(Image: intouch-quality.com)
It’s clear now Russia and China are allied in all areas in fighting with the US-led West. As a neighboring country of China and a strong historic tie with Russia, I think Vietnam will eventually side with Russia-China group in this global power conflict after much initial effort to stay neutral.
What does each country want from Vietnam?
Vietnam: sovereignty, territorial integrity, neutral
USA: wants Vietnam to align and help counter China
Russia: wants Vietnam to be close with Russia militarily, hence, not close to the US. Vietnam has joined Army Games hosted by Russia for a few years. There are rumors that Vietnam will join military exercises with Russia. There’s no such thing with the US currently.
China: not an alliance because of the tense relationship for 2000 years, especially with the current contest on the resource rich South China Sea (Vietnam calls it East Sea). Probably China wants Vietnam to stay away from the US.
What will Vietnam do when the China-US conflict breaks out?
Vietnam will try their best to stay neutral
The US and China will ask Vietnam to pick a side and use economic tools as leverage. They will threaten to cut trades with Vietnam if Vietnam doesn’t follow them. Currently, the US and its Asian allies, South Korea and Japan, are the biggest trading partners of Vietnam with total trades of about $180 billions a year. It’s 50% bigger than China and Hong Kong trades with Vietnam, which are about $124 billions. Since these 2 groups do not have much differences in economic ties with Vietnam, it’s not clear which side will succeed.
This is my prediction of what will happen. If both the US and China threaten to cut trades with Vietnam and Vietnam has no choice but to pick a side, Vietnam will probably want to choose the one that they think will win. In this case, I think there is a high chance that Vietnam will choose the Russia China side because the US and the West are much weaker now, especially in the APAC region which is faraway from the US and Europe. Therefore, China will probably prevail and get control of the APAC. In return for this choice, Vietnam will make a deal with China to have a share of the resources in the South China Sea, probably a smaller portion than China’s since Vietnam is a much weaker country.
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