Forty years after the fall of Saigon, Vietnam today enjoys rapid growth as a semi-developed economy. It would be meaningful for Japan to look back at the changes that have taken place over the past four decades in both Vietnam and all of Southeast Asia and review its relations with the country and the region itself.
On April 30, 1975, the People's Army of Vietnam (the armed forces of North Vietnam) and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (known as the Viet Cong) took Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam and now Ho Chi Minh City, ending the war that had lasted some 15 years.
It was in 1960 that the Viet Cong was formed and started its armed struggle against the South Vietnamese government. The United States, which supported South Vietnam, started its military intervention in 1962 and began bombing North Vietnam in 1965. The U.S. started withdrawing its troops from Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 went into force. The North Vietnamese forces and Viet Cong launched a large-scale offensive in March 1975 that eventually led to the fall of Saigon.