Vietnam: Pulled two ways (FEER)

[Dam Thanh Son <son@ctp.mit.edu>]

Far Eastern Economic Review

VIETNAM
Pulled Two Ways

It may be reaching out to the West, but Hanoi must still keep an eye on
China
                                   
By Nayan Chanda in Hanoi
Issue cover-dated August 26, 1999
                                   
One more ghost of the Vietnam War was buried on August 16. Twenty-four
years after the U.S. ambassador folded the Stars and Stripes and fled
Saigon by helicopter from the roof of the embassy, the United States
returned to the same site to inaugurate a consulate in a brand new
building. But happenings behind the diplomatic facade show Vietnam still
has a long way to go to exorcise all the ghosts--old and new.

Only three days earlier, Hanoi had--for the second time this year--called
off a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of Defence William Cohen. The move
not only upset plans for upgrading military ties between the two former
enemies, it may also have killed the prospect of a high-level military
visit any time soon. "I don't think we'll see a SecDef in Hanoi for a
long, long time," was one U.S. official's glum conclusion.

The episode highlights fundamental policy dilemmas besetting Hanoi:  How
do you get the West to help strengthen your security without antagonizing
your powerful neighbour, China; and how do you seek Western investment and
trade to reform your ailing state-run economy without weakening one-party
rule? For Vietnam's leaders, the task is to stay upright while performing
a balancing act between the West and China. 

Those tensions were evident in the long negotiations Vietnam went through
before signing a trade deal with Washington and in its hesitant
one-step-forward-two-steps-back approach to its political and military
ties. They were also almost certainly behind the problems with the Cohen
visit.

U.S. sources in Hanoi and Washington told the REVIEW they were
disappointed over the surprise postponement of the visit, especially
following Hanoi's decision to scrap an earlier January trip.

"The Vietnamese called to say that the visit had to be postponed as they
were busy with the national campaign for party reform," a U.S.  official
says of the latest cancellation, but with little conviction.  The reason? 
On the day it called off Cohen's September 30 trip, Hanoi agreed to a
September 6 visit by a cabinet colleague, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright. 

The Vietnamese refuse to discuss the issue. Asked to explain during an
interview why the visit was again delayed, Vietnam's deputy prime minister
and foreign minister, Nguyen Manh Cam, told the REVIEW: "Who will visit
Vietnam and when such a visit will take place are being arranged by the
two sides in conformity with the prevailing situation." 

That explanation, of course, omits the third side--China, with which
Vietnam is only now normalizing relations after nearly 13 years of
conflict and the slow thaw that followed. But just how to handle those
ties has led to a fluid policy reflecting the divergences among the
leadership, says Vietnam historian David Marr of the Australian National
University in Canberra.

The rifts are between those in the military and security branches of the
government who see China as the country's last remaining socialist friend,
and those in the Foreign Ministry, as well as many academics, who point to
the threat China could pose in 10 years' time as it builds up its military
strength, especially the navy. China and Vietnam have fought
intermittently for a thousand years, most recently in 1979, when China
invaded Vietnam to punish it for its own invasion of Cambodia. In 1988
their longstanding dispute over the Spratly Islands led to armed clashes. 
Relations are now on the mend, and the two countries have exchanged
high-level visits--including that by Vietnam's general secretary, Le Kha
Phieu, to China earlier this year.  But they are still far apart on
resolving their conflicting claims in the South China Sea. 

Certainly, U.S. officials have few doubts about the importance of China to
U.S.-Vietnamese ties. "The reason that the Vietnamese walk up to these
meetings and then back away is because of at least two things," a U.S. 
official told the REVIEW on condition of anonymity.  "They have not really
made their mind up as to what they want from this relationship, probably
any more than we have, and two, there is a China angle to this." He
believes Cohen's visit in January was postponed when the Vietnamese party
general secretary nailed down his schedule to go to Beijing in March: The
leadership decided it would be unseemly to have a Washington visit before
Phieu went to China. "They want to maintain a distance between the U.S. 
and China in calendar terms, at benchmark moments, so that U.S. events
don't pre-empt the significance of the China visit."

Similar considerations are believed to be behind the latest postponement. 
On July 25, Hanoi signed an initial trade agreement with the U.S., and
preparations are under way for a formal signing before the end of
September. Had the twin visits by Albright and Cohen gone ahead as
planned, it would have given an impression of a close relationship that
Hanoi is uncomfortable with. One U.S. official says the Vietnamese must
have concluded that "to let two heavy hitters of the U.S. cabinet visit
Vietnam in the course of three weeks would have been too much in
symbolism."

It's the kind of symbolism that would be watched carefully by Beijing,
whose relations with the U.S. have soured since the Nato bombing of its
embassy in Belgrade and more recently over American support for Taiwan. 
The U.S.-led intervention in Kosovo has also given Vietnam's military
establishment a cause for worry. Vietnamese party sources say that in an
internally circulated paper, military analysts have warned against
Kosovo-like U.S. intervention in southern Vietnam.

Vietnam's security services and ideologists have long worried about what
is called "peaceful evolution"--or subversion of the socialist system
through trade and cultural contacts. Diplomats and academic analysts say
that while the same hardline elements in the party remain worried about
expanding trade or military ties with the U.S., a new group has joined the
conservatives--the managers of state-owned enterprises facing the threat
of increased foreign competition.

While U.S. officials may understand the internal constraints behind
Vietnam's policy zigzags, it does not make for easy relations.  Speaking
on condition of anonymity, a Pentagon official said: "They now have
blunted this man's [Cohen's] desire to travel twice. No matter how
institutional we want to be, people take these things personally."

That's a price, though, that Vietnam may well be willing to pay. It may
believe that the kudos it earns from China by snubbing the U.S.  more than
compensates for whatever defence benefits Washington would be prepared to
deliver to its former enemy. As the Pentagon official explains: "In
regional terms probably the only advantage they get from a
military-to-military relationship with the U.S. is saying 'no' to the
U.S."

Twenty-four years on, Vietnam can still say 'no.' Twenty-four years on,
the ghost of the Vietnam War still lingers.