Talk:Indochina Wars

Thailand taken by Japan

Wasn't it rather that Thailand allowed safe passage to Japanese troops and collaborated with Japan in exchange for benefits including the notional restoration of Thai overlordship over the Malay states of Perlis, Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan? Keep in mind, Thais were the only non-Japanese nationality that was paid wages when working on the Thailand-Burma Railway. The Malays who were tricked or forced to work there were enslaved, and hundreds of them died. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:30, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Pre-1945 events should preferrably be described in the Pacific War article, and only very briefly in this article. /Yvwv (talk) 10:38, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but that description is here, and I don't think it's accurate. Japan would have taken Thailand for sure, but they capitulated, and it wasn't a surrender like that of the Malay sultans but an agreement of collaboration in exchange for clear benefits, as I understand it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:54, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I corrected this. It's OK if someone wants to summarize in some accurate way, but saying that Japan occupied Thailand is only a bit more accurate than saying that because Sweden allowed safe passage for German troops on Swedish railways, they were occupied by the Nazis. The difference, really, is that Thailand collaborated more than Sweden did, but that's up for discussion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:06, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Weapons

The Vietnam war was, I think, the first to see widespread use of certain weapons: attack helicopters, napalm, agent orange, and for all I know others. Are these worth a mention here, or should they be skipped as irrelevant to today's traveller?

Last I heard (1980s) mines were still a major hazard in (at least) parts of Laos. Is that still the case? Should we add a link to War_zone_safety#Land_mines_and_unexploded_ordnance; I'd say yes but I do not have up-to-date information. Pashley (talk) 15:44, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

At this late date, I agree. I do believe that unexploded mines remain an issue in parts of Cambodia, too, although I hope I'm wrong. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:16, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Good summary

I copy edited the historical summary a bit, but I want to praise the people who worked on it. It seems pretty fair and accurate to me. It necessarily skips things, but that's the nature of a summary. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:18, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: since made this comment, a lot of text has been added to the Understand section. Do you think that despite the lengthening it is still a good summary, or that it should be cut back to maintain the focus on travel destinations? Ground Zero (talk) 17:48, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the edits up to the quote by Eisenhower are good. The additional information about Thailand strikes me as irrelevant. I also doubt the relevance of ASEAN. The sections on the Laotian Civil War and the Spillover to Laos and Cambodia seem OK to me. This sentence about Thailand seems irrelevant (Thailand was not the only country or the only country in Southeast Asia that persecuted alleged communists): "The U.S.-backed military regime of Thailand, fearing to become the next 'domino' to fall for communism, committed atrocities against citizens suspected of supporting the communists." The edits to the paragraph beginning with "In the course of the war and chaos, Cambodia" seem relevant, but the following paragraph is not. Neither is this sentence: "The draft was an important reason to adopt the 26th amendment, lowering voting age from 21 to 18." That's domestic U.S. politics and not travel-relevant to any country. I see another paragraph on ASEAN. I don't think this article is about ASEAN. "ASEAN" redirects to Southeast Asia#Get in, which seems like a proper focus for a travel guide. I'd note that similar search terms, such as "OAS" (Organization of American States) and "Arab League" don't even have redirects, and "African Union" redirects to Africa. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

The thing is, ASEAN was formed precisely to resist communism. It may no longer have that role today (with Vietnam and Laos admitted in the 1990s despite officially still being communist), but that was the initial role. Brunei did not gain independence until 1984, which is why it only joined so late. And ASEAN also played an important role in getting Vietnamese troops to withdraw from Cambodia. As for Thailand, it should be mentioned in some capacity, because it was arguably the most important U.S. ally in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Thailand actually has a long history of allying itself with whoever the strongest country was, and there was fear that if South Vietnam fell, Thailand would allow communist forces in Vietnam free passage to proceed to Malaysia and Singapore and topple their governments. Of course, as it turned out, that did not happen. The dog2 (talk) 22:24, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

No-one is arguing for all mentions of Thailand to be removed, but this article is not about Thailand and certainly not about Thailand during World War II or earlier. As for ASEAN, if you want to cover it in relation to the Indochina Wars in 2-3 sentences, go ahead, though I'm still skeptical (for example, China was much more relevant to the so-called "Emergency" in Malaysia than Vietnam was), but no more. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

If you want to remove the bits about Thailand during World War II, go ahead. And I only said that there was a fear that Thailand would allow the Vietnamese communists free passage to bolster the ranks of communist insurgents in Malaysia and Singapore. I did not say that the fear was justified, but from talking to my older relatives who lived through that period, that fear certainly existed. And yes, you are right that China was the main financial backer of the communist insurgencies in Thailand and Malaysia, not Vietnam. So when Lee Kuan Yew successfully convinced Deng Xiaoping to pull the funding, those insurgencies swiftly collapsed. The dog2 (talk) 22:45, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think you're getting my point. Alleged communists were persecuted in many, many countries including the U.S. And that's not travel-related. Please focus on travel. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:52, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

How's this? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

That mostly looks fine to me, but don't you think we should also mention the persecution of Buddhists by Diem, who was a Roman Catholic? I'd say that was a major reason why he was so unpopular in Vietnam, thus allowing the communists to gain public support. The dog2 (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Where's the travel relevance? Also, here's a comparison between the current version and the version at the end of 2019. How significant was ASEAN opposition really to the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia? Do you really think that had a lot to do with their decision to withdraw? My impression at the time was that they withdrew because the campaign was expensive and they felt that Heng Samrin's forces would be able to handle the combat on their own with mere aid and advisement from the Vietnamese Armed Forces. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:16, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

If there are any memorials in Vietnam to the persecution of Buddhists by Diem, maybe you can make that travel-relevant, but considering that communism tends to be officially atheist, are there really any such memorials? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:17, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There is a memorial on the site in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) where the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc self-immolated in protest against the persecution of Buddhist's by the Diem government. See [1]. The dog2 (talk) 23:21, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Ikan Kekek, yours were good edits, but I think more can be done to make this a concise history. I have taken a run at the first section, and will return later. Ground Zero (talk) 23:25, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Your edits look good. The dog2, I'd say go ahead and restore the content about Diem and his persecution of Buddhists, with specific reference to the monument. That would make it clearly travel-relevant. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:44, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Singapore

... wasn't in Indochina, and there is nothing to see there now related to the war, so I think the section should be removed. If there were something specific that someone could visit, I would feel differently. It would indeed br relevant if we were writing a history here, but I think we agree that we're not doing that. Ground Zero (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

You can visit the main area where American troops fighting in Vietnam went for their R&R, but it's no longer a red light district, with a shopping centre having been built on the site. All that's been preserved is the facades of some of the shophouses in the area. However, Sembawang is where the American naval ships actually docked, and remains home to a small logistics facility used by the U.S. military. The port itself is not accessible to the public, but you can go to Sembawang, and if you're lucky, catch sight of one of the American ships docked there. The dog2 (talk) 00:03, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I've never been to Singapore, so I'd like to hear thoughts from other contributors. This sounds like it gives me no travel information at all. Seeing a few preserved shop fronts and, from a distance, naval ships that were not used in the Indochina War, does not sound relevant to the travel topic. Ground Zero (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd say delete the section. Pashley (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Thailand sites

Similarly, the two sites listed for Thailand seem to be only distantly related to the war:

"Bangkok. Capital of the United States' most important ally during the Indochina Wars. Bangkok was designated a destination for rest and recreation (R&R), bringing a boom to the city's nightlife and a strong American influence in pop culture during the 1960s. Numerous former GIs returned to Thailand, settling permanently after their retirement. The era is documented by a few remaining former GI hotels, the Patpong (redlight district) Museum, National Memorial and Royal Thai Air Force Museum.

"Pattaya. Merely a fishing village before the war, Pattaya owes its growth and reputation as a (sex) tourism destination to the R&R leaves of American soldiers. The city's U-Tapao International Airport was also previously a base housing U.S. bombers carrying out strategic bombing missions in the wars."

Do these places look anything like what the American (Aus, NZ, SK, Thai) soldiers would have seen in 1975? Or have they been so re-built that they are unrecognizable? Ground Zero (talk) 03:27, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Both, I suspect. Certainly I've heard former US servicemen in the Philippines bemoaning the fact that Subic & Clark ain't what they used to be. Pashley (talk) 06:06, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd keep this, but would not describe Thailand as "the United States' most important ally". I know Australia & NZ sent troops, not sure who else. Pashley (talk) 06:51, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Thailand was the U.S.' forward base. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:49, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

To my knowledge, Pattaya was a tranquil coastal village, and got developed to serve GIs on their R&R, and that's what made it the sex tourism destination it is today. And ditto with Khao San Road in Bangkok. There's probably some more development since the end of the Vietnam War, but the characters of these places really owe much to the Vietnam War. That's why Pattaya today has been overdeveloped, and is not a place I will go to for a relaxing beach holiday. So unlike Singapore, the R&R destinations in Thailand seem to have retained much of the character that they developed during the Vietnam War. The dog2 (talk) 08:00, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Writing style

"Diem, who was a Roman Catholic, enacted discriminatory laws against the Buddhist majority, making him very unpopular among the citizenry of South Vietnam. The Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức self-immolated in protest at a busy intersection in Saigon. Today, there is a memorial on the site commemorating Đức and his self-immolation."

I understand the desire to be concise, but I feel now we are sacrificing the flow of the language in an effort to make things short. In the above segment, I tried to re-word this so the first sentence flows better into the second, but I see that there are vehement objections. Do we really want to adopt a very dry writing style just for the sake of brevity at any cost? The dog2 (talk) 13:43, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see a vehement objection, just a disagreement. I would support adding "One result was that" at the beginning of the sentence in question, but what's more important to me is that there be a listing for the monument in the Ho Chi Minh City article. In a quick look, I may have missed it, but I'm not seeing one. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:56, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Added. The dog2 (talk) 15:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the listing with the location. That is useful travel information. Ground Zero (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Post-war "legacy"

Regarding this sentence, that The dog2 in insisting on,

"Relations between Vietnam and China continue to be tense due to unresolved maritime border disputes, though there is now substantial cross-border trade between the two countries."

There is a lot that has happened in the region since 1991. Getting into 30 more years of history would make this section very long, without adding any travel-related information.

We have now cut this back to a still -lengthy summary. Adding more post-war stuff in doesn't make this more useful for travellers. As Ikan Kekek noted, a good summarize necessarily skips things.

If we want to get into depth on post-war Indochina, maybe a separate article would be a better idea. I don't know what points of interest could be used to make it a travel topic. Ground Zero (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

China actually gained control of the Paracel Islands in a war with South Vietnam in 1974, so that was very much of the Indochina Wars. And that is still an active territorial dispute between China and Vietnam, which causes anti-China protests in Vietnam to flare up from time to time. The last time I visited Vietnam (in 2015), the anti-China sentiment was very much palpable. That said, the land border has since been settled, so a lot of trade passes through it today, and there is heavy Chinese investment in the Vietnamese economy (China built the Hanoi Metro, for instance), so despite the tensions, I'd say a hot war is unlikely in this day and age, and it's generally safe for Chinese tourists to visit Vietnam and vice versa. The dog2 (talk) 17:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I spent a month in Vietnam in early 2020 with my Chinese-Canadian husband. We encountered no hostility whatsoever, and found the Vietnamese people to be friendly. The text in question makes no mention of concerns for tourists of Chinese origin, in any event. Ground Zero (talk) 18:22, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I did not encounter any hostility myself either, and Vietnamese people in general make a distinction between someone from China, and an ethnic Chinese from Singapore like myself (and likewise, my impression was that the locals considered Vietnam's ethnic Chinese to be fellow Vietnamese). But what I did hear was the odd jibe here and there against the Chinese government. For instance, the locals made it a point to emphasise that Facebook and YouTube are allowed in Vietnam but banned in China. The dog2 (talk) 18:28, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd want to emphasize The dog2's note about "of Chinese origin" not quite being the moving part here. All of Southeast Asia has significant local Chinese minorities, but they're quite culturally distinct from mainlanders. Mainland tourists do face negative stereotypes in broad swathes of the world, increasingly including those outside Asia entirely. That said, the proximate part of this involves the popularity of group tourism packages in China and the stereotypes of the kind of person who travels on them; these tend to have walled gardens of travel guides and aren't necessarily relevant in the Wikivoyage context. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek, Pashley: I'd like other views on this. I see having discussion about post-war events as being as a slippery slope toward this "summary" being expanded further and crowding out the travel information. The amount of text added over the last two years demonstrates how likely that is to happen. Ground Zero (talk) 20:14, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The Paracels are a small footnote. I'm not opposed to a very brief mention, but only one sentence. Are there any other things you're thinking about? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:57, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

No. Only the Paracels and the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War are relevant to this article, I'd say. The tense relations between China and Vietnam today are a result of both those wars. The dog2 (talk) 03:01, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

And they are relevant to travellers in what way? Maybe you'd like to suggest some less important text that could be removed from Understand so that the hard work done in cutting out the bloat in this section isn't undone? Ground Zero (talk) 03:11, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

If you've noticed, I haven't mentioned anything about the Paracels in the article. But the animosity against China is something you will notice when you talk to Vietnamese people. That doesn't mean that Chinese tourists are not welcome, but it means that you are likey to hear a few jibes thrown at China. The dog2 (talk) 04:17, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

That might be more relevant to Vietnam#Respect than an article about wars. What do you think? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:25, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

The text in question makes no mention of attitudes towards Chinese tourists, so this is a red herring. Further, there seem to be no problems for non-PRC Chinese, and few if any problems for PRC tourists, who are most likely travelling with a tour guide who would shield them from interactions with Vietnamese people anyway. And it still isn't about the Indochina Wars of 1946-1989. The reason we end up with bloated Understand sections is that people don't stay on topic.

This, again, is the text that I propose to remove: "Relations between Vietnam and China continue to be tense due to unresolved maritime border disputes, though there is now substantial cross-border trade between the two countries." Ground Zero (talk) 04:40, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Then why is the statement about relations between Vietnam and U.S. relevant? Both America and China fought wars with Vietnam during the Indochina Wars. And there is a contrast here. While most Vietnamese have already forgiven the Americans, there is still animosity against the Chinese. As for tourists from China, it's true that most prefer package tours due to the language barrier, but there are also many who travel around independently, especially those who can speak English.The dog2 (talk) 13:10, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

The US relations part directly refers to tourism by veterans. 'Cause we're writing a travel guide here. And there will be a lit more American (Australian, Kiwi) tourists reading this guide than the independent PRC travellers. And the text in question does not address issues for travellers. It's just more geopolitical stuff that should be in Wikipedia, not here. Ground Zero (talk) 13:21, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Please restore the section about television and film. Many people in the western world have a lasting mental image of the Vietnam War through feature films, documentaries, or contemporary television reports (for the older generations). Other war articles, including American Civil War and World War II in Europe also mention the mass media aspects of the conflict and its legacy. /Yvwv (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, at least before COVID-19 hit, China was largest source of international tourists to Vietnam. I understand most mainland Chinese don't understand English, but there's no reason why we should not serve the minority who do, and given China's huge population, that minority numbers in the millions. 13:41, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

This text does not provide travel advice to Chinese travellers. Ground Zero (talk) 14:00, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

So let's just remove the Legacy section. It just provides an opening for amateur geopolitical analysis of the last 30 years, which will make the Understand section longer and take the focus away from travel information. Ground Zero (talk) 14:09, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, I have created a respect section and moved some of the stuff there so it can be covered in a way more directly relevant to travel. The dog2 (talk) 15:51, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Yvwv, what's the travel relevance of the content you'd like to restore? Maybe we should at least pare down the "Read" section in American Civil War (who cares whether Stonewall Jackson sucked on lemons?) and the "Legacy" section of World War II in Europe, the first two paragraphs of which are seemingly not travel-relevant. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:11, 10 December 2021 (UTC)