Tra Co Beach

IDD Code: (+84) 33
Tra Co's claim to fame is that it is the northern­most beach resort in Vietnam. The downside is that it's also the closest to China. A fine beach of hard-packed sand with shallow water at 17km in length it's one of the longest stretches of sandy beachfront real estate in Vietnam. Sadly it's succumbing to dodgy developments. It's still a small-scale resort, but there's a high season between May and August, with many Vietnamese and Chinese tourists and the usual swathe of karaoke bars and massage parlours. Out of season it's worth the detour (from Mong Cai, not Hanoi). It's peaceful clean and beautiful. It's a more tranquil option for an overnight stay than Mong Cai. There are plenty of hotels and guesthouses; those described here have direct beach front-age. Low-season rates are given; expect inflation in high season. Tra Co Beach Hotel (tell: 881264) A rambling old government hotel, it has a prime location on the beach. Rooms are pretty run down, but there is a certain raffish charm about the place.    Hotel Gio Bien (tell: 881635|). This is a family-run minihotel. located just off the main road as you enter town from Mong Cai. Rooms on the upper floors haw shared balconies and a bird's-eye panorama over the beach. Opposite the Tra Co Beach Motel, on the edge of the beach, are some great little restau­rants knocking out fresh seafood.

GETTING THERE & AWAY
A one-way metered taxi from Mong Cai, a motorbike taxi is cheaper. Inexplicably, the road deteriorates into a pot-holed mess on arrival in Tra Co. before turning into a superhighway after a couple of kilometres.

NEIGHBOURING TENSIONS
Mong Cai is a free-trade zone with plenty of frenetic activity in the city's booming markets, It wasn't always so. From 1978 to 1990 the border was virtually sealed. How two former friends became such bitter enemies and then 'friends' again is a spicy story.

China was on good terms with North Vietnam from 1954 (when the French left) until the late 1970s. But relations began to sour shortly after reunification, as the Vietnamese government became more and more friendly with China's rival, the USSR. There's good reason to believe that Vietnam was simply playing them off against each other, while receiving aid from both.

In March 1978 the Vietnamese government launched a campaign in the south against 'commer­cial opportunists', seizing private property to complete the country's 'socialist transformation.The campaign hit the ethnic Chinese particularly hard. It was widely assumed that the Marxist-Leninist rhetoric was a smokescreen for ancient Vietnamese antipathy towards the Chinese.

The anti-capitalist and anti-Chinese campaign caused up to 500,000 of Vietnam's 1.0 .million ethnic Chinese citizens to flee the country. Those in the north fled overland to China, while those in the south left by sea- The creation of Chinese refugees in the south proved to be lucrative for the government - to leave. Chinese entrepreneurs in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) had that kind of money, but refugees in the north were mostly dirt poor.

In response, China cut all aid to Vietnam, cancelled dozens of development projects and with­drew 800 technicians. Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in (ate 1978 was the final straw: Beijing -alarmed because the Khmer Rouge was its close ally, and worried by the huge build-up of Soviet military forces on the Chinese-Soviet border - became convinced that Vietnam had fallen into the Russian camp, which was trying to encircle China with hostile forces. Which, ironically enough, was exactly what Vietnam suspected about the Chinese-Khmer Rouge alliance.

In February 1979 China invaded northern Vietnam at Lang Son 'to teach the Vietnamese a les­son'. Just what lesson the Vietnamese learned is not clear, but the Chinese learned that Vietnam's troops, battle-hardened by many years of righting the USA, were no pushovers. Although China's forces were withdrawn after 17 days. and the operation was officially declared a 'great success', most observers soon realised that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) had been badly mauled by the Vietnamese. It is believed to have suffered 20,000 casualties in 21/2 weeks of fighting. Ironi­cally, China's aid to Vietnam was partially responsible for China's humiliation.

Officially, these 'misunderstandings'are considered ancient history. Trade across the Chinese-Vietnamese border is booming and both countries profess to be 'good neighbours'. In practice, China and Vietnam remain highly suspicious of each other's intentions. Continued conflicts over who owns oil-drilling rights in the South China Sea are exacerbating tensions. The border area remains militarily sensitive, though the most likely future battleground is at sea.

If you visit China and discuss this border war you will almost certainly be told that China acted in self-defence because the Vietnamese were launching raids across the border and murdering innocent Chinese villagers. Virtually all Western observers, from the US government's Central Intelligence Agency to historians, consider China's version of events to be nonsense. The Chinese also claim they won this war. Nobody outside of China believes that, either.

For the inside story on how the communist comrades fell out, read Brother Enemy (1988) by Nayan Chanda, an excellent account of Cold War power plays and the making and breaking of alliances.