Vietnam leaders taken to task on
China By David Brown
It
was inevitable that the recent ruckus over
territorial claims in the South China Sea would
spill over into Vietnam's internal politics. How
to manage the relationship with China is the
second touchiest issue in national life (the first
is whether having more than one legal party would
be a good thing or not).
After nearly two
months of apparent national unanimity on the China
threat, things came to a head July 16 when police
broke up a smallish demonstration in the vicinity
of the Chinese Embassy. The Vietnamese regime had
tolerated - some say tacitly encouraged - such
manifestations since early June.
The
confrontation on the streets of Hanoi came just a
few days after a group of eminent intellectuals
took the leadership
vigorously to task for, they
said, failing to see that "the more Vietnam tries
to cooperate, the more aggressively China
behaves".
The ruling Communist Party and
government characteristically show high
sensitivity to criticism that they are overly
accommodating to the emerging superpower across
Vietnam's northern border. Such criticism last
boiled over in 2008, after the government awarded
a Chinese state firm the right to exploit huge
bauxite deposits in the nation's central highlands
region.
Fighting off encroachments and
invasions is a constant theme in Vietnam's
historic consciousness. Schoolchildren are taught
that the nation has survived for nearly 1,200
years by never surrendering to bullying when
issues of territorial integrity are at stake.
Vietnam's pantheon of heroes are mainly
remarkable for wearing down Chinese invaders until
they gave up the attempt. That defiant spirit was
fully evident when Vietnamese rose as one in May
and June to denounce Chinese provocations in the
South China Sea.
China maintains that
circa 85% of the 1.5 million square kilometer
South China Sea - an expanse that the Vietnamese
doggedly refer to as their "East Sea" - is its
territory by historic right. As its naval forces
have grown, China has staked its claim with
increasing vigor and with growing contempt for
Philippine, Vietnamese and Malaysian claims based
on United Nations Law of the Sea rules.
As
tensions rose following blatant Chinese harassment
of two Vietnamese oil and gas exploration vessels
well within Vietnam's 200-mile economic zone, the
nation's media were filled with discussion of ways
and means to defend Vietnam's maritime territory.
Robust counter-measures by Hanoi - they
included a live fire exercise just offshore and
ostentatious consultations with foreign friends
like the United States - won applause in the
blogosphere and social media as well as in the
nation's lively state-sanctioned press.
The turning point came at the end of June,
when the foreign ministries of China and Vietnam
announced that the two nations had agreed to cool
the rhetoric and get on with an effort to work out
bilateral resolution of territorial claims.
For the Hanoi regime, acutely aware that
it would be unlikely to prevail if shooting began
in earnest, backing away from the brink made good
sense. For a population that had gotten used to
parading about defiantly and posting patriotic
slogans on their Facebook pages, the change of
direction was unwelcome.
Some prominent
people have refused to fall in line. On July 10,
20 well-known intellectuals signed and sent a
petition to the politburo of the Communist Party
and the chairman of the National Assembly urging
fundamental changes in governance. The recent
crisis was, they argued, just a symptom of a more
dangerous national malaise. Without radical
reforms, Chinese "penetration and disruption of
all aspects of our economic, political and
cultural life" would continue until the nation was
reduced to vassal status.
These
intellectuals are not fringe figures. All are
establishment types; some are retired high
officials, officers and diplomats, some still
serve in such posts. They are men and women with
excellent revolutionary pedigrees. In party
jargon, they are "patriotic personalities". Their
reputations for probity and a penchant for frank
talk make them the sort of person who is eagerly
sought for sound bites by the national media. More
than others in Vietnam's public life, they can
credibly claim to express what's bothering a broad
swath of the public.
The intellectuals'
critique, though wide-ranging and often caustic,
shows expert appreciation of the boundaries of the
regime's tolerance. It stops well short of calling
for regime change or a multi-party system -
notions that have put many less careful critics in
Hanoi's jails. It's a hefty document, nearly 4,000
words in English, that merits attention and will
get it.
The first part of the petition
builds an argument that China's aspirations to
regional hegemony pose a mortal threat. Beijing's
strategic plan to dominate Vietnam, the
intellectuals assert, is already well-advanced, to
the point that the economy is virtually under
Chinese control and Chinese ‘soft power' has
corrupted the nation's political life.
To
illustrate their point, the petitioners dissect
the China-Vietnam joint press release of June 26,
a statement that appears to commit Hanoi to
bilateral negotiation of territorial issues. They
don't like that it refers to bilateral relations
as "healthy and stable", nor do they approve of
Hanoi's agreement to tamp down demonstrations and
media attacks on China.
Least of all do
the petitioners like the statement's assertion
that "the two sides emphasized the necessity to
actively implement the common perception of the
two countries' leaders, peacefully solving the
disputes at sea through negotiation and friendly
economic activities." They comment that while
Hanoi has been grimly silent on the nature of the
"common perception", Chinese leaders and media
have claimed that it means Vietnam agrees that
third countries have no business intervening in
the maritime dispute.
The middle third of
the petition develops a broad critique of national
affairs. The economy is said to be in crisis,
buffeted by inflation, trade deficits, rising
debt, a growing gap between rich and poor, and
dependent on the exploitation of sweatshop labor
and depleting natural resources. Cultural and
social conditions are deteriorating, asserts the
group of 20. Social justice is compromised and
corruption rampant, while the educational system
grinds out grade-grubbing automatons.
All
of these weaknesses, continues the petition,
"clearly reflect ... the degradation of our
socio-political system and government" and "though
the need for political changes has been put
forward by the leadership, there have been no
concrete goals, plans or action". A bloated
government is mired in red tape and corrupt
practices. The democratic rights guaranteed by
Vietnam's constitution, "among them the rights to
free speech, free access to information, freedom
to establish groups and freedom to demonstrate ...
are not allowed or protected in daily life."
Circling back on the China theme, the
petition observes that Vietnam is condemned by
geography to be the neighbor of "an ambitious
China that is on its way to becoming a
superpower". The clashes over the East Sea islands
are just a piece of a larger problem, it
continues. Vietnam faces a China intent "on
infiltrating our leadership, weakening our
national unity and reducing our capability to
defend our nation".
The petitioners urge
the government and politburo to come clean. The
leadership should, they say, "make transparent the
real relationship between China and Vietnam". It
should trust Vietnam's citizens, including those
scattered abroad, to understand the risks to the
nation and respond as patriots. Economic,
educational and political reforms are termed
essential to "liberate and promote people's will
to build and protect the nation".
Finally,
the petitioners pin the responsibility squarely on
party leaders. "As the sole ruling power, the
Vietnam Communist Party must lead."
Generally, anywhere in the world, the
powers that be don't take kindly to being
denounced, even when the denunciation is in the
time-honored form of a scholars' memorial to the
throne. It's hard to imagine Vietnam's politburo
collectively confessing to incompetence or worse.
It is more accurate to regard the
intellectuals' petition as aimed mainly at the
attentive public. It's a document that reflects
views typical of liberal elements within the
Vietnamese establishment, a statement around which
those who choose to seek reform "within the
system" can rally.
"Above all," one of the
petition's drafters told Asia Times Online, "we
want the people of Vietnam to understand the
situation and agree with our assessment. We have
no illusion that all of Vietnam's leaders will
concur with our petition, but we aim as well for
the agreement of an active element at the top."
Though the Vietnamese government and party
leadership are sensitive to the shifting public
mood, they have learned that in the Internet era
they have but limited ability to shape or direct
it. After the bauxite crisis, Hanoi's public
security agencies intensified efforts to police
political free speech in the blogosphere and
social media.
These failed; Facebook users
and bloggers quickly learned to rely on servers
outside the regime's reach. The intellectuals'
petition has gone viral since it was posted on the
"Bauxite Vietnam" blogsite last week. Reportedly,
another thousand or so have added their
signatures.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung
and his colleagues merit a bit of sympathy at this
juncture. It's easy to find things to criticize in
Vietnam's public life but much harder to fix them,
easy to give orders but hard to enforce them. The
China relationship is especially resistant to
facile answers. Vietnam's huge neighbor has
historically been best managed by a combination of
due deference and evident willingness, should the
chips be down, to fight like hell.
That
seems still to be the plan. Whatever the June 26
China-Vietnam joint statement may mean, whatever
truth the intellectuals' petition may speak to
power, there's scant evidence that Vietnam's
present leadership has gone soft on China.
David Brown is a retired
American diplomat who writes on contemporary
Vietnam. He may be reached at
nworbd@gmail.com.
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