VN news (July 15)

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

Feature Saigon Swaps Slums for Satellite Cities 
Ho Chi Minh Search for Man Involved in Shoot-Out 
China Says Accelerating Border Talks with Vietnam 
Vietnam's Communist Party calls for self-criticism 
New football coach for Vietnam grabs Prime Minister's hand 
Chinese Leader Meets Vietnam's Do Muoi 
Chinese, Vietnamese Foreign Ministers Hold Talks in Beijing 

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Feature Saigon Swaps Slums for Satellite Cities 

By John Chalmers

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, July 15 (Reuter) - The seasoned travel writer
Norman Lewis described Saigon as a place "without folly, fervour or
much ostentation...a pleasant, colourless and characterless French provincial
city."

But that was in 1950, when this "French town in a hot country" was
home to less than one million people.

Now, nearly half a century later, the officially named Ho Chi Minh City
-- a powerhouse for Vietnam's stellar economic growth -- scores high
on the folly, fervour and energy that Lewis said it lacked.

And its population has ballooned to six million, turning his "provincial
city" into a typical Asian metropolis, complete with power blackouts,
pollution, overcrowding and squalor.

Among the authorities' biggest headaches are the 900,000 people living
in shanty towns beside the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal, a black and fetid
stretch of water snaking its way through the city.

The Ho Chi Minh City Urban Drainage Company estimates that the city generates
between 800,000 and one million cubic metres of sewage per day that flows,
untreated, into canals and rivers.

"MANY DOWNTOWNS" SEEN AS SOLUTION Le Van Nam, Chief Architect of the
city, believes the authorities have a solution for downtown "choc-a-bloc
disorder" -- build satellite cities and move some 600,000 people into
them.

"The planners' policy is to have many urban areas, not just one big
one," he says, pointing to three undeveloped areas on a giant map in
a town-planners' meeting room. "It should have many downtowns and not
be concentrated in one area."

Outside the room, in a municipal building, officials scurry along corridors
dotted with architects' models of skyscrapers and state-of-the-art civil
engineering.

One of those new areas will be Saigon South, 2,600 hectares (6,500 acres)
of science parks, schools, a business and finance district, housing,
shopping malls, warehouses and even a golf course and zoo.

All that will be linked by a new, $242-million ring road south of the
city to Saigon port and the Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone, one of
the most successful in Vietnam.

The "parkway," as the development company Phu My Hung prefers to call
the 17.8-km (11.1-mile) road, will join up with the planned Asian highway
into Cambodia and will have a central reserve for a rapid rail system.

"As a master-planned, high-quality Asian city, Saigon South will become
the focus of international investment in Southeast Asia," Phu My Hung
enthuses in its information pack.

That is no idle boast. Last year the Saigon South master plan won an
award for urban design from the American Institute of Architects.

Right now, the city-to-be is just a marshy wasteland south of the Saigon
River, dotted with coconut palms and thatched huts.

But Joe Chan, Vice President of Phu My Hung -- a joint-venture by Taiwan's
Central Trading and Development Group (CT&D) and the local People's Committee
-- expects Saigon South to be home to 350,000 residents and the workplace
for 650,000 daily commuters by the middle of the next decade.

Chief architect Nam says the grand plan is to have a metropolis of 7.3-7.5
million people by 2010, but with less than half of that number in the
centre of town.

GRAND PLAN IS TALL ORDER But how to persuade the traditionally outspoken
and spirited Saigonese, even those living in filthy slums, to move is
a puzzle the authorities are still trying to solve.

Many still remember the disastrous relocation drive of the late 1970s,
when thousands were moved to "new economic zones" -- some of which
turned out to be no better than malaria-infested jungle.

The authorities say industry and investors must be offered special incentives
to move to the new satellite cities, where they could provide employment,
and the people must have schools, hospitals and basic social services.

But they are vague on how much the city's plans will cost and where the
money will come from.

Nam's best guess is several billion dollars a year. For a country with
an annual national income of some $24 billion, that looks like a tall
order -- perhaps a pipe-dream.

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Ho Chi Minh Search for Man Involved in Shoot-Out 

HANOI, July 15 (Reuter) - Police in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City said on
Tuesday they were searching for a man involved in a downtown shoot-out
last weekend in which five people were injured.

A district police official said by phone that the man was one of two
thieves who had returned fire when police shot at them as they fled the
scene of a purse-snatching on Sunday in the heart of the city's main
tourist and business district.

His accomplice was injured and later arrested. Two policemen and two
passers-by were also injured, but details of their injuries were not
clear.

Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, has long been considered the most
violent city in Vietnam, and is believed to be home to a number of crime
syndicates known locally as 'mafias'.

A Dutch woman died last last month after being stabbed while struggling
against bag-snatch thieves in Ben Thanh market -- a bustling and popular
city centre tourist attraction.

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China Says Accelerating Border Talks with Vietnam 

By Mure Dickie

BEIJING, July 15 (Reuter) - China said on Tuesday it was accelerating
talks with Vietnam to resolve simmering territorial disputes along the
land and sea borders dividing the communist neighbours and leaving thornier
disputes for later.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen had agreed with his Vietnamese counterpart
Nguyen Manh Cam that Beijing and Hanoi should tackle easily resolved
issues first and leave more difficult issues for later, China's official
Xinhua news agency said.

Solving border problems would open broad prospects for the development
of Sino-Vietnamese ties, Qian told Cam, who was in Beijing as part of
a delegation accompanying Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary Do
Muoi.

During their meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, both foreign
ministers had agreed that talks between Muoi and Chinese President Jiang
Zemin on Monday had given a strong boost to strengthening Sino-Vietnamese
cooperation, Xinhua said.

"The foreign ministries...are responsible for resolutely implementing
the new consensus reached by top leaders of the two nations on speeding
up the progress of border talks," it quoted Qian and Cam as saying.

The issues to be tackled in talks included disputes over the Sino-Vietnamese
land border as well as on territory in the oil and gas rich Tonkin Gulf,
it said.

Hanoi and Beijing also contest the Spratly Islands in the South China
Sea, a potentially resource-rich group claimed in whole or in part by
Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Beijing's island rival Taiwan.

Vietnam said in April it had agreed with China to accelerate the pace
of talks on their borders, which have proved a source of frequent friction
between the communist neighbours since they fought a bloody border war
in 1979.
B

Chinese and Vietnamese naval forces clashed at sea in the 1980s and frequent
border skirmishes disturbed the peace along their heavily militarised
land border until the early 1990s.

Relations between Hanoi and Beijing have improved in recent years, but
territorial tensions have continued to strain a socialist rapprochement
crowned by the normalisation of diplomatic relations in 1991.

Long simmering differences flared in March, when a Chinese oil rig began
exploratory drilling in a contested area of the South China Sea about
64.5 nautical miles off the coast of central Vietnam.

The Kan Tan III rig was withdrawn after less than a month, but the two
sides failed to resolve their differences on the issue at an emergency
meeting in Beijing in April.

Despite such disputes and lingering mutual suspicions, both Beijing and
Hanoi have appeared eager to make sure their improved relations are not
derailed by territorial disputes.

The rapid development of friendly Sino-Vietnamese ties had formed a good
basis for solving problems left by history, Jiang told Vietnam's Muoi
in their Monday talks.

"If the two sides can stand tall, see far, take in the big picture,
mutually understand and give in to each other... and if leaders of the
two nations make great efforts to push forward, then problems can be
quickly resolved in an appropriate manner," Xinhua quoted Jiang as telling
the 80-year-old Vietnamese party chief.

The agency did not mention the current political crisis in Cambodia where
the royalist First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh has been ousted
by his co-premier Hun Sen.

Vietnamese forces invaded the Southeast Asian country in 1978 to oust
the pro-China Khmer Rouge guerrillas. Hun Sen was later installed as
prime minister.

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Vietnam's Communist Party calls for self-criticism 

Hanoi (dpa) - The Vietnamese Communist Party called for enhanced "criticism
and self-criticism" in the party, official media said Tuesday, prompting
speculation that a shake-up in the leadership is on the way.

"Self-criticism is especially important over the issues of respecting
of democratic rights of the people and maintaining internal democracy
inside the party and state apparatus", said a directive of the Communist
Party's politburo.

This was published by the party's mouthpiece Nhan Dan (People) newspaper
Tuesday.

Analysts said the call was effectively a warning to obey decisions by
the ruling party. Following an order last month for a programme of personnel
development for the coming years, it appeared to be a signal to cadres
of imminent leadership changes in the country.

The politburo is the key decision-making body in the communist system.
Cadres are officials in the party's employ.

The Politburo's directive was designed, according to the report, to clarify
the decisions of the third plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee,
which is the next most important body in the communist set-up.

Vietnam's top three leaders have not registered to run in the upcoming
National Assembly election, suggesting they are likely to step down in
the next few months.

The authorities have chosen 663 candidates to contest 450 seats in the
National Assembly but the names of President Le Duc Anh, 76, Prime Minister
Vo Van Kiet, 74, and Communist Party chief Do Muoi, 80, were not among
them.

The elections are scheduled for July 20 and the new five-year term National
Assembly must convene within two months from that date to ratify new
state leaders. According to the current constitution, the president and
prime minister must also be National Assembly members, and this also
used to be the case for the party chief.

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New football coach for Vietnam grabs Prime Minister's hand 

Hanoi, July 15 (AFP) - Vietnam's newly arrived national football coach
Colin Murphy almost overshadowed the head of the Communist Party on the
front page of the official party newspaper on Tuesday.

The coverage accorded Murphy's arrival says a lot about how seriously
Vietnam takes its football team.

A photograph of Murphy shaking hands with Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet
on Monday occupied a prominent position on page one of Nhan Dan, or People's
Daily newspaper.

His photo was only slightly smaller than that of the Monday meeting between
Communist Party Secretary Do Muoi and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin
in Beijing.

Fans are hoping that Murphy, who arrived Saturday, will get the team
in shape for the upcoming Southeast Asia tournament (SEA Games) to be
held in Jakarta in October.

He briefed the prime minister about his plans to rebuild the national
squad which suffered humiliating defeats during the World Cup qualifying
matches last month.

Vietnam was runner up to Thailand in the 1995 games under German coach
K.H. Weigang, who quit earlier this year over a dispute with the Vietnam
Football Federation.

Domestic coach Tran Duy Long resigned following last month's rout.

Murphy led British club Derby County to win the British championship
in 1975 and was former coach of several clubs in Ireland and Saudi Arabia.

He reportedly will be paid a monthly salary of 5,000 dollars and will
be the third foreigner to coach the national team.

Murphy will take a team of players to Bangkok where it will compete with
Thai and Indonesian national squads and then for two weeks of training
matches in China.

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Chinese Leader Meets Vietnam's Do Muoi 

BEIJING (July 15) XINHUA - Li Ruihuan, a Standing Committee member of
the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, in a meeting with
Do Muoi, general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Central
Committee, here today, said that China and Vietnam are close neighbors
and the two peoples maintain deep traditional friendship.

They are faced with the same task of developing their national economy
and raising people's living standard, he said, adding that the two countries
hold identical or similar views on many important international issues.

Li, also chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC) National Committee, said that the development and prosperity
of the two countries and their good-neighborly relations are not only
in the interest of the two peoples, but also conducive to the safeguarding
of peace of Asia and the world and to the promotion of the progressive
cause of the human society.

Therefore, Chinese leaders value friendly relations between the two parties
and the two countries, and hope to push the existing relationship forward,
he said.

Li also expressed the conviction that Do Muoi's visit will have a great
effect on profound development of friendly ties of co-operation between
the two parties and the two countries.

Do Muoi said that exchange of visits by high-ranking officials of the
two countries, and sharing information and experience are very important.
They help the two countries to increase mutual understanding and trust
in their efforts to enhance Vietnam-China good-neighborliness which is
oriented to the 21st century.

Li said that China and Vietnam have proven that there must be reforms
to strengthen and develop socialism, and that Maxist theory should be
combined with reality to keep its vitality.

"It is a long process before socialism matures, so it is necessary to
keep on exploring and perfecting and developing it through reforms,"
and it is also natural that there are problems in the reforms, but those
problems can only be solved by maintaining the reforms, he said.

"We believe in socialism because it is truth which came from practice
and has been proven by practice," he said, "but, we must admit that Marxism
does not contain all the truths, and it must be developed through practice."

"We can not expect classical authors to foresee everything today from
decades or a century ago," he said, and it is necessary to combine Marxism
with steadily changing reality in order to give it vitality from nutrition
and enrich its content.

The CPC Central Committee, with Jiang Zemin as its core will stick to
the Marxism of contemporary China: the theory of building socialism with
Chinese characteristics which was initiated by the late Deng Xiaoping,
he added.

Do Muoi said that he is pleased to see China's achievements in reforms
and the open-up drive, reunification, and foreign affairs, and that with
the development of China's socialist reforms, China has gained much precious
experience.

On behalf of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the Vietnamese government
and people, Do Muoi wished the Chinese people, under the leadership of
the CPC with General Secretary Jiang Zemin at its core, greater success
in its Socialist cause.

He said he believes China will achieve its modernization goals. The Vietnamese
leader said his country is willing to deal with Vietnamese-Chinese relations
by taking the overall situation into account, and that maintaining friendly
relations between the two peoples is important for the two countries
and for peace, development and progress in the world.

He said his country will continue its reforms and opening-up drive, and
will stick to the leadership of the Communist Party, Socialism and the
safeguarding of national independence.

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Chinese, Vietnamese Foreign Ministers Hold Talks in Beijing 

BEIJING (July 15) XINHUA - Chinese Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister
Qian Qichen said today he is convinced that the settlement of the boundary
issue between China and Vietnam will open broad prospects for the comprehensive
development of bilateral ties.

Qian made the remark in a meeting with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen
Manh Cam, who accompanied Do Muoi, general secretary of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) on his current China visit.

Qian said that China and Vietnam are friendly neighbors, and are building
socialism in line with their respective national conditions.

To further friendly cooperative ties between the two countries is not
only conducive to the development of both counties, but also benefits
peace and stability of the region, Qian noted.

Nguyen Manh Cam agreed with Qian's assessment of bilateral relations,
and thanked China for inviting him to attend Hong Kong's handover ceremony
on July 1.

The two foreign ministers spoke highly of the talks between Jiang Zemin,
general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China (CPC), and Do Muoi, general secretary of the Central Committee
of the CPV, saying they think the discussions will help improve bilateral
cooperation.

They said that the two foreign ministries, as the major departments in
charge of the boundary negotiations, are responsible for strictly carrying
out the consensus reached by the two top leaders on speeding up the boundary
negotiations.

On boundary negotiations, Qian said that the Chinese side is willing
to speed up the process in the spirit of taking the general situation
into consideration, seeking common grounds while reserving differences,
settling the easier issues first and then the more problematic ones,
managing time well, conducting discussions in a friendly way and reaching
a fair settlement, so as to promptly solve the boundary issue on land
and delineating the boundary in the Beibu Gulf.

Qian said that China hopes the two sides do their utmost to attain this
goal.

Nguyen Manh Cam agreed with the Chinese side on boundary negotiations,
saying that Vietnam is willing to enhance cooperation with China, overcome
existing difficulties, settle the issue as soon as possible, and create
conditions for further bilateral cooperation.

During the talks, the two foreign ministers also exchanged views on bilateral
relations and regional cooperation.

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