Mainland Southeast Asia: Turmoil and Peace - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 438

its seafood production is shrimp. Its chief shrimp-
producing area is Halong Bay east of Hanoi (Figure 15-16).
Vietnam has some 200 shipyards that build every
type of craft from fishing vessels and container ships to
oil tankers. Plans are to be using at least 75 percent local
inputs by 2015. Vietnam expects to become one of the
world' s top five shipbuilders by 2020.
Beach resorts have been developed all along Viet-
nam' is magnificent coast. The most well known is the new
complex on China Beach near Danang—a site that be-
came famous during the Vietnam War. T Tourism industry
experts project that 100 million Chinese will travel over-
seas by 2020. Many of them will join Japanese, Tai-
wanese, and Korean vacationers at Vietnam' s new golf
courses and beach resorts.
If Vietnam can weather the global downturn, it will
be able to live up to its reputation as “Asia' s Baby Tiger.”

Laos: Land of a Million Elephants

The Lao People' s Democratic Republic, now often re-
ferred to as simply Lao or Laos, is a mountainous, land-
locked, sparsely populated country sharing borders with
Thailand, Myanmar, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia (re-
fer to Figure 15-13). Laos, as we know it today , is a
creation of the French, but much of its history has in-
volved conflict with its surrounding countries.

Figure 15-16
Halong Bay is famous for its karst topography . It is also Vietnam' is
premier shrimp and crayfish producing region. Photograph courtesy
of B. A. Weightman.

LAN XANG
There are no early documentary records of early Lao his-
tory , but we know that the region had links to Chiang
Mai in the eleventh century and that it was a satellite of
the Khmer empire in the twelfth century . The first king-
dom of Laos emerged in 1353. This was known as Lan
Xang : “a million elephants.”
Lan Xang stretched from China to Cambodia and from
the Khorat Plateau in present Thailand to the Annamite
Mountains in the east. Louang Phrabang, on the Mekong,
became the capital of Lan Xang, and the king made Ther-
avada Buddhism the official religion. A census in 1376 indi-
cates that there were 300,000 Thais living in the kingdom.
Muang administrative districts were organized, and these
lasted until abolished by the Communists in 1975.
In the sixteenth century , Vientiane (Viangchan) on
the Mekong became prominent as a religious and trading
center. Lan Xang weathered wars with the Vietnamese,
the Thais, and eventually the Burmese. Nevertheless, Vi-
entiane reached its zenith in the seventeenth century .

lending program to support the economy during the crisis.
While foreign investment has declined overall, foreign
donors have promised US$8 billion for new development
assistance in 2010.

FISH, SHIPS, AND TOURISTS
In 2007, Vietnam published its “Ocean Strategy 2020.”
Offshore oil and gas production along with beach-front
tourism are additional ways by which the country hopes
to make the most of its (3,200 km) coastline. Global de-
mand for farmed fish and large ships is on the rise. How-
ever, Vietnam still does not have a deep-water port and
infrastructure is still lacking. Even so, the government
intends that by 2020, fish, ships, and tourism and related
services will account for more than half of the GDP as
compared to 15 percent in 2005.
Although Vietnam has at least 50 varieties of food
fish available in its seas, rivers, and canals, almost half of