Another retreat is shaking Asia 50 years after the United States leaves Vietnam

Fifty years ago, my father was an American War journalist, climbed over the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and climbed onto a kitchen knife that took off from the roof of the mission.

“My last point of view on Saigon is to go through the tailgate of the helicopter,” he wrote in the Chicago Daily News. “Then the door closes – closed on the most humiliating chapter in American history.”

My father believed in the domino theory, and that the cascade of communism might occupy the land of Asia. He was a veteran of World War II and wrote a book titled “No irony, “Not without Americans.”

Titles seem to be an outdated, from the patriarchal Americans who are confident in their own flawed democracy, they envision a world formed in their own image. Half a century after the last U.S. military pulled in Vietnam, it is clear how Asia learns to live, even if not Americans, and then has a new great power: China.

Beijing’s imprints are everywhere, from the disputed waters of the South China Sea, where the delicate coral reefs are stirred up to build Chinese military bases to remote villages in Nepal, where Chinese goods are flooded through roads built by China.

President Trump’s tariffs, the despicable American diplomacy and the demolition of American aid agencies and the removal of hundreds of plans in Asia feels like another evacuation, not even forced by military forces.

In late March, an earthquake hit Myanmar, killing more than 3,700 people, and the United States is far less likely to provide assistance. It then fired U.S. aid workers on the U.S. ground.

“The United States used to represent hope and democracy, but now we are missing when we need them the most,” said Ko Aung Naing San, a resident of Saguanine, an epicenter of the earthquake’s devastated epicenter. “China quickly helped.”

But in his next breath, Mr. Ang Haining questioned Beijing’s intentions in Myanmar. He is worried that China will plunder Myanmar’s natural resources and help the United States. Four years ago, when a military government overturned the country’s elected leader, a pro-democratic resistance begged the United States to do anything to fight off the dictator.

Washington will not interfere in Myanmar. Another Southeast Asian quagmire is the last thing the U.S. government wants. But even if the U.S. base institutions may be threatened at home, the U.S. ideals and images continue to resonate overseas: Hollywood, Blue Gene, Green Oz Mud Free Concept.

In March, I interviewed General Chhum Socheat, Deputy Minister of Defense of Cambodia. There the United States helped renovate part of the military base, but the Cambodian government later turned to China for a complete modernization. The U.S. building was razed to the ground, and in early April, a Chinese-built factory was unveiled along with Chinese officers.

As we walked out of the interview, General Chhum Socheat took an hour to defend the authoritarian leader of Cambodia and patted my arm lightly.

“Is your American democracy a little difficult now?” he asked with astonishing attention.

I made an ambiguous voice. He pressed.

He said Cambodia is still recovering from the destruction of the Khmer Rouge era, during which radical communists razed the ground and oversee the death of one-fifth of the country’s population.

“We are developing democracy like the United States, but first we need peace and stability,” he said.

I suspect that Cambodia’s hereditary dictatorship eliminates political opposition and freedom of speech, which is indeed on the democratic trajectory. One of the reasons Cambodians accepted Khmer Rouge in 1975 was the brutal bombing movement that broke out during the American War.

Nevertheless, the Deputy Secretary of Defense mentioned that American democracy means lasting about ideals. General Chhum Socheat said he wishes Americans all the best and he urged me to believe that Cambodia wants to be with Americans too.

About 25 years ago, just before the last big anniversary of the Americans away from what is now Ho Chi Minh City, I met my father’s Vietnamese colleague, Pham Xuan An. As he instructed me to call his uncle, sitting in a cafe, foreign journalists, spies and occasional novelists (like Graham Greene) used to drink in a coffee cup with a sweet flavor of thick milk.

He breathed from emphysema, the same smoking-related illness that killed my father a few years ago. He said that Uncle A was wearing a large watch with thin wrists, which was a gift from my father.

“Mr. Beach is a patriot,” he said.

Uncle An is also a patriot. He was a correspondent for Time magazine, but secretly served as a colonel of the North Vietnamese army, sending intelligence to the Communists through invisible ink. He believes Vietnam should strive to achieve true independence, not pawns in the imperial game.

Despite his years of loyal espionage, Uncle A may be tainted by his long-term relationship with Americans. His career in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has never quite reached the heights he hoped for. His son studied in the United States like he used to and returned home.

At the end of the Vietnam War, Uncle A told me that my father wanted to go to the battlefield. My father was a former U.S. Marine, drawn into the tide, filled with young people, and caught in a war that had become synonymous with American failure. My uncle told me that my father went somewhere else.

That day, North Vietnam attacked a place where my father didn’t get Uncle A’s advice. My father lived when the American soldier died.

“I like Americans,” Uncle An said.