South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon, before becoming a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh City, commonly known as Saigon, is the most populous city in Vietnam, with a population of around 9.3 million in 2023. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the eponymously-named Saigon River is the largest. As a municipality, Ho Chi Minh City consists of 16 urban districts, five rural districts, and one municipal city (sub-city). As the largest financial centre in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City has the highest gross regional domestic product out of all Vietnam provinces and municipalities, contributing around a quarter of the country's total GDP. Ho Chi Minh City's metropolitan area is ASEAN's 6th largest economy, also the biggest outside an ASEAN country capital.
Hồ Chí Minh, colloquially known as Uncle Ho or just Uncle (Bác), and by other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese communist revolutionary, nationalist, and politician. He served as prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 to 1955 and as president from 1945 until his death, in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he was the Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam, the predecessor of the current Communist Party of Vietnam.
The Việt Minh was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Front, it was created by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) as a national united front to achieve the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
The First Indochina War was fought between France and Việt Minh, and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 20 July 1954. Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
Overseas Vietnamese refers to Vietnamese people who live outside Vietnam. There are approximately 5 million overseas Vietnamese, the largest community of whom live in the United States.
Ho Chi Minh CityFootball Club, simply known as TP Hồ Chí Minh, and commonly known as TPHCM, is a professional football club based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The club competes in the V.League 1, the highest level of Vietnamese football, since the 2017 season after winning the Vietnam's 2016 V.League 2 league in the 2016 season. The club was formerly known as Cảng Sài Gòn between 1975 and 2009.The club's home ground is the Thống Nhất Stadium.
Koreans in Vietnam form an unrecognized minority group in Vietnam.
Vietnamese people in Korea, also known as Vietnamese Koreans, have a history dating back to the 12th century. After the division of Korea and the Korean War, ethnic Vietnamese had various contacts with both North and South Korea. They are Vietnamese expatriates in Korean peninsular or Korean born-citizens were born of partially or full Vietnamese descent. In the latter, Vietnamese are the second-largest group of foreigners, after Chinese migrants.
Vietnamese people in Taiwan form one of the island's larger communities of foreign residents. Of the roughly 80,000 Vietnamese workers who resided in Taiwan as of 2006, 60,000 are employed as domestic helpers, 16,000 work in factories, 2,000 in marine-based industries, and the remainder in other lines of work. They compose 21% of the island's foreign workers. 42% work in Taipei City, New Taipei City, and Taoyuan City. Additionally, 118,300 Vietnamese women who met Taiwanese men through illegal matchmaking services resided in Taiwan as of 2005. Taiwan, along with China and Cambodia, were rated "Tier 2" for their abuses against foreign laborers and illegal brides due to their lack of effort in combating human trafficking.
Zeng Xueming, known in Vietnamese as Tăng Tuyết Minh, was a Chinese midwife. She was a Catholic from Guangzhou and it was claimed that she married Nguyễn Ái Quốc in October 1926. They lived together until April 1927, when Hồ fled China following an anti-communist coup. Despite several attempts to renew contact by both Zeng and Hồ, the couple never reunited. Zeng and Hồ were never legally divorced, nor was their marriage ever annulled. There is uncertainty of true happenings as some say it was a marriage of convenience to avoid Hồ's political persecution during his time in Kuomintang-ruled China, whilst others say the story was never true to begin with, and was only a hypothesis.
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was a socialist state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1945 to 1976, with formal sovereignty being fully recognized in 1954. A member of the Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-backed State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam. North Vietnam emerged victorious over South Vietnam in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it unified with the south to become the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Vietnamese migrant brides in Taiwan represent marriages between Taiwanese men and Vietnamese brides who are mostly from poor, rural areas of Vietnam, such as those along the Mekong Delta. As of 2006, out of Taiwan’s immigrant population of approximately 428,240 people, 18% were females who had relocated to the country through marriage. Out of this population, about 85% originated from the Southeast Asian countries of Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Philippines, with the majority hailing from Vietnam. It is estimated that between the years of 1995 and 2003, the number of Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese men increased from 1,476 to more than 60,000 individuals, making the Vietnamese the largest non-Chinese immigrant group living in the island. This event has been seen locally and abroad as something that can potentially evolve into a concerning societal and humanitarian issue. This issue is not just localised in Taiwan but also in Southern China provinces as well as Hong Kong and Macau. In every case, these practices are illegal and are classified under human trafficking.
Lawrence S. Ting was a Taiwanese decorated soldier and a pioneer businessman who became one of the largest foreign investors in Vietnam. As founder of Phu My Hung Corporation and Saigon South Urban Development Project, Lawrence Ting was instrumental in the southward expansion of Ho Chi Minh City. Today, the neighborhood created by Ting has become “a new sustainable, inclusive, knowledge-based urban center.” Ting received the Ho Chi Minh City Medal of Honor in 1993 and Certificates of Merit of the Government of Vietnam from the Prime Minister in 1997 and 2001. In the 2013 Harvard Business Review article The Big Idea, Building Sustainable Cities, John Macomber of Harvard Business School chose Phu My Hung's Saigon South Development Project started by Lawrence Ting as one of the leading sustainable urban development examples in the world. “Phu My Hung was promoted by industrialists who took a long-term ‘build and hold’ approach and had an infrastructure-first master plan...The Model of Phu My Hung, where thoughtful, long-term oriented, private-sector actors help the world create efficient water, power, and transit solutions, can-and must-be replicated.” Ting received posthumously the Friendship Medal of Vietnam from President Nguyen Minh Triet in December 2007. Lawrence S. Ting School in Ho Chi Minh City, a private non-profit junior high and senior high school is named after him. In 2010, the school became the first Microsoft Pathfinder School in Vietnam. In 2020, Taipei American School named its middle school Lawrence S. Ting Middle School in honor of Ting.
Taiwan–Vietnam relations are conducted on an unofficial level, as Hanoi adheres to a one-China policy and officially recognises the People's Republic of China only. However, this has not stopped bilateral visits, immigration and investment capital between Taiwan and Vietnam. Taiwan has been the fourth largest source of foreign direct investment in Vietnam since 2006. Both countries maintain representative offices; Taiwan is represented by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigón), while Vietnam is represented by the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, both acting as de facto embassies. Vietnam is, to date, the only communist state to have informal relations with Taiwan.
In mid-1940, Nazi Germany rapidly defeated the French Third Republic, and the colonial administration of French Indochina passed to the French State. Many concessions were granted to the Empire of Japan, such as the use of ports, airfields, and railroads. Japanese troops first entered parts of Indochina in September 1940, and by July 1941 Japan had extended its control over the whole of French Indochina. The United States, concerned by Japanese expansion, started putting embargoes on exports of steel and oil to Japan from July 1940. The desire to escape these embargoes and to become self-sufficient in resources ultimately contributed to Japan's decision to attack on December 7, 1941, the British Empire and simultaneously the USA. This led to the USA declaring war against Japan on December 8, 1941. The US then joined the side of the British Empire, at war with Germany since 1939, and its existing allies in the fight against the Axis powers.
Taipei School in Ho Chi Minh City is a Taiwanese international school in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam is the representative office of Taiwan in Vietnam, which functions as a de facto embassy in the absence of diplomatic relations. It also has responsibility for Laos.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Ho Chi Minh City represents the interests of Taiwan in the southern regions of Vietnam and Cambodia, functioning as a de facto consulate in the absence of diplomatic relations. There is also a Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam located in Hanoi, which has responsibility for relations with the northern regions of Vietnam as well as Laos.
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