CCW Adams Esq
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2 May 1986
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that is published in Vietnam. Most of them are experienced Vietnam "hands" who speak fluent Vietnamese. The Ambassador himself is now on his third tour, amounting to a total of 15 years in country. (In contrast to this, the Deputy Director of the Asia Department of the MFA in Peking told me the other day that he himself has never actually visited Indo-China.)
6.
The subject of the Chinese in Vietnam is one that deserves more study. The Chinese Ambassador's own figures are that there are still about 2 million Chinese in Vietnam, almost all in the south, of whom 1 million or thereabouts are in Cholon. He said that most of the prosperous ones from the south have left for Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the USA and Australia, etc. (When briefing the FAC, the Director of IMEXCO, the Ho Chi Minh City trading corporation, said that one of the reasons IMEXCO's major non-socialist trading partners are Singapore and Hong Kong is because business is done between "Those who have left Vietnam and those who are still in Cholon".)
7.
The question of the citizenship of the Overseas Chinese still in Vietnam is, according to the Ambassador, still an issue between the two countries. He said that the issue was settled some years ago insofar as the north is concerned, with most Chinese who remained becoming Vietnamese citizens. When in Peking I asked whether this meant that Chinese had changed their names as they have done in Indonesia and Thailand, to which the answer was that Vietnamese and Chinese names are so similar that there was no need for that.
8. I raised the point as to whether it was accurate to say that the Chinese in Vietnam are at present "persecuted" because they are Chinese. There was some hesitation on this but the answer given seemed to be that while there (was treatment that certainly amounted to persecution in
the period 1979-82, "discrimination" is probably the more appropriate term to describe the current attitudes. During the FAC visit when the subject of the Chinese exodus was raised, the Vietnamese said that much of the exodus in 1979-81 was the fault of China itself. Their version was that when
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