese goverment is right about spending money for the armforce becuase of we look around to our neighbours they all spend very money for thier armforce.
Here the video of Mr. Khai speech mms://media.tuoitre.com.vn/media/phim/Thutuongphatbieu.wmv


ở đây thằng con cạc nào nói tao là ba tào, ba tào các lộn má mầy chớ ba tào.
ông nội của mầy là người góc Nghệ An nè, ông nội của mầy mang họ Nguyên Quang nè,
tổ tiên 8 đời của ông nội mầy từng làm quang cho nhà Tây Sơn nè. đụ má nói chuyện thấy
mà ghét.

bah! the new PM just released that stupid transport minister without punishment.

i think that everytime Vietnam takes 3 steps up, some stupid idiot pushes Vietnam 4 steps down.