and manipulated prices through import-export and transport systems. One of the most notorious of South Vietnam's Hoa compradore bourgeoisie was a businessman and investor by the name of Ly Long Than, who reportedly held a diverse portfolio of business assets as the owner of 18 major commercial and industrial manufacturing establishments (Vinatexco and Vinafilco textile factories, Vinatefinco dye-works, Vicasa steel factory, Nakydaco edible oil factory) in addition to presiding the Rang Dong shipping line, a real estate holding company, a plush hotel, an insurance agency, a chain of restaurants, as well as being a controlling shareholder in sixteen Vietnamese banks including the Vietnamese branches of the Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China respectively, and the Agriculture Industry Commerce Bank. Foreign investors and visitors conducting business in Cholon would recall seeing the plethora of Chinese-owned import-export shipping giants, banks, modern high-rise buildings, plush hotels and nightclubs, and restaurants all controlled by Hoa businessmen and investors. Other notable Hoa compradore bourgeoisie investors include Hoan Kim Quy, a native of Hanoi where he owned a prominent shipping line and derived his fortune from barbed wire manufacturing, the operation of a large textile and appliance import company, a gold mining concession, and a trading cooperative. He served as the Director of the Vitaco shipping line and was a majority controlling shareholder in several Vietnamese banks. The control and regulation of markets were one of the most sensitive, controversial, and persistent political issues faced by the Vietnamese revolutionary government following the beginning of North-South integration in 1975. The government, in its doctrinaire efforts to nationalize the commercial, market-oriented Southern economy, faced several paradoxes. The first was the need both to cultivate and to curtail the heavy presence of commercial business activity controlled by Hoa Chinese in the South, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, as Chinese-owned businesses controlled much of the commercial economic activity in Ho Chi Minh City and the South in general. Following the break with China in 1978, some Vietnamese political leaders evidently feared the potential for espionage activities within the Chinese business community. On the one hand, Chinese-owned concerns controlled trade in a number of commodities and services, such as pharmaceuticals, fertilizer distribution, grain milling, and foreign-currency exchanges, that were supposed to be state-owned monopolies. On the other hand, Hoa entrepreneurs also provided excellent access to international markets for Vietnamese exports through Hong Kong and Singapore. Such access