Email this article Hanoi and Beijing: Ambiguities of a strategic partnership
- Authors: Benoit D.T.1
-
Affiliations:
- Institute for Strategic Research
- Issue: Vol 3, No 2 (2019)
- Pages: 8-18
- Section: Articles
- URL: https://ogarev-online.ru/2618-9453/article/view/86982
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.24411/2618-9453-2019-10011
- ID: 86982
Cite item
Full Text
Abstract
This paper investigates the ambiguities of the Vietnam-China relations. The history of the relations between the two neighboring countries, two sister-countries since the official recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) by the Soviet Union in January 1950, has always been marked by a mixture of mistrust and usefulness among the Vietnamese elites. This article shows that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) continues to play a balanced diplomacy between the major powers in the interest of its elites concerned with maintaining their power. China and Vietnam are aware that the renewal of their security partnership will not avoid their disputes in the South China Sea. The modernization of the Vietnamese People’s Army (VPA) is intended to demonstrate to the Chinese its ability to inflict damage on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But in the event of a conflict, Hanoi would only seek to push Beijing back to the status quo as quickly as possible. The SRV does not see itself as the flagship of a future anti-Chinese protest in Southeast Asia, regardless of the expectations of Tokyo or Washington. The Vietnam’s leaders know that they are limited in their actions, it is in this ambiguous area that the complexity of the Sino-Vietnamese relations is found since the normalization of relations between the two states in 1991. However, with its multidirectional diplomacy (state, provinces, communities), China is omnipresent in Vietnam, at all levels of its apparatus, and in all sectors. At this stage, alienating China, and its ASEAN partners, would represent a dangerous political choice that Vietnam is not ready to make. The SRV opts for dialogue and long time to manage the future of its relations with China.
Keywords
Full Text
##article.viewOnOriginalSite##About the authors
De Tréglodé Benoit
Institute for Strategic Research
Email: bdt.asie@gmail.com
Director of Research, Institute for Strategic Research Paris
References
- Abuza, Z. (2017). The Uigurs and China’s Regional Counter-Terrorism Efforts. In Terrorism Monitor, Volume 15, Issue 16.
- Aoyama, R. (2016). «One Belt, One Road»: China's New Global Strategy. In Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, Volume 5, Issue 2. P. 3-22.
- Chen, K.C. (1987). China’s War with Vietnam, 1979: Issues, Decisions, and Implications. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University.
- Do Hien Benoit, Pham Quang Minh (2015). Nouvelles elites economiques vietnamiennes [New Vietnamese economic elites]. Ocasional Paper IRASEC, Bangkok. February.
- Do Tien Sam, Ha Thi Hong Van (2009). Vietnam-China Relations and Building the “Two Corridors, One Economic Belt”. Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh (ed.). In Towards Pax sinica? China’s Rise and Transformation: Impacts and Implications. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya (Institute of China Studies).
- Duchere, Y. (2019). Ha Noi, a geography of compromise in an authoritarian regime. Paris: Les Indes Savantes.
- Genevaz, J. (2016). The reform of the People's Liberation Army, at the heart of China's state renewal. Paris, IRSEM Discussion Paper, n°29.
- Gitter, D., Kania, E. (2017). The Limits of the CCP Liaison Work. Rift, Rapprochement, and Realpolitik in Sino-Vietnamese Relations. Pr. 2019. Center for Advanced China Research 16.05.
- Grossheim, M. (2017). Der Krieg und der Tod. Heldengedenken in Vietnam [War and death. Heroic Remembrance Policy in Vietnam]. In Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, Volume 65, Issue 4. P. 545-581.
- IRASEC (2019). L’Asie du Sud-Est 2019. Bilan enjeux et perspectives [Southeast Asia 2019. Challenges and prospects]. C. Cabasset, C. Tran thi Lien (ed.). Bangkok / Paris: Les Indes Savantes.
- Laksmana, Evan A. (2018). U.S. Policy in Asia - Perspectives for the Future. Rafiq Dossani and Scott W. Harold (ed.). Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. P. 106-137.
- Le Hong Hiep (2017). Living next to the Giant. The political economy of Vietnam’s Relations with China under Doi Moi. Singapore: ISEAS.
- Le Huu Khoa (2014). Anthropologie du Vietnam [Anthropology of Vietnam], Vol. 5. L’espace cognitif du peuple [The cognitive space of the people]. Paris: Les Indes Savantes.
- Mc Dermid, Charles (2019). Southeast Asia has major doubts about US reliability in the region, but still wary of China: Survey. In South China Moring Post, Hong Kong, January 7.
- Ministry of Education (2017). Education defense security. Ha Noi: Nxb Giao duc.
- MOFA SRV (1979). The truth about the Sino-Vietnamese relationship for 30 years. Ha Noi: Nxb Su that.
- Nguyen Dy Nien (1995). The world is changing, what about us?. International integration and maintenance of our specificities. Ha Noi: Nxb Chinh tri quoc gia.
- Nguyen Thuy Phuong (2018). The Truth About Vietnam’s New Military Cyber Unit. In The Diplomat, January 10.
- Noget, B. (2018). La modernisation de l’APVN [The modernization of the PAVN]. In Monde chinois, nouvelle Asie (Special Issue: China and Southeast Asia: towards a new regional order?) Benoit de Treglode and Eric Frecon (åd.). Paris: Editions ESKA, n°53.
- The Sino-Vietnamese relationship maintains a trend of strengthened development. In Bao Quan doi Nhan dan, 6.02.2018.
- Storey, I. & Yee H.S. (2002). The China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality. London: Routledge.
- Suehiro, A. (2017). China’s offensive in Southeast Asia: regional architecture and the process of Sinicization. In Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, 6:2. P. 107-131.
- Thayer, C.A. (2011). The Tyranny of Geography: Vietnamese Strategies to constrain China in the South China Sea. In Contemporary Southeast Asia 33:3. P. 348-369.
- de Treglode, B. (2012). Heroes and Revolution in Vietnam. Singapore-Honolulu : NUS Press - University of Hawaii Press.
- de Treglode, B. (2018). Histoire du Viet Nam de la colonisation a nos jours [History of Vietnam from colonization to nowdays]. Paris: Editions de la Sorbonne.
- de Treglode, B. (2000). Les relations diplomatiques Hanoi - Moscou - Pekin a travers les documents (1950-1954) [Hanoi - Moscow - Peking diplomatic relations through documents (1950-1954)]. In Revue Historique des Armees. Paris, n°4, Decembre. P. 55-62.
- de Treglode, B. (2016). Maritime Delimitation and Sino-Vietnamese Cooperation in the Gulf of Tonkin (1994-2016). In China Perspectives, Hong Kong, n.3. P. 33-41.
- de Treglode, B. (2014). L’Asie du Sud-Est et la Chine de Xi Jinping: le grand accommodement [South East Asia pragmatism towards Xi Jinping China]. In Asie-Monde emergents, edition 2014-2015 (JL. Racine ed.). Paris: La documentation française. P. 69-84.
- de Treglode, Benoit (2018).Viet Nam-Chine, la guerre n’aura pas lieu [Vietnam - China, the war will not take place]. In RDN - Strategic Asia from India to the Pacific. Paris, n°812. P. 115.
- Vu Doan Ket, Matthieu Salomon (2006). L’empire du Milieu perçu du Viet Nam: grand frere incontournable et inquietant [The Perceived Middle Empire of Vietnam: an unavoidable and worrying big brother]. In Outre-Terre, 15 (2), January. P. 229-245.
- Vuving, A.L. (2006). Strategy and Evolution of Vietnam’s China Policy: A changing Mixture of Pathways. In Asian Survey, 46, n°6. P. 805-824.
- Womack, B. (2006). China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Woodside, A. (1968/1969). Peking and Hanoi: Anatomy of a Revolutionary Partnership. In International Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1. P. 65-85.
- Woodside, A. (1971). Vietnam and the Chinese Model. A comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First half of the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University.
- Xiaoming Zhang (2015). Deng Xiaoping’s Long war: The Military Conflict between China and Vietnam (1979-1991). Chapel Hill-Londres: University of North Carolina.
- Zhang Chi (2013). Historical Changes in Relations between China and Neighboring countries (1949-2012). Asia Papers Series. Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm.
Supplementary files
