Vietnam asks Australia to recall a coin that bears South Vietnamese flag

The coin honors Australian veterans of the Vietnam War, which the South lost in 1975
By RFA Vietnamese
2023.05.05
Vietnam asks Australia to recall a coin that bears South Vietnamese flag The Royal Australian Mint recently released this AU$2 silver coin commemorating the end of the Vietnam War.
Royal Australian Mint

UPDATED at 5:18 p.m. EDT on 05-05-2023

An Australian commemorative coin meant to honor veterans in the Vietnam War is upsetting Hanoi because its design includes three red stripes on a yellow background – the flag of defeated South Vietnam. 

Australia sent 50,190 troops to fight in the conflict, which ended in 1975 when communist North Vietnam sacked the capital Saigon in the U.S.-backed South. 

The commemorative Australian $2 coin marks the 50th anniversary of the end of Canberra’s involvement in the war in April 1973. 

One side of the coin features a memorial portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, while the reverse side shows a UH-1 helicopter, colloquially called the “Huey,” encircled by medal ribbons awarded to Australian veterans, two of which incorporate the colors of South Vietnam’s flag.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally requested that Australia stop circulating the coin, and take steps to prevent similar incidents in the future.

“We are regretful and strongly protest against the Royal Australian Mint and Australia Post’s releases of items with the image of the yellow flag of a regime that no longer exists,” Pham Thu Hang, the ministry’s deputy spokeswoman said in a report published in The World & Vietnam Newspaper. 

“This is not in line with the tendency of fine developments of the Vietnam – Australia Strategic Partnership.”

A Royal Australian Mint spokesperson acknowledged the coin, but said it was not recognition of the Republic of Vietnam, the official name of South Vietnam.

“The design of the coin reflects the colours of the ribbons of the service medals awarded to Australians who served in Vietnam, including the Vietnam Service medal, introduced in 1968," the spokesperson said. "The Australian Government does not recognise the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam.”

RFA’s Vietnamese Service attempted to contact Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as the Australian Embassy in Hanoi, but have not yet received a response.

The mint made two versions of the coin: 80,000 pieces of the gold-colored version, which sold for AU$15 (U.S.$10) each, and only 5,000 of the much rarer silver-colored version, which sold for AU$80 (U.S.$54). 

As they were the first Australian $2 coin to have a design in full color and had a limited issue, the coins completely sold out upon release. According to a Daily Mail report, the silver version is being traded for more than AU$1,200 (U.S.$805) and the gold for AU$80 on e-commerce sites.

The Vietnamese government often takes action against international displays of the South Vietnamese flag. 

In January 2022, when the Vietnamese national soccer team traveled to Australia for a match, Vietnam Television postponed the broadcast because many fans brought red-striped yellow flags to the stadium.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

UPDATE: Adds response from the Royal Australian Mint

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Dega people in the Central Highlands in Vietnam
May 05, 2023 11:40 AM

Dear RFA,
This thing the world needs to hear as well,
The Central Highlands was the biggest target of bombing and spraying with the deadly chemical Agent Orange dioxin. It has brought unimaginable suffering to so many innocent people. Over 85% of the Dega villages and infrastructure society were destroyed, and many thousands of lives of innocents were being threatened, killed, and ruined in another nightmarish way via horrific injuries, severe life-changing trauma of the loss of home, agricultural farming, and infrastructures essential to life.
Both sides of the conflict used the Dega people as their tools by recreating the Dega people to fight on their battlefield. More than 200,000 people were killed, haft the young man Dega population died on both sides of the Vietnam War conflict. (The Dega’s population at that time was under one million)
To the outside world that the Vietnam War ended in 1975, however to the Dega people peace has not come.
Under the slogan "To clean up "the Republic of Vietnam and American soldiers' remnants, were in Central Highlands during 1975-1986. A freelance paramilitary group (Similar to Adolf Hitler's mobile killing squads' the "Einzatgroupen") killing Jewish in World War II was established called “Doi du kich” in Vietnamese or “Mobile squads” in English in every village, hamlet, and district throughout the Central Highlands. The Dega people were being hunted and freely killed in the jungle where they refuge. Many Dega people from the village to the village were being arrested, kidnapped, executed, forced disappearance, tortured, raped, and imprisoned.
Within ten years, all most generations of Dega people elites, traditionally oriented people, knowledgeable people, literate figures, teachers, and students were utterly eradicated by the communist Vietnam regime Among them were my family members, my uncle, my oldest brother, my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, and all my friends from our best generation who disappeared at this time.
And today, forty-eight years under communist rule, Vietnam has not ratified the International Labor Organization Convention No.169, which covered topics such as health, education, and land rights and although Vietnam voted in favor of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it does not recognize us as Indigenous Peoples.
So, do we go where we have no land, no culture, no language, and no name?