Love-hate thy neighbor in
Vietnam By Simon Speakman Cordall
HO CHI MINH CITY - Last weekend's
anti-China protests in Hanoi marked a further
chapter in the feud between China and Vietnam over
sovereignty of the Spratly and Paracel Islands.
Sunday's rally was the ninth such protest in the
past 10 weeks as China's increasingly assertive
posture in the South China Sea fans the fires of
Vietnam's historic suspicions of its northern
neighbor's territorial ambitions.
Tensions
between the two countries have been escalating
throughout the year, increasing exponentially
after China's establishment last month of the city
of Sansha, Hainan, to oversee the disputed
islands. The move was in apparent response to the
passage in June by Hanoi's National Assembly of
legislation that pronounced Vietnamese sovereignty
over the
island chains.
The protests were dispersed by police,
with about 20 people detained and sent to
government re-education centers traditionally used
for sex workers and drug offenders, according to
news reports. The crackdown, however, places the
Vietnamese government in the somewhat conflicted
position of ordering the detainment of those who
are supportive of its stiffening position on the
escalating territorial dispute.
While the
nationalistic anti-China sentiment embedded in
Vietnam's grassroots might be a helpful political
tool, the Communist Party-led government is
limited in how far it can allow the protests to
spiral in the face of China's increasingly
provocative stance. While in Beijing the issue may
be mainly about territory and the potential
mineral riches it holds, for Vietnam the dispute
holds much greater significance. As China rises in
regional influence, Vietnam is increasingly
defining itself and its popular history in terms
of its historic conflicts with China.
Every advance in Vietnam's staccato
liberation from more than a thousand years of
Chinese subjugation remains a cause for national
celebration, with street names still bearing the
names of national heroes who fought against the
Chinese. In recent times, that includes the short
and bloody 1979 border war, a conflict in which
nationalists like to cast Vietnam as the
diminutive and ultimately victorious David to
China's unwieldy Goliath.
While historical
triumphs against China may loom large in the
popular Vietnamese imagination, current realities
are less romantic. In 2011, both governments
reported in glowing terms expanding bilateral
trade of some US$40 billion, representing a 30%
increase on 2010's $27 billion figure. Both sides
have agreed to strive for a target of $60 billion
by 2015. While these are significant figures for
both developing countries, for smaller Vietnam -
which is still clawing its way out of widespread
poverty - the trade revenues are more critical.
While Vietnam's ruling Communist Party has
historically squashed any form of public protest,
it is equally aware that the recent anti-China
rallies can be utilized for its own political
ends, particularly as economic growth begins to
slow amid global weakness. By focusing
international attention and news reports on
China's actions in the South China Sea, it
increases the likelihood of some form of
internationally negotiated agreement over the
contested area.
The United States, for
instance, has said it has a core interest in
freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and
has called on all sides - including the
Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan - to
reach a multilateral settlement to their competing
claims. Over the weekend, China blasted the US for
stirring the troubled waters, punctuated by a
summoning and sharp statement delivered to
Washington's ambassador in Beijing.
While
a greater international role in the dispute might
be Hanoi's intention, its caution with regard to
the rallies is also justified. The Communist
one-party state clearly fears that protests
against China could spiral into something larger
against its rule and legitimacy. Given the
embedded grassroots hostility toward China, many
in the anti-China movement would like to see the
government take a stronger stand vis-a-vis
Beijing.
That puts Hanoi between a rock
and a hard policy place. On the one hand, the
government wants to take - and perhaps more
important, be seen taking - a more assertive
stance in its dealings with China. On the other,
it is acutely aware of the economic need for
continued good trade and investment relations with
its bigger, richer northern neighbor.
Further complicating the situation for
Hanoi is the highly vocal and well-organized
presence within the anti-China protest movement of
many of the pro-democracy and human-rights
activists the state has long worked to suppress.
Authorities have rounded up and detained several
independent bloggers who reported on earlier
anti-China protests censored in the
state-controlled media and posted commentaries
questioning the government's position.
An
Ha Thien Hue, a software engineer from Ho Chi Minh
City and a fairly typical representative of
Vietnam's emerging professional middle class, is
one of many anti-China protesters who view the
current dispute with China in historical and
military terms. For Hue, China's recent formal
establishment of Sansha to oversee the Paracel
Islands, and announced plans to install a military
garrison in the archipelago itself, was nothing
less than an invasion of Vietnamese territory by
stealth. (China took military control of the
islands after a short armed conflict with South
Vietnam in 1974.)
"The islands are easy
for China to take, but hard for them to hold
against Vietnam. Vietnam loves peace and hates
war, but is ready to fight," he said.
It's
a sentiment Vietnamese dissident groups fighting
for broader issues are bidding to exploit. For the
US-based parent association for many Vietnamese
youth groups, the dispute has highlighted the
government's weakness in the face of a patriotic
groundswell.
"We believe the protesters
are taking a role that their government has
insufficiently played to express national support
for the islands," said Andrew-Brian Nguyen, a
spokesman for the group. He said the government in
Hanoi had failed to protect the country's
"sovereignty and territorial integrity".
With China digging in its heels, any
peaceful settlement on the future of the contested
island chains looks ever more distant. As such
people familiar with the situation said further
anti-China protests can be expected in the weeks
ahead. So far that underground movement has not
translated into street-level violence against
Chinese investments and citizens in Vietnam. But
as grassroots anti-China sentiment spreads, the
government faces a dilemma on whether to channel
or suppress the surge in nationalism.
Simon Cordall is a Ho Chi Minh
City-based journalist.
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