Re: Tru*o*`ng So*n Road ...to Mr. Tuan Pham

[Tuan Pham <tuan.pham@unsw.edu.au>]

Re: Tru*o*`ng So*n Road ...to Mr. Tuan Pham

>Hi Mr. Tuan Pham
>
>It could be a surprise to you but I can agree with most of what you say.
>Taking the heat out of it, it is enough to say simply that the politics
>should not be the only reason behind this kind of project. However, the danger
>lies in the opposite direction as well. The world-famous problem of traffic
>in Bangkok is a good example. They have the money, they have the technology
>the knowledge... but every time a new government want to do that, the opposition
>parties try their best to stall because they do not want their rival to
>take the credit. If you live in Vietnam for the past 10 years, you could 
>realize that things like the Mao era is not likely to happen. In fact, 
>I think that there is more danger in the other end. ( I could be over-
>optimist here but that is what the debate is for )
>
>I also see that you don't feel good with the term catch up and I am willing
>to withdraw it. Actually, it come to my mind because I want others to focus
>on the year 2020 and realize the need for this road at that time.  
>My main concern is that given the importance and the SIZE of this project,
>we better start it now. 20 years for such project is not too long.
>In no way I support the idea of dropping every thing else to do that.
>
>With a cool head, you could see that 10 days of salary a year is more
>like a hike in the tax than the mass mobilization.  It is kind of extra
>effort that we make for the 20 years from now. After the WW II, Japan was
>at the bottom, japanese people had to make sacrifice too and now they 
>are on the top. Isn't that a catch-up thing ? 
>

Dear TD

Sorry if my message gave an impression of "hot headedness".
It's just my style I guess - I have been abroad for too long
and my language tend to be too frank sometimes.

First let's lay down a moot issue - what you refer to in Thailand 
is unlikely to be a problem with Vietnam with its present 
government system. Now back to the TS highway.
I don't feel that the TS project is something I can freely discuss
on this forum. That's the whole trouble: if you want all the
issues discussed thoroughly then you must have no inhibition,
and I don't really know what exactly the limitations are on vnsa.
That's why I'd rather not discuss this project on this forum 
and have restricted myself on generalities like being 
well informed, thorough discussion, rational economic decision 
making and so on.

I have discussed this issue with others on other forums. Perhaps
if you could, for example, put your viewpoint on vnforum then
we can thoroughly discuss it then. But essentially, my concerns
are NOT about the 10 days' labour (I recently had an argument 
on vnforum against some people who called it forced labour 
and like you, I call it a tax), NOT about the need for the highway. 
It's about the Decision Making Process: terribly important.

A decision affecting large number of people or involving a
large amount of resources must go through a process of
need identification, conceptualisation, public discussion,
review of alternatives, feasibility studies, economic analysis, 
environmental impact assessment, before a decision can be made.

With a country even more than with an individual, it's always
a balance between priorities: what shall I do first, get married,
get a degree, buy a motor cycle, buy a house, etc. How much
resource should we allocate to each priority? When you deal with
the resources and the future of 75 million people then this kind
of decision is very important and should be made only after
thorough discussion and analysis, using the best techniques
and the best brains available, and the decision process on 
something THAT important must be seen by the public.

I have read the SUMMARY of the feasibility studies of
the My~ Thua^.n bridge on the Tie^`n Giang. It is about
50 pages. The full document was of course much bigger.
It is full of statistics about present and projected traffic,
economic data on the region, likely impact on the economy
and environment, etc. The My Thuan project is worth 
US$70 million, as compared to the TS project's 5 billion -
roughly 70 My Thuan bridges. Isn't it worth being treated
70 times as seriously?


>Right here too but I think that except some few words on about 5% of 
>my post quoted here which I am willing to drop anyway, my post is 
>more "cool-headed" than this post of yours. 

I'm glad to hear :)

>Actually, I felt that the talk on the foreign media about the forced
>labor issue is too artificial and adding too much heat to a problem
>which need a cool head. That was part of the reason of my last post.
>Very sorry if the effect of my post was just the opposite. 
>

I have always been sceptical of the way the foreign media
blows up everything and look at everything that happens in 
VN with a Western, especially American perspective
(you'll be surprised at the names I've been called for pointing
this out :). However, in this case, I have had access to several
Vietnamese newspaper article, including those I read when
I visited VN earlier this year, and those posted on vnsa and 
other forums. I must say that every one of them have reinforced 
the impression I obtained from the foreign media rather than
the other way round, about the decision making process.

>So, this could be another problem among many that we have. Should we drop 
>everything else because of it? Should we wait for a new generation of 
>leadership to take on the Tru+o+`ng So+n Road ?
>But this point is too politic to  my personal taste. Anyway, discussions,
>in Quo^'c Ho^.i and in forum like this could alleviate this problem, don't
>you think ?
>

I agree that discussions are needed. But as soon as it becomes
relevant then it becomes too politic :) There's a saying that
a little knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all. Perhaps
I could paraphrase it and say that a little discussion is worse than
no discussion at all :) Let's leave it here.

>Regards
>Nguyen N.D.
>

Cheers
Tuan Pham