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Hanoi In the Red The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, like many another satellite of the Soviet Union, is in dire economic straits, and will stay there for the foreseeable future. Whereas once Vietnam produced a surplus of rice, for example, there is now an annual rice deficit of two million tons, and much of the rest of farm production goes to Moscow to pay for debtservicing. The peasants in the agricultural south have resisted collectivization despite extreme forms of “re-education,” while in the “loyal” north, public demonstrations of protest against industrial conditions have been staged in Hanoi and Haiphong. Unemployment stands at over one million in the urban zones and threatens to increase at a galloping rate for the next few years. Russian managers and technicians stationed here have grown unpopular; Russian supplies are openly pilfered, not to say confiscated, and Russian personnel are generally isolated by the Vietnamese from direct contact with the nerve-centers. In retaliation, there has been a slowing down of supplies for modernizing the all-important Vietnamese coal mines, abandonment of work on the vital north-south railway link with Saigon, and higher interest rates and shorter terms for the vast sums Hanoi owes Moscow. On this debt the Vietnamese have come to pay an annual $240 million, ten times what they were paying six years ago, and more than all Vietnamese exports earn in hard exchange. The dong, the Vietnamese unit of currency, is worth, after repeated devaluations, less than a quarter of its previous value. As in other Soviet-style economies, there is a flourishing black market on which the Vietnamese depend for food and other items. Politically, too, Vietnamese policy is near bankruptcy. Serious discord with China and the bogging down of its military operations in Laos and Cambodia have damaged the prestige of Vietnam as “the Prussia of Indochina,” while the free countries of Southeast Asia show little interest in any kind of dealings with Hanoi. In these circumstances, the recent nomination of a new chairman of the council of ministers who is said to have a pro-Chinese background may herald a more prudent foreign policy. He is 73-year-old Truong Chinh, whose name, meaning “Long March,” was chosen by him in the 1930s as a tribute to Mao Tse-tung. His arrival in power therefore suggests an attempt to pull back from the Soviet economic and political brink.

Johannesburg Whispers of Change There is increasing evidence that the South African business community is resisting the government’s racial policies and in particular the official view that there is no hurry about changing the conditions of work and education for blacks. For example, a statement to shareholders for 1981 made by Mike Rosholt, executive chairman of Barlow Rand, the biggest South African industrial group, says: “There is a growing understanding in this country that racial discrimination and economic growth are not compatible.” The statement added that it is “a matter of urgency to speed up . . . the removal of all discriminatory measures which restrict equal economic opportunities for all groups and which preclude effective participation by black entrepreneurs in the economy.” The statement especially criticized slowness in the provision of housing for blacks in cities; the lack of improvement in black schooling; and the rate of increase in the number of black apprentices.

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Hanoi In the Red The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, like many another satellite of the Soviet Union, is in dire economic straits, and will stay there for the foreseeable future. Whereas once Vietnam produced a surplus of rice, for example, there is now an annual rice deficit of two million tons, and much of the rest of farm production goes to Moscow to pay for debtservicing. The peasants in the agricultural south have resisted collectivization despite extreme forms of “re-education,” while in the “loyal” north, public demonstrations of protest against industrial conditions have been staged in Hanoi and Haiphong. Unemployment stands at over one million in the urban zones and threatens to increase at a galloping rate for the next few years. Russian managers and technicians stationed here have grown unpopular; Russian supplies are openly pilfered, not to say confiscated, and Russian personnel are generally isolated by the Vietnamese from direct contact with the nerve-centers. In retaliation, there has been a slowing down of supplies for modernizing the all-important Vietnamese coal mines, abandonment of work on the vital north-south railway link with Saigon, and higher interest rates and shorter terms for the vast sums Hanoi owes Moscow. On this debt the Vietnamese have come to pay an annual $240 million, ten times what they were paying six years ago, and more than all Vietnamese exports earn in hard exchange. The dong, the Vietnamese unit of currency, is worth, after repeated devaluations, less than a quarter of its previous value. As in other Soviet-style economies, there is a flourishing black market on which the Vietnamese depend for food and other items. Politically, too, Vietnamese policy is near bankruptcy. Serious discord with China and the bogging down of its military operations in Laos and Cambodia have damaged the prestige of Vietnam as “the Prussia of Indochina,” while the free countries of Southeast Asia show little interest in any kind of dealings with Hanoi. In these circumstances, the recent nomination of a new chairman of the council of ministers who is said to have a pro-Chinese background may herald a more prudent foreign policy. He is 73-year-old Truong Chinh, whose name, meaning “Long March,” was chosen by him in the 1930s as a tribute to Mao Tse-tung. His arrival in power therefore suggests an attempt to pull back from the Soviet economic and political brink.

Johannesburg Whispers of Change There is increasing evidence that the South African business community is resisting the government’s racial policies and in particular the official view that there is no hurry about changing the conditions of work and education for blacks. For example, a statement to shareholders for 1981 made by Mike Rosholt, executive chairman of Barlow Rand, the biggest South African industrial group, says: “There is a growing understanding in this country that racial discrimination and economic growth are not compatible.” The statement added that it is “a matter of urgency to speed up . . . the removal of all discriminatory measures which restrict equal economic opportunities for all groups and which preclude effective participation by black entrepreneurs in the economy.” The statement especially criticized slowness in the provision of housing for blacks in cities; the lack of improvement in black schooling; and the rate of increase in the number of black apprentices.