Vietnam

In 1989, the year that will end soon, we have seen many positive changes in our country’s socio-economic life after three years of striving to implement the sixth party congress resolution and the subsequent resolutions of the Party Central Committee and Political Bureau, as well as other important progress. Vietnam’s pull-out from Kampuchea in 1989 after a decade of costly involvement underlined the leadership’s determination to concentrate on necessary domestic developments, particularly economic modernization. The event that dominated Vietnam in 1989 was, not surprisingly, the Kampuchean situation. Since its invasion of Kampuchea in December 1978, which drove out the Khmer Rouge and established in its place a pro-Vietnam communist regime, Vietnam has been virtually isolated from the international community. In response, Vietnam grew increasingly strident in its references to the United States by the end of 1989.