Vietnam Is Still Caught in a Tug of War Between Superpowers
Fifty years after the fall of Saigon, the US and China are sparring for influence in Vietnam as the trade war intensifies.
Illustration: Lee Kyutae for Bloomberg
As dawn broke over Ho Chi Minh City, fighter jets screamed through the sky and helicopters buzzed over the heads of cheering spectators. To the beat of drums and rousing strains of revolutionary songs, 13,000 military personnel marched through the streets as Vietnam’s Communist leaders looked out from a raised dais in front of Independence Palace.
The Reunification Day parade on Wednesday was an emotional display of national pride, 50 years after North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon — as the city was then called — ending a conflict that devastated the country and killed an estimated 3 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 American troops.