Nation hedges on China ties

Friday, November 10, 2006

John Ruwitch
REUTERS

Nearly 30 years ago, Chinese troops and tanks poured over the border near Pingxiang to teach Vietnam "a lesson" after it invaded Cambodia to oust the genocidal but Beijing-friendly Khmer Rouge.

Today, it's televisions, coal, garlic and other Chinese goods that stream southward over the border from the erstwhile enemy that has become Vietnam's biggest trade partner.

In the 15 years since Beijing and Hanoi re-established diplomatic ties, the relationship has made a dramatic turn.

"Development in both Vietnam and China is going great, and so is their relationship," said Dao Thu Thuy, a plump Vietnamese woman who runs a pho noodle soup shop in Pingxiang on the Chinese side of the border where she says changes are noticeable.

"People want to make money now. No one wants to fight or argue," she said.

The change in Beijing-Hanoi relations reflects a transformation in China's ties with Southeast Asia across the board, as it forges partnerships, broadens its influence in the region and diversifies its trade portfolio.

Beijing has stopped talking about China's "peaceful rise," fearing it sounds too threatening, and talks instead of "peaceful development."

But political analysts say Southeast Asia's wariness of a rising China has not been completely displaced by confidence in the opportunities it may offer.

"ASEAN countries have adopted the dual strategy of engagement and hedging to protect their interests in the face of a rising China," Jing-dong Yuan wrote in a paper last month for the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College. Vietnam is far from an exception.

Most of the points of friction in China-Vietnam relations have been removed. For instance, the two countries have agreed to finish demarcating their long-contested land border in 2008.

"The past is the past," said Li Bao, a minibus driver who ferries passengers and cargo to and from the border with Vietnam. "We're friends now."

The sentiment is shared across the border, but only to a point. As a small country living in the shadow of a giant, Vietnam's policy-makers have concluded the best way to survive is to balance one strong power with another.

In the post-Soviet era, that means burnishing ties with the United States and encouraging a US presence in the region.

While burying historic grudges has brought Sino-Vietnamese ties a long way, potential conflicts still exist, the most prominent of which is over competing claims to the potentially oil-rich Spratly Islands archipelago.

In 1988, more than 70 Vietnamese sailors died in a naval clash with China in the area.

China, Vietnam and others signed a declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea in 2003. But Hanoi isn't taking chances. It has been arming its fighter planes with beyond- visual-range air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles. It is also buying cruise missiles for its Russian-made ships and is interested in acquiring a submarine.