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Blogging from Vietnam – Part 2

By immigrationprof

Walking around Hanoi and seeing the vibrancy of the people raises a number of questions, including how Vietnam’s economy is doing. I have had the opportunity to meet with many international lawyers and NGO representatives and one thing is clear: Vietnam is on a path toward a system that is trying to attract foreign investment from multi-national corporation.

Vietnam 
Older Vietnamese here remember starvation and greater poverty; Vietnam acknowledged that its system was not working for the people, and a decision was made in the 1980s to perhaps look at China as an economic mode. Vietnam worked toward acceptance in the global economy and worked toward getting admitted into the World Trade Organization in 2007. The U.S. helped. First from overtures during the Clinton administration and finally in 2003 under George W. Bush, the U.S. entered into a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam as a downpayment on WTO admission. In essence, the U.S. served as a vehicle to facilitate Vietnam’s entry into the WTO, showing Vietnam the ropes on how to begin meeting accession requirements. Why would the U.S. be willing to do this? Well, it helps that Vietnam is a neighbor of China, and the U.S. needs a strategic “ally” in the region. The U.S. has an enormous trade deficit with China, as well all know, but now we have a substantial one with Vietnam as well.

Back in the U.S., historically, Vietnamese refugee admission and migration does confirm that humanitarian concerns operate through refugee law and policy. At the same time, though, it reveals how the U.S. repeated many mistakes made earlier with other Asian immigrants. In trying to be sensitive to the Vietnamese, refugee law and policy revealed patterns of knowledge and inattention that found their origins in the U.S.’s historical experience with other Asians. Sadly missing was a careful analysis of the effects immigration policy had on earlier Asian American communities. The similarity between refugee and admissions law and policy seems at times pretextual.

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