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Want to understand Vietnam's extremely tricky position when it comes to building socialism? Just look at energy.
Vietnam is at risk of facing a 5% energy shortage in the next two years. Imagine how devastating a 5% energy gap would be to any economy...>
Vietnam is at risk of facing a 5% energy shortage in the next two years. Imagine how devastating a 5% energy gap would be to any economy...>
Our choices are limited. We can't have nuclear (international restrictions), we have domestic coal but it's polluting and expensive to develop. Our economy is basically growing too quickly for domestic to keep up. We could slow our economy but we are already playing catchup.
Chinese belt and roads loans are available, and American natural gas. We OBVIOUSLY don't want to rely on foreign nations for energy! Who would?! There are no easy answers here. We chose American natural gas over belt and road because the terms seemed slightly better...
But we know very well it sucks! Our country is investing rapidly and heavily in domestic sustainable green energy but it takes time to develop and build. So we have to turn to the market to keep developing.
If you think this is an easy situation and we are "fake socialists" for choosing a market solution and buying natural gas from the USA to solve a very serious and pressing problem then I am sorry but you are being childish! We call our socialism "socialism in the real world."
Capitalism and imperialism are INCREDIBLY HOSTILE to Vietnam, and we have to be very careful to avoid harsh embargoes and financial warfare. Compromises have to be made to continue improving quality of life. Energy is just a small part of a big, complicated puzzle.
It doesn't feel good for us to buy natural gas from the USA. Of course we want independence and we want to build sustainable energy very quickly. I think you will be surprised how quickly we build green energy in the next few years.
I can see why Western leftists might be skeptical, especially if you are in a rich nation that doesn't have to face compromise situations like this. Fortunately for us, we won our revolution and we don't need anyone's approval. We will keep building socialism. Communism will win!
