The 20th century history of Vietnam was defined by conflict. Between periods of resistance to French colonization, fighting Japanese occupation in WWII, the war with the United States and regional conflicts involving Cambodia and China, Vietnam was left with little time for nation building. Recently, Vietnam has finally experienced an extended period of peace and is using this opportunity to emerge from obscurity and become a major player in the world economy. The nation of Vietnam, officially called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is located on the eastern side of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. Vietnam is bordered to the north by People’s Republic of China, to the northwest by Laos, to the southwest by Cambodia and to the east by the South China Sea. Vietnam’s long coastline with the South China Sea is of strategic importance as this allows for significant control of this body of water (Burke, 2011). The location of Vietnam was also considered of vital importance during the Cold War. Many politicians and military officials believed that if Vietnam fell to the communists that a domino effect would begin and several other East Asian countries would become communist as well (Moise, 2011). This theory led to the Vietnam War which greatly impacted the history of Vietnam. This war, however, was but one chapter in the Vietnamese struggle for a unified and independent nation. At the beginning of the 20th century Vietnam was a French colony and been a part of French Indochina since 1887 (CIA, 2005). The French established a plantation economy setting up an export colony producing commodities such as coffee and tobacco. Many aspects of French culture were introduced to the Vietnamese people including a western style school system and Catholicism. French influence was particularly strong in the southern half of the nation as that is where the French settled