{"id":28651,"date":"2016-09-14T14:30:50","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T04:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=28651"},"modified":"2016-09-14T17:02:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T07:02:04","slug":"vietnam-nurturing-friendships-old-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/vietnam-nurturing-friendships-old-new\/","title":{"rendered":"China coming between old friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"5284532319_3833e1954f_z\"<\/p>\n

‘President Putin\u2026 hailed the role of Vietnam in Southeast Asia and confirmed that Vietnam is one of the external priorities of Russia in the Asian-Pacific region… Russia also supports ASEAN and China to jointly build a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC)’. So said Vietnam\u2019s Thanh<\/em> Nien News<\/em> when the country\u2019s new Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc made his first overseas visit as PM to Sochi in Russia.<\/p>\n

The story highlighted the traditional friendship of the two nations, however the joint Russia\u2013China patrols in the South China Sea beginning Monday and President Putin\u2019s comments at the G20 might dampen such sentiments. He sided with China over the Hague tribunal ruling<\/a>, taking the Chinese view that arbitration must involve both sides. Vietnam hasn\u2019t reacted yet, but it can\u2019t be happy that its first strategic partner has moved away from its previous stance of professed neutrality.<\/p>\n

When I wrote about how Russia\u2013China South China Sea patrols might affect Russia\u2013Vietnam relations for The Huffington Post<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in August, I noted that this potentially destabilising action was being undertaken by Vietnam\u2019s two most important partners, both of which have a comprehensive strategic partnership with Vietnam. The South China Sea\u2019s been a flashpoint in the Vietnam\u2013China relationship for some time, but until now relations with Russia haven\u2019t suffered any setbacks.<\/p>\n

Keeping up with Vietnam\u2019s foreign relations takes some doing; the nation values multilateralism and its representatives are often off somewhere or hosting someone. Vietnam pursues relations with all permanent members of the Security Council and has diverse strategic partnerships with many nations, including the Philippines, Italy and Japan. It also works its most important relationships. Vietnam\u2019s defence minister General Ngo Xuan Lich went to China<\/a> at the end of August, ostensibly to deepen defence ties and to talk about peace and stability in the region (likely of the contested maritime variety).<\/p>\n

Vietnam\u2019s just added India to the top tier ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’ list, after an early September visit by Narendra Modi.<\/a> The Modi visit yielded 12 bilateral agreements and a US$500 million<\/a> line of defence credit. Vietnam and India\u2019s friendship goes back a way (there’s an Indira Gandhi park in Hanoi, with a very nice lake) and there\u2019s been areas of cooperation for a while, however the recent upgrade seems to signify India\u2019s unease with a growing China.<\/p>\n

This expansion of high-level ties comes at a time when they might be useful. The Russia relationship is well regarded, but these days does seem to have a strong rhetorical component to it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long history of cooperation in technology and education with Russia, and once there were strong fellow feelings too; people even named their pets for Russia\u2019s Olympic bear, Misha. Of more strategic importance was the Soviets\u2019 long-time use of the deep water port of Cam Ranh Bay. The current areas of cooperation are diverse, including defence (Vietnam\u2019s new subs are Russian kilo-class), oil and gas, tourism, education and nuclear power\u2014but they aren’t especially deep, save defence sales, which will probably remain important despite the lifting of the US embargo. Trade amounts to just US$4 billion annually.<\/p>\n

Vietnam is Russia\u2019s only real friend in ASEAN and one of only two in Asia, the other being long-time rival China, although there\u2019s cooperation and a history of friendship with Laos. Russia\u2019s been trying to expand its Asian influence by developing better ties with Cambodia<\/a>. <\/a><\/p>\n

Anton Tsvetov, a Moscow-based Southeast Asia scholar worth reading<\/a>, told me that, ‘Strategically, there is no closer partner for Russia than Vietnam in Southeast Asia, as manifested by the special port call arrangements for Cam Ranh Bay and Vietnam’s FTA with the Eurasian Economic Union’. But he qualified that by suggesting that in reality there\u2019s been no serious interdependence since the 1980s.\u00a0 Trade wise there’s a US$1 billion dairy investment project in Russia from Vietnam’s TH True Milk, which has helped Russia absorb shocks from western sanctions.\u00a0 In other words, there’s a strong enough friendship between Vietnam and Russia, but Hanoi might well be wondering what Russia’s doing with China.<\/p>\n

A recent piece from Russia Beyond the Headlines<\/a> (a Russian version of China Watch<\/em> and also printed by Fairfax) goes some way to explaining the situation. It notes that Russia\u2019s official position is neutral but it has much to gain should China\u2019s influence in the region grow enough to challenge the US. One military expert and regular RBTH contributor Viktor Litovkin said, ‘The construction of Chinese military infrastructure will provide Russia with protection in the area against USN ships and the Aegis system and SM-3 and Tomahawk missiles’.<\/p>\n

The Russia\u2013China non-alliance has annoyed the US already and it\u2019s worth remembering that the first patrols were in the East Sea and designed as a rebuke against Japan. Vietnam\u2019s surely been watching since then and is aware that the US pivot to Asia was always going to create other bedfellows\u2014like Russia and China\u2014even as Chinese aggression has pushed Vietnam closer to the US. It seems Vietnam’s picked a good time to expand its highest-level partnerships with other old friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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