If Beijing doesn’t play its playing cards proper, Vietnam might quickly flip right into a companion of the US, regardless of bloody battle of their latest historical past
By Timur Fomenko, a political analyst
Within the coming month, US President Joe Biden will go to the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam. Vietnam, populated by 97 million folks, is Asia’s second largest communist state, and its historical past is marred by a bloody battle with the US, whereby Washington unleashed untold horrors upon the inhabitants in a bid to prop up a puppet state in South Vietnam.
But it speaks volumes concerning the world we stay in right this moment that this historic reminiscence has little affect on how the 2 international locations now view one another. Washington sees Hanoi as a crucial strategic companion in its imaginative and prescient for the ‘Indo-Pacific’ to comprise the rise of China. The US has by no means been above allying itself with communist states when it fits its agenda, even when it all the time activates them in the long term. Be it the USSR, Deng Xiaoping’s China, or Tito’s Yugoslavia, Washington all the time focuses on the larger, prevailing perceived menace first.
And now, it’s China’s flip. Regardless of each being communist international locations, and regardless of the shared revolutionary historical past of Mao having supported Ho Chi Minh’s quest to reunify the nation, Vietnam (as a common rule) doesn’t like China. The explanations should not ideological, however nationalistic and historic. Way back, northern Vietnam was underneath the rule of Chinese language dynasties, and the Vietnamese interpret their very own historical past as a part of an extended wrestle to remain unbiased of China, at the same time as the 2 international locations held many shut cultural and financial ties.
In that sense, the world hasn’t modified a lot. Vietnam and China have an intensive financial and commerce relationship, however Vietnam’s historic enmity in the direction of the Chinese language stays, not least as a result of the 2 international locations have competing and overlapping claims within the South China Sea. Hanoi, in fact, names it the East Sea as a substitute. This has led to nationalist unrest in opposition to Beijing and excessive sensitivities. Take, for instance, the truth that the woke, smash hit ‘Barbie’ was banned in Vietnam simply because for a number of seconds it reveals a cartoonish, inaccurate world map which seems to replicate the ‘9-dash line’ of China’s claims within the disputed sea. That’s the place issues are at.
And who needs to take advantage of that rift probably the most? The US, in fact. America not solely sees Vietnam as a possible army counterweight to China, but additionally a possible financial companion that may change Beijing as a producing base. Vietnam, in any case, is manner behind China on the event ladder and has a burgeoning inhabitants of 97 million with a youthful and cheaper labor drive. Because of this the US has gone all out to increase its diplomatic presence in Vietnam, together with the development of a $1 billion new embassy compound. Washington is certain going to nice lengths to current itself as a pal to a nation it as soon as despised and bombed into oblivion – and it’s doing so with out ever having supplied any form of formal apology within the intervening years.
For the Vietnamese, this isn’t shameful as a result of, from their standpoint, historical past is on their facet. That’s, they successfully defeated the US in 1973, regardless of the nice price, and obtained the People to go away. Of their relationship with the US, they might know the true nature of the nation they’re coping with, however see it because the ‘loser’ reconciling with them, and also you aren’t going to really feel threatened by a rustic you understand you possibly can defeat, are you? After all, that doesn’t excuse the bombing, however it has allowed Vietnam’s relationship with the US to be politically justified with none lasting resentment. The US is groveling considerably, they might say.
China has a dilemma on its fingers now. Beijing should do all it might to cease Hanoi from getting nearer to Washington and aspire to maintain the nation on a path of non-alignment and good neighborliness. China doesn’t need Vietnam to turn into a strategic menace. Whereas Vietnam, owing to the historic political correctness, won’t ever turn into a proper ally of the US, there are fears it may quickly improve the connection to a “complete strategic partnership”, which might see the 2 international locations share frequent objectives and pursuits. Biden needs to convey Vietnam into the anti-China coalition and has been ramping up partnerships and alliances in opposition to Beijing throughout the board.
If China is to cease this, the one reply is that Beijing should cease ramping up tensions within the South China Sea and permitting the US-controlled media to spin a story in opposition to it that legitimizes better safety ties between Vietnam and America. In different phrases, China has to start out treating Vietnam like a comrade and never a subordinate neighbor, which is strictly the best way Hanoi interprets their centuries-old relationship historical past. The battle for hearts and minds in Vietnam is on. China ought to theoretically have ideological and cultural benefits, versus the nation that dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs and Agent Orange on it, however geopolitics is never that easy.
The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the creator and don’t essentially symbolize these of RT.
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