It was the Autumn of 1989, the season when socialist countries prepared to negotiate for the 1991-1995 five-year trade agreement. To prepare in advance, I went ahead to Moscow and met a close friend who studied with me at the Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), and who by then was the Deputy Finance Minister of the Soviet Union. Luong, let’s talk as friends , he said. You’d better give up the mindset of asking for aid. You must stand tall and get rich like other people. The Soviet Union has many difficulties and is about to fall apart. There is absolutely nothing to give.
I sat still, with a bitter taste in my mouth. I took a sip of black tea that was still hot and almost burned my throat.
In the mid-80s of the last century, the Soviet Union’s economic aid to Vietnam totalled about 1 billion rubles per year. Everything will be taken care of by the Soviet Union had become a catchphrase. No one could imagine what it would be like if aid was suddenly cut off.
In the early autumn of 2000, 11 years later, I was in the Oval Office at the White House, shaking hands with US President Bill Clinton after the Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement was signed.
What happened during those 11 years?
The Soviet Union collapsed as my friend, the Deputy Finance Minister, had warned. Aid dried up. The market of socialist block disappeared. Due to the long-term embargo, Vietnam faced difficulties from all directions. In 1995, the turning point: the normalisation of relations with the US and then Vietnam joined ASEAN. EU countries, Japan, Korea and others started to do business with Vietnam. And in 2000, Vietnam signed a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) with the US.
The BTA negotiations, which took place between 1995 and 2000, did not only complete the normalisation process but also opened the door for Vietnam to join the WTO and integrate into the global economy. If the declaration of the normalisation of relations between the two countries in 1995 helped the US and Vietnam put behind their hostility, the BTA indeed brought the two countries together in a mutually beneficial partnership.
Signing the BTA with the US, and subsequently joining the WTO, did not only give Vietnam access to many new markets, but also accelerated drastic and far-reaching changes in our legal system, economy, and entire society. It was an emergency turnaround, one that brought Vietnam out of a historic dilemma.
The signing of the BTA was also a difficult and arduous step. A step that took nearly 5 years to complete, with dozens of rounds of negotiations, thousands of pages of text written and rewritten. It was one step, but with a full range of emotion - from hesitation and hope to disappointment and determination to reach the destination.
The book - comprising my writings and writings by the former US Chief of Staff Joseph Damond, comments from Former US President Bill Clinton and Former Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Manh Cam, interviews with me, Mr. Damond and others - recounts the difficult and lengthy negotiations, the troubles of a Vietnam that was transforming its economy, the doubts from the two former enemies who held many grudges, the clever tricks and tactics of the negotiators who ended up walking the wire for five years, and all the disappointing moments right through to the very end that was happy just like a dream.
This book contains macro assessments about the new generation of free trade agreements and the trend of economic integration in the new context, as well as many interesting, seemingly small behind-the-scene details that nevertheless could have influenced the course of history.
