Vietnam Communist Party Leader Visits North Korea

Nong Duc Manh, Vietnam’s most senior politician and the general secretary of the Communist Party, has accepted an invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and will pay a 3-day visit to Pyongyang today. The Vietnam Communist Party chief’s trip to North Korea comes 50 years after Ho Chi Minh’s visit in 1957.

North Korea and Vietnam were blood-sharing comrades in the past, but now they are estranged and go their separate ways. People closely watch this summit meeting between the two countries’ leaders to see if it will help them restore their previous friendly relationship.

In addition, whether North Korea will embrace Vietnam’s reform measures that harmonize its socialistic political system with a market economy is also drawing the people’s attention.

Since Vietnam declared in 1986 the initiative of Doi Moi, meaning renovation and opening, it has successfully implemented various measures aimed at reformation and opening the door to the outside world, and has achieved an annual economic growth of 7-8 percent. And yet there has been no major political instability and one communist party regime has been maintained.

In that point, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will surely show his interest because he should also try to restore its ruined economy while keeping his regime intact. That underlies the argument of North Korean watchers that, “Vietnam’s way of reform and opening is the most ideal way for Pyongyang.”

In particular, it is also arousing the people’s interest as to what lesson the reclusive leader could draw from Vietnam’s past experience of normalization of relations with the U.S.

Only 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnam’s government succeeded in normalizing relations with the U.S. in 1995. And it established a “permanent normal trade relationship” with the U.S. last year. North Korean leader Kim, who wants Pyongyang to be eliminated from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and normalize relations between his country and the U.S. by year’s end, can learn precious lessons from Vietnam’s experiences.

The two countries have many things in common: their nations were founded by leaders of anti-Japanese guerilla groups, they waged war against the U.S., and they are socialist regimes. During the Vietnam War, North Korea deployed its air force and transportation corps to help the communist side of Vietnam. Young Vietnamese who studied in North Korea at the time now occupy high ranking positions in the Vietnamese government.

However, the relationship between the two countries became sour after Vietnam attacked Cambodia in 1978. The reclusive country once provided refugee for Norodom Sihanouk, the King-Father of Cambodia. After that, they repeated the resumption and suspension of exchange. Right now there is no practical exchange between them.

zsh75@donga.com