History of Vietnam

In 1964, after Hanoi ordered North Vietnamese Army units to infiltrate the South, the situation for the Saigon regime became desperate. In 1965 the USA committed its first combat troops, soon joined by soldiers from South Korea, Australia, Thailand and New Zealand. As Vietnam celebrated the Lunar New Year in 1968, the Communist guerrilla launched a deadly surprise offensive, marking a crucial turning point of the war. Many Americans, who had for years believed their government's insistence that the USA was winning, started demanding a negotiated end to the war. The Paris Agreements, signed in 1973, provided for a cease-fire, the total withdrawal of US combat forces and the release of American prisoners of war.
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, Vietnam and Western nations sought rapprochement. The 1990s brought foreign investment and Asean membership. The USA established diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995, and in 2000, Bill Clinton became the first US president to visit northern Vietnam. Even today, the Communist Party is still very much in charge but capitalism is the ideology of choice and action. There are the rules and then there is the national pastime of getting around them. Foreign investors are setting up joint ventures with Vietnamese companies, cultural exchange is exerting international influence over fashion, technology and a new generation, and Vietnam is speeding towards the future with its politics and desires in a delicate balance.
The Vietnamese take passionate pride in their national identity and they have their entire history to back them up. Having defended their sovereignty as a nation from the Chinese to the French, the people's determination and optimism reflect the collective strength and sense of self that keep Vietnam bouncing back.