Key PointsThe Royal Australian Mint issued 85,000 units of gold and silver $2 cash to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Australian troops withdrawing from southern Vietnam.It defended the cash on Friday.The battle was Australia’s longest involvement in a battle through the twentieth century.
Vietnam’s communist authorities has demanded Australia stop issuing commemorative cash that it says present the flag of the toppled US-backed South Vietnam, a declare Canberra denied on Friday.
In April, the Royal Australian Mint issued 85,000 units of gold and silver $2 cash to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Australian troops withdrawing from southern Vietnam.
South Vietnam’s yellow and purple flag is banned by the Vietnamese authorities.
“We remorse and strongly protest the Royal Australian Mint and Australia Publish for issuing objects with the picture of the yellow flag — the flag of a regime that not exists,” Vietnam Ministry of Overseas Affairs deputy spokeswoman Pham Thu Cling stated in an announcement on the federal government’s official Fb web page on Thursday.
She stated Vietnam has mentioned the matter with the Australian authorities and requested a halt to the cash’ circulation.
Australia and Vietnam flagged an intention to raise their bilateral relationship to a complete strategic partnership throughout Nationwide Meeting chairman Vuong Dinh Hue’s go to to Canberra final November.
“That is utterly inconsistent with the nice improvement pattern (of these efforts),” the spokeswoman stated.
The Royal Australian Mint defended the cash on Friday.
“The design of the coin displays the colors of the ribbons of the service medals awarded to Australians who served in Vietnam, together with the Vietnam Service medal, launched in 1968,” the mint stated in an announcement.
“The Australian Authorities doesn’t recognise the flag of the previous Republic of Vietnam.”
Greater than 60,000 Australian troopers served within the Vietnam Struggle, 523 died and virtually 2,400 had been wounded, in keeping with the nation’s battle memorial web site.
It was Australia’s longest involvement in a battle through the twentieth century and it turned deeply unpopular with 1000’s marching towards Australia’s position within the early Nineteen Seventies.
Australian troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, two years earlier than the Communists from the north stormed Saigon and declared victory on 30 April 1975.
