Hanoi and Beijing: Ambiguities of a strategic partnership

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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.

About the authors

De Tréglodé Benoit

Institute for Strategic Research

Email: bdt.asie@gmail.com
Director of Research, Institute for Strategic Research Paris

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