Speech delivered by Comrade Hoang thuy Giang (Communist
Party of Vietnam) at the International Meeting of the
Communist and Workers' Parties on �Capitalist crisis, the
globalization and the answer of the working class movement�

Athens, May 21-23/1999

Comrade chairman,
Dear comrades and friends,

First of all let me extend to you the greetings of
solidarity and friendship from the Vietnamese Communist
Party's delegation. We highly appreciate the organization
of international meetings of Communist and Workers'
Parties, which create opportunities for us to meet and
exchange points of view on the problem, facing the
Communist and working class movement as well as the issues
of mutual concern, thus enhance mutual understanding and
co-operation between Parties. We would like to express our
gratitude to the Communist Party of Greece for its
contribution to the success of this meeting.
Due to the limit of time, we would like to concentrate on
analyzing the following two issues:
The monetary and financial crisis in Southeast Asia
The tendency of globalization and its impacts.
As you know, the monetary and financial crisis in Southeast
Asia erupted in July 1997 and has prolonged since then. The
crisis, which originally was financial has spread to become
a monetary and finally economic, financial and political
crisis, which has spread to Northeast Asia, Russia, South
Korea and Latin America, affecting even the developed
capitalist countries.
Within a short period of time, the crisis has made many
Southeast Asian and other countries stumble into a very
serious situation, in which economies recess, production
slow down, unemployment increase, foreign debts rocket,
thousands of enterprises go bankrupt. To be able to pay
foreign debts, get over the crisis, recover economy, most
of the countries in crisis have to accept the solutions
imposed by IMF, and G7 nations, which include many
unfavorable economic financial, monetary and political
conditions. This make their national economies get more
dependent on IMF and Western countries, especially America.
On the main causes of the crisis is the increasing role and
the speculation activities of the international capital.
The financial capital has taken advantage of the
globalization, which makes national financial markets
intertwined in a global network, and the scientific and
technological revolution to control the whole international
financial and trading system. For the sake of maximum
profit, they are always daring to shift dozens or hundreds
of billions of dollars from one country to another to
speculate not to invest in production. This flow of capital
can reach over 1,000 billion USD per day. This situation
causes crisis, which leaves devastating consequences to the
developing countries like what happened in Southeast Asia
recently.
Such increasing role and stronger activities of the
financial capital represent accurately the development laws
and the parasitic, corrupting essence of capitalism and
imperialism, which was predicted by V. Lenin earlier this
century. Many researchers of the capitalist developed
countries have come to use the term �casino capitalism� to
refer to capitalism.
It is our opinion that globalization is an objective course
of development of present world's economy. Its objective
certainty is defined by the increasingly high level of
development of the production force that the human kind has
achieved after two industrial revolutions and especially
during the contemporary scientific and technological
revolution. However, the course of globalization which is
taken place at present is controlled by the developed
industrial countries, TNC and capitalist forces, especially
financial capital. They are doing their best to make sure
that the globalization takes place in a manner which bring
them the utmost benefits, so that their interests, not only
economically (though it is the first and foremost concern),
but also politically and security are best satisfied.
Globalization is involving all nations, taking place in the
international labor distribution and global economy. This
process is having very strong impacts on the developing
countries.
In our view, the following issues are worth noting:
First, with globalization, the developing countries can
make full use of their comparative advantages to get a
deserving position in the international distribution to
develop their national economies. On the other hand, for
the sake of their own interests, the capitalist forces
constantly promote the formation of a �Center -
Surrounding� model of global economy, in which the
developing countries (the �surrounding�) gets more
developed countries (the �center�) and increasingly badly
exploited.
Second, globalization paves the way for capital to access
to all markets in the world to implement its basic
function, which is to seek maximum profits. Together with
capital there come technique technologies and management
experiences. To some extends, the developing countries can
attract external resources (capital, technique, technology
and management experiences.) to develop their economies.
But being controlled by the basic law of capitalism, this
flow of external resources always tends to promote the
formation of an unbalanced economic structure and an
unsustainable development in the developing countries. (It
is worth noting that due to unbalanced economic structures
and the speculative characteristic of capitalism, private
speculator's capital has reach a scale, much larger than
many developing countries' GDP).
Third, the developing countries can get their goods to the
international markets, but are under great pressure from
the competitors, which strongly affects many domestic
production branches. The advantage of the developing
countries sin the field of natural resources and labor
force is not enough to become a competition, especially
when the developing countries have not had any forms of
co-ordination in the international markets at present.
Fourth, the present world's reality proves that with
globalization, the gap between the rich and the poor and
the disparity of development levels between different
nations are getting greater. This reality is combined with
the exploitative essence of the international capital, the
capitalist characteristic of the globalization and
regionalization.
Fifth, socio-economically speaking, globalization has
brought the struggle in the field of ideology, culture and
the system of socio-cultural values to a new period, which
is more acute and fiercer than ever. Moreover, the national
independence, economically and culturally has more than
ever become a burning issue.
Dear comrades and friends,
Since nearly two months now, America and NATO have carried
out attack against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, an
independent, sovereign member of the United Nations,
devastating the country, causing great human and material
losses to the Yugoslav people. I think, this is a test of
the American-led NATO's new global strategy, which endanger
the world's peace and national security. On this, the
Foreign Ministry of Vietnam issued a statement, saying:
�Together with the international community, the people and
the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam are
indignant at the military attack against the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia by the NATO forces. This act
seriously violates independence, sovereignty and
territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, contrary to the United Nations' Charter and
international laws, further complicating the Kosovo issue,
provoking tension in the Balkan region, Europe and the
world, thus making itself a dangerous precedent in
international relations. We demand that all military acts
against Yugoslavia be immediately stopped and reaffirm our
consistent position of absolute respect for independence
and sovereignty of all nations and peaceful settlement to
all conflicts. Vietnam support other country's efforts
along this line so that the situation in Yugoslavia can be
soon stabilized and the Yugoslav people can enjoy
conditions conductive to their national restoration and
development.
In this circumstance, we think that it is necessary for the
Communist and Workers' Parties, the Revolutionary and
progressive forces to consolidate their unity, co-ordinate
their actions against the policy of force and interference
of the imperialism for peace, national independence and
social progress.

Thank you for your attention.