Vietnam Profile
History, Politics, and Current Conditions
Originating in what is now southern China and northern Vietnam,the Vietnamese people pushed southward over 2 millennia to occupy the entireeastern seacoast of the Indochinese Peninsula. EthnicVietnamese constitute about 90 percent of Vietnam’s population. Vietnam’s approximately 2.3 million ethnicChinese, concentrated mostly in southern Vietnam,constitute Vietnam’slargest minority group. Long important in the Vietnamese economy, Vietnamese ofChinese ancestry have been active in rice trading, milling, real estate, andbanking in the south and shop keeping, stevedoring, and mining in the north.Restrictions on economic activity following reunification of the north andsouth in 1975 and the subsequent but unrelated general deterioration inVietnamese-Chinese relations sent…
