VIETNAM

Social Demographic of Vietnam

Originating in northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese people pushed southward over two millennia to occupy the entire eastern seacoast of the Indochinese Peninsula. Ethnic Vietnamese, or Viet (known officially as Kinh), live in the lowlands and speak the Vietnamese language, as opposed to the many ethnic groups of Vietnam who are known to occupy the mountainous regions. The Kinh group does represent much of the cultural and political landscape of Vietnam.

The Vietnamese government recognizes 54 ethnic groups, of which the Viet (Kinh) is the largest; according to official Vietnamese figures (2019 census), ethnic Vietnamese account for 85.32% of the nation's population and the non-Vietnamese ethnic groups account for the remaining percent. The ethnic Vietnamese inhabit a little less than half of Vietnam, while the ethnic minorities inhabit the majority of Vietnam's land (albeit the least fertile parts of the country).

The Khmer Krom are found in the delta of the Mekong River, in the south of Vietnam, where they form in many areas the majority of the rural population. They live in an area which was previously part of Cambodia and which Vietnam conquered in the 17th and 18th centuries. Official Vietnamese figures put the Khmer Krom at 1 million people. Vietnam's approximately 1 million ethnic Chinese, constitute one of Vietnam's largest minority groups. Long important in the Vietnamese economy, Vietnamese of Chinese ancestry have been active in rice trading, milling, real estate, and banking in the south and shopkeeping, stevedoring, and mining in the north.

The relation between China and Vietnam also declined following reunification in 1975, with Vietnam siding with the Soviet Union against China in the Chinese-Soviet split. Tensions peaked when Vietnam and Cambodia started a war, Cambodia lead by Pol Pot being a Chinese ally, resulting in a Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979. In 1978-79, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees (many officially encouraged and assisted) or were expelled across the land border with China. In recent years the government has performed an about turn and is encouraging overseas Hoa to return and invest, but the ethnic Chinese population has been in continuous decline since the 1970s due to assimilation and low birth rates.

The central highland peoples commonly termed Degar or Montagnards (mountain people) comprise two main ethnolinguistic groups--Malayo-Polynesian and Mon–Khmer. About 30 groups of various cultures and dialects are spread over the highland territory.

Other minority groups include the Cham—remnants of the once-mighty Champa Kingdom, conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century, Hmong, and Thái.

According to the 2019 Census, the religious demographics of Vietnam are as follows:

• 86.32% Vietnamese folk religion or non religious

• 6.1% Catholicism

• 4.79% Buddhism (mainly Mahayana)

• 1.02% Hoahaoism

• 1% Protestantism

• <1% Caodaism

• 0.77 Others

It is worth noting here that the data is highly skewered, as a large majority of Vietnamese may declare themselves atheist yet practice forms of traditional folk religion or Mahayana Buddhism.

History of Vietnam

The history of Vietnam can be traced back to around 20,000 years ago. Archaeological findings from 1965, still under research, show the remains of two hominins closely related to Sinanthropus, dating as far back as the Middle Pleistocene era, roughly half a million years ago. Pre-historic Vietnam was home to some of the world's earliest civilizations and societies—making them one of the world's first people who practiced agriculture. The Red River valley formed a natural geographic and economic unit, bounded to the north and west by mountains and jungles, to the east by the sea and to the south by the Red River Delta. The need to have a single authority to prevent floods of the Red River, to cooperate in constructing hydraulic systems, trade exchange, and to fight invaders, led to the creation of the first legendary Vietnamese states approximately 2879 BC. While in the later times, archaeologists have suggested the Đông Sơn culture found in Northern Vietnam, Guangxi and Laos was around 700 BC.

Vietnam's peculiar geography made it a difficult country to attack, which is why Vietnam under the Hùng kings was for so long an independent and self-contained state. Once Vietnam did succumb to foreign rule, however, it proved unable to escape from it, and for 1,000 years, Vietnam was successively governed by a series of Chinese dynasties: the Western Han, Xin, Eastern Han, Eastern Wu, Western Jin, Eastern Jin, Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang, Sui, Tang, Wu Zhou, and Southern Han. During these 1,000 years there were many uprisings against Chinese domination, and at certain periods Vietnam was independently governed under the Triệu, Trưng Sisters, Early Lý, Khúc and Dương Đình Nghệ—although their triumphs and reigns were temporary.

When Ngô Quyền (King of Vietnam, 938–944) restored sovereign power in the country with the victory at the battle of Bach Dang River, the next millennium was advanced by the accomplishments of successive local dynasties: Ngô, Đinh, Early Lê, Lý, Trần, Hồ, Later Trần, Later Lê, Mạc, Trịnh, Nguyễn, Tây Sơn and again Nguyễn. At various points during the imperial dynasties, Vietnam was ravaged and divided by civil wars and witnessed interventions by the Song, Yuan, Cham, Ming, Siamese, Qing, French, and Imperial Japan.

The Ming Empire conquered the Red River valley for a while before native Vietnamese regained control and the French Empire reduced Vietnam to a French dependency for nearly a century, followed by an occupation by the Japanese Empire. During the French period, widespread malnutrition and brutality from the 1880s until Japan invaded in 1940 created deep resentment that fueled resistance to post-World War II military-political efforts by France and the US. Political upheaval and Communist insurrection put an end to the monarchy after World War II, and the country was proclaimed a republic.

Source: Wikipedia

The infamous Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

During the war years, America's leaders insisted that military force was necessary to defend a sovereign nation — South Vietnam — from external Communist aggression. As President Lyndon B. Johnson put it in 1965, “The first reality is that North Vietnam has attacked the independent nation of South Vietnam

6 Events That Laid the Groundwork for the Vietnam War

• The Collapse of French Indochina and Rise of Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh, pictured in 1962. ...

• Battle of Dien Bien Phu. ...

• The 1954 Geneva Accords Divide Vietnam. ...

• The Cold War. ...

• The Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem. ...

• Gulf of Tonkin Incident. ...

The US and its involvement in the Vietnam War.

The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnam's government and military since Vietnam's partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. Tensions escalated into armed conflict between the two sides, and in 1961 U.S. President John F. Failure of Operation Rolling Thunder: The bombing campaign failed because the bombs often fell into empty jungle, missing their Vietcong targets. ... Lack of support back home: As the war dragged on more and more Americans began to oppose the war in Vietnam

Source: History.com

Join us for our Vietnam Adventure

1. https://www.redbarondiaries.com/vietnam/vietnam-north2south-2016

(Vietnam North To South - December 2016)