There are even concerns that Vientiane is willing to pay down Chinese debts using land transfers. Like in Cambodia, Laos is actively engaged in SEZ activities with China. Chinese firms have The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon - now Ho Chi Minh City - to the Communist north, two years after the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops. Obama in Vietnam Obama lifts It is informed that due to the COVID-19 outbreak recently, The Vietnam Government will deny to issue visa on arrival or evisa for ALL NATIONALITIES (even if they already had the approval letter) This decision will be effective from 12:00 (noon), 15 March 2020 for 30 days, and not be applicable to entrants for diplomatic or official purposes, From 1975 to 1990 many people left Vietnam by boat and they became Vietnamese refugees or boat people. Though just about 60% of the boat people got lucky to come to the country they liked. Another 40% died on the sea or were killed by Thailand's pirates. Most people who escaped from Vietnam have accepted that anything can happen to them, and The Inspiration. On January 21, 1970, Jan Scruggs was having his morning cup of coffee, but he was far from his kitchen table at home. He was in Vietnam, serving in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. In the nine months since he'd been in-country, Scruggs had already seen a lot of action and had been wounded in a battle near Xuan Loc. . HANOI, Sept 23 Reuters - Vietnam said on Thursday it is willing to share its experience and information with China for the world's second largest economy's bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership CPTPP."The CPTPP is an open free trade agreement," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at a regular press is a member of the CPTPP, which is a free trade agreement that also links Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore."Vietnam will consult with other CPTPP members on the recent requests to join this agreement," Hang said in her comment on a request to join the trade pact from by Giles ElgoodOur Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Without a doubt, the Southeast Asian country most willing to challenge Chinese claims in the South China Sea has been Vietnam. Its government and people have long resisted China. Vietnam famously fought its most recent war against China in 1979. But what is often forgotten is that the two sides continued to intermittently fight pitched battles over the next 12 years. Though Vietnam fared well on land, it did not at sea. In 1988, China and Vietnam skirmished over then-Vietnamese-occupied Johnston South Reef in the South China Sea. When the smoke cleared, some 64 Vietnamese naval personnel were dead, and China had captured the reef. With its navy too weak and its superpower benefactor, the Soviet Union, in no mood to confront China, Vietnam could do little to reclaim its lost territory. Given such history, Vietnam has good reason to eye Chinese actions with suspicion. As a result, the growth of Chinese naval forces in the South China Sea since the early 2000s was bound to raise eyebrows in Hanoi. Vietnam recognized that China’s new capabilities would put not only its remaining outposts in the Spratly archipelago at higher risk, but also its entire coastline. If allowed uncontested control of the waters within its self-proclaimed “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea, China could not only threaten Vietnam’s offshore oil and natural gas interests, but also turn its eastern flank in a future border conflict. Hence, Hanoi responded by building a bigger and more capable navy. Vietnamese Naval Buildup Until the early 2000s, the Vietnamese navy was largely comprised of an assortment of retired warships either captured from South Vietnam or transferred from the Soviet Union. Still, it was a force not without some modern naval combat capabilities. Armed with SS-N-2 anti-ship missiles, its eight Osa II-class fast attack craft and four Tarantul-class corvettes would have constituted a reasonably credible threat to an amphibious force attempting to land at Hai Phong, the historic coastal gateway to Hanoi. After the Cold War, the Vietnamese navy sought to gain experience with submersibles, acquiring two North Korean Yugo-class midget submarines in 1997. The navy also added a handful of coastal combatants, but did so at a very slow rate. One small corvette, only 525 tons, took five years from order to completion and was the navy’s only ship to be armed with newer anti-ship cruise missiles at the time. Thus, Vietnam’s navy remained too small and too oriented toward coastal combat to effectively assert Vietnamese claims in the relatively distant Paracel and Spratly Islands. Though that situation was surely not ideal for Vietnam, it was tolerable so long as no other South China Sea claimants aggressively asserted their claims. But then China did just that, as its maritime power grew through the 2000s. Not long afterwards, Vietnam began a major naval buildup. In rapid succession, it ordered four Gepard-class frigates and eight Tarantul V-class corvettes from Russia, all of which are armed with multiple supersonic SS-N-25 anti-ship cruise missiles. In 2009, it also purchased six Russian Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, at a cost of $2 billion or the equivalent of half its entire annual defense budget. The scale of the Vietnamese navy’s expansion has been impressive. All the navy’s submarines, four of its nine frigates, and eight of its 13 corvettes were commissioned in just the last dozen years. While little is known about the navy’s future procurement plans, at least two more Tarantul V-class corvettes are expected and two additional Gepard-class frigates are reportedly under negotiation. In the meantime, Vietnam did not neglect its coastal defenses. In 2011, it ordered two Russian K-300P Bastion-P coastal defense systems. Each system supports a mobile battery of P-800 land-based anti-ship cruise missiles. Now deployed along Vietnam’s coastline, the batteries extend the maritime space that Vietnam can defend to a depth of between 130 and 250 km out to sea. The variation in range depends on the particular flight trajectories of the missiles. If delivered in a single pulse, a salvo of eight missiles from one battery could penetrate even China’s best shipboard anti-missile defenses. At the same time, the batteries’ mobility would hinder China’s ability to suppress them with air or ballistic missile strikes. Vietnamese Naval Strategy Given its naval buildup, Hanoi appears to be preparing itself for future confrontations with China. One could see Vietnam’s acquisition of new missile-armed coastal combatants and land-based anti-ship missile batteries as a sign of that. Although such coastal defense forces are mainly intended to protect the Vietnamese coast rather than its outlying islands, they serve as a useful hedge against any escalatory action that China might take in response to being challenged at sea. Indeed, Vietnam is expected to further beef up those forces and those of its coast guard in the years ahead. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s procurement of submarines offers a strong clue as to what its maritime aim is. Submarines are critical to any modern sea control or sea denial strategy. Having acquired only six submarines so far, Vietnam is likely pursuing the latter—denying its adversary the ability to safely operate in the South China Sea. But with even that number of submarines, the Vietnamese navy can keep two of its boats on patrol at any given time. And, if tensions were to rise, it could surge the rest. No doubt they would complicate Chinese naval operations and force China’s navy to devote anti-submarine warfare resources to hunt for them. Vietnam has also hardened the defenses on the islands that it occupies in the Spratly archipelago. Soon after China accelerated the construction of military facilities in the region during the early 2010s, Vietnam followed suit. Reportedly, in 2016, it even deployed rocket launchers with sufficient range to strike nearby Chinese-held islets. If true, their role in the event of hostilities is likely to neutralize China’s airfields and radar systems on those islets, and thereby improve the odds for Vietnamese naval forces at sea. Still, the goal behind all the efforts by Vietnam to strengthen its naval posture may ultimately be to raise the cost of Chinese encroachment on its South China Sea claims. If so, it has been only partly successful. Certainly, Vietnam has not lost any more territory. Nor have Vietnamese fishermen had to endure the level of harassment that their Filipino counterparts have, at least as measured by the frequency of media reports. But China has repeatedly intruded on swaths of Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone that fall within its “nine-dash line.” In one well-reported case in 2014, China stirred up controversy when it sent the Hai Yang Shi You 981 offshore drilling rig into Vietnamese-claimed waters. Most recently, it dispatched an energy exploration ship, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, to conduct seismic surveys in one of Vietnam’s offshore energy blocks just 100 km off the Vietnamese coast in July and again in August. Unpredictable Tides Like Vietnam, the Philippines had become alarmed by China’s behavior in the South China Sea. During the presidency of Benigno Aquino III, Manila sought to create a common front with Hanoi. Initially, Vietnam was wary. It was unsure about how cooperation might impact its claims—not to mention the reliability of the Philippines as a partner, given its turbulent domestic politics and puny naval strength. But eventually, Vietnam was persuaded. In 2014, it increased its military exchanges with the Philippines and sent two of its newest Gepard-class frigates to Subic Bay to promote naval cooperation. Philippine and Vietnamese soldiers stationed in the Spratly Islands even came together once to enjoy soccer and volleyball in a show of unity. China dismissed the event, calling it “a farce.” As it turned out, Hanoi’s concerns over Philippine reliability were justified. Aquino’s successor, Rodrigo Duterte, radically altered his country’s approach toward China in 2016. Rather than challenge China, the Philippines would cooperate with it. And so Vietnam lost what it had hoped would be an ally on the South China Sea issue within ASEAN. In the meantime, China leveraged its economic ties with other ASEAN countries, like Cambodia, Laos, and Malaysia, to mute regional criticism over its activities. To break free of its increasing isolation, Vietnam has bolstered its security relationships with major powers outside of Southeast Asia, including India, Japan, and the United States. In fact, Vietnam’s submariners are now trained by the Indian navy, which operates the same class of submarines.[1] Vietnam also built a maritime facility to maintain and refuel foreign warships near its Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base, which happens to be the headquarters for the portion of the Vietnamese navy responsible for the Spratly Islands. Since the facility’s opening in 2016, the vast majority of the ships that have docked there have been from countries that have expressed some sort of opposition to China’s maritime activities, including Australia and France. American and Japanese ships have visited the most. Vietnam seems “to be reminding China of just how many friends and suitors it has—and just how well it can look after their warships.”[2] Getting Some Respect For decades, Beijing and Hanoi have tussled over the waters of the South China Sea. But how China now deals with Vietnam at sea has begun to diverge from how it deals with other claimants, like the Philippines. When China sent the Haiyang Dizhi 8 into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, it provided the ship with a strong escort of four large coast guard vessels. Rarely does it do so when sending ships into waters claimed by the Philippines. In short, China may have come to regard Vietnam’s maritime capabilities with a measure of respect. Of course, that does not mean China has backed off on its South China Sea claims. It continues to meddle in Vietnam’s offshore energy exploration activities. In 2018, Chinese pressure forced Spain’s Repsol to halt a project off Vietnam’s southern coast, “costing the company and its partners as much as $200 million.” Then in 2019, Chinese coast guard vessels used their water cannons to hamper a Vietnamese offshore drilling rig working for Russia’s Rosneft on another project.[3] The spat is over the Ca Voi Xanh Blue Whale project, led by America’s ExxonMobil. If fully developed, the project could produce 8-9 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year and generate $20 billion in revenues for Hanoi. Even though Blue Whale’s natural gas field is clearly outside of China’s “nine-dash line,” it is close enough that China has leaned on ExxonMobil to cut its ties to the project. If Vietnam is to counter such Chinese pressure, then it will have to prove to companies, like ExxonMobil, that it can protect its offshore blocks. But, despite its bigger navy, Vietnam has struggled to close the power gap between it and China, whose own naval expansion has yet to slow. Fortunately for Vietnam, its economy has grown briskly over the last half decade. The trade war between China and the United States will likely boost it even further, as international supply chains shift from China to Vietnam. That is bound to benefit Hanoi’s coffers. Already, Vietnamese government revenues have been rising by more than ten percent a year from 2015 to 2018. Hanoi would be wise to spend a good portion of those revenues on its navy. After all, getting respect is one thing, keeping it is another. [1] Jon Grevatt, “India, Vietnam to deepen defence trade ties,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, Mar. 5, 2018. [2] “Dock and cover,” Economist, Apr. 20, 2017. [3] Spain’s Reposol tried to develop the Ca Rong Do Red Emperor oil and natural gas field in Block 07/09 and Russia’s Rosneft is developing the Lan Do Red Orchid natural gas field in Block Both blocks are off Vietnam’s southeastern coast, but within China’s “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea. Subscriber OnlyGDP next year to expand 6% prime minister says WednesdayGovernment pledges flexibility to ease blockages, aid recoveryPhotographer Maika Elan/BloombergOctober 20, 2021, 304 AM UTCUpdated onOctober 20, 2021, 359 AM UTCVietnam’s prime minister said economic growth will accelerate in 2022 after undershooting expectations this year, as the nation aims to revive manufacturing and exports from a crippling coronavirus Pham Minh Chinh, speaking Wednesday at the opening of parliament’s fall session, forecast gross domestic product next year will expand in a range of 6% to ASEAN Beat Security Southeast Asia The South China Sea matters to Vietnam’s economic development, but its land borders are the key to its long-term security. The border gate between Vietnam and Laos at Lao Bao, Vietnam. Credit DepositphotosWhere should the focus of Vietnam’s national security strategy lie in an age of rising Chinese power? In 2019, Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defense released a defense white paper that put much emphasis on the South China Sea SCS. Vietnam made clear that it was unhappy with China’s destabilizing behaviors in the SCS, referencing its “actions to unilaterally impose based on force disregarding international laws and militarization activities that change the status quo, violate Vietnam’s sovereignty.” The white paper also cautioned that “great-power competition is getting increasingly tense, making the East Sea [SCS] become flashpoint’ at one point, which increases the risks of conflict.”Since the 1990s, the SCS has been the focus of Vietnam’s national security strategy, with the goal of constraining Chinese expansion. Indeed, the bulk of Vietnam’s military modernization efforts since the early 2000s has focused on the navy and air force in order to boost their ability to protect the country’s maritime interests in a context of high-tech warfare and growing uncertainty in the SCS. Scholars have also noted the importance of the SCS in the overall China-Vietnam relationship and the ways in which China’s rise has shifted the regional maritime balance of power with great implications for settling the SCS disputes in a peaceful such an emphasis on the SCS as the potential flashpoint of Vietnam’s future conflicts with China is misplaced for two reasons. First, China’s rise has shifted the power balance not only at sea but also on the land. Beijing’s attempts to woo Vietnam’s neighbors, Cambodia and Laos, with economic rewards are as dangerous to Hanoi as its destabilizing actions in the SCS. Second, such an emphasis cannot explain Hanoi’s shift to maritime security in the 1990s and overstates the importance of the SCS in its long-term strategic outlook at the expense of other more important priorities, such as the alignment of Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam’s post-Cold War reorientation toward the SCS is based on the premise that its land borders are already secured. But China’s moves to win Laos and Cambodia to its side should shift its focus back generally prioritize land security over maritime security, and only after they have secured their land borders do they look to the ocean. This is simply because it is costly to build and maintain an army and a navy at the same time, especially when the rival is a peer or a more powerful state. China only began to expand its maritime capabilities in the 1980s after its land borders were secured and it became the sole great power in mainland Northeast Asia, reducing its need for a large army. Even now, China has little fear for its land security, given that most of its neighbors are much weaker. In the case of India, the Himalayas serve as a natural buffer to prevent both sides from fighting a large war that can threaten China’s survival. Thanks to the favorable power balance on the land, Beijing has shifted its focus to the maritime domain to contest the United States’ maritime same thing can be said about Vietnam. Hanoi only looked to the sea in the 1990s after it had defeated South Vietnam, resolved its border conflicts and normalized relations with China, and addressed the security threats in Laos and Cambodia in the aftermath of the Third Indochina War. Hanoi’s protests against China’s occupations of the Paracel islands in 1974 and the Johnson South Reef in 1988 were weak for a good reason it was distracted by other more pressing security threats on land and it did not have the capability to field a strong army and navy at the same prioritization of land over the sea was understandable. Compared to mainland Indochina, the SCS lacks the strategic importance that matters to Vietnam’s survival. Both the Paracel and Spratly island groups are far from Vietnam’s shore, meaning that losing them, while harmful to Vietnam’s economic interests, does not hurt Vietnam’s survival in any way. Remarkably, South Vietnam’s loss of the Paracel islands in 1974 to China did not spell its doom – the North Vietnamese army was responsible for that – while Vietnam’s loss of Johnson South Reef to China in 1988 did not threaten Hanoi’s survival as much as China’s 1979 ground both China’s and Vietnam’s land features are too small to defend in the event of war. And apart from using them as a way to assert sovereignty, those features have limited military use without external maritime surveillance capability and have little impact on freedom of navigation. On the other hand, Hanoi is fully aware of the significance of Laos and Cambodia to its survival, which has been demonstrated by its use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to launch attacks on South Vietnam and its ambition to keep the two countries under an Indochinese Federation and out of the orbit of other rivals after key point is that China now poses a comprehensive threat to Vietnam, on both land and sea, as it presses forward with its Belt and Road Initiative and militarization of islands in the South China Sea, as well as the modernization of its navy. As a weaker power, Vietnam has little choice but to adjust its calculations accordingly and prioritize wisely. China’s occupation of SCS features claimed by Vietnam does not offer it more leverage on land. However, China’s ability to attack Vietnam on land does offer it more leverage on the sea because the stakes are much higher for Vietnam’s security. And this suggests that Vietnam should look west for its has little hope in the east; it cannot fight and win a naval war against China because the maritime balance of power is heavily skewed against it no matter how much it spends on modernizing its navy and air force in the aftermath of major purchases from Russia. It also cannot expect the to come to its defense, given that Washington has maintained its neutrality with regard to the territorial disputes in the SCS and is not bound by a treaty to defend Vietnam, as in the case of the the balance of power on land works more in Vietnam’s favor and it is this that will determine its survival. Vietnam has experience fighting major ground wars against superior enemies and has a better chance of neutralizing China’s qualitative and quantitative military advantages than at sea. The war in Ukraine has shown that a small power can forestall a large power’s attacks by employing a porcupine strategy. Instead of deploying modern military equipment, Vietnam can simply procure cheap and mass-produced weapon systems that are easy to hide and use to significantly increase the costs of Chinese ground mountainous topography of northern Vietnam and Laos should also complement Hanoi’s “porcupine” strategy. During China’s invasion in 1979, Vietnam successfully relied on militia and special operatives, who used tunnels and jungle warfare to stop Chinese assaults along the border while the regular army waited behind the front line to confront the exhausted Chinese Vietnam to successfully deter China, it needs to ensure that China does not establish any military outposts in Laos and Cambodia that allow Beijing to launch a multi-front invasion in addition to the China-Vietnam border. This explains why Hanoi is wary of China’s involvement in the refurbishment of a naval base in Cambodia and Chinese investments in debt-crippled Laos. Sri Lanka accepting to host a Chinese research vessel despite India’s objections should caution Vietnam that Beijing can similarly leverage its economic power to security ends in Laos. Vietnam thus should put more effort into courting these two countries with economic rewards and political partners in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – the Australia, Japan, and India – should not only support its efforts to balance against China in the SCS but also in Laos and Cambodia. And the support does not have to be military. The Quad can provide economic and infrastructure support to weaken the appeal of China’s economic rewards, a task that Vietnam alone cannot achieve. Importantly, Vietnam needs to maintain good relations with China by committing to a diplomatic solution of the SCS disputes in line with international law. History has shown that if the overall Vietnam-China relationship is good, both sides will be willing to settle their disputes South China Sea surely matters to Vietnam’s economic development, but it will be Laos and Cambodia that determine its survival over the long term. And importantly, protecting Vietnam’s land security first and foremost is the best way for it to protect its sovereignty in the SCS. Continuing to balance against China at sea via naval and air force modernization is a step in the wrong direction if China increasingly poses a threat on land. Vietnam therefore needs to strengthen its army and put Laos and Cambodia back at the center of its national security strategy. A grand strategy for Vietnam should start with a simple question is Vietnam secure enough on land to expand to the sea? If China ever decides to test Vietnam on land, Hanoi should be able to pass the test, as it has successfully done so many times over the past 2,000 years. Subscriber OnlyMarch 15, 2022, 324 AM UTCUpdated onMarch 15, 2022, 658 AM UTCVietnam is poised to welcome international travelers on Tuesday but a lack of clarity on the rules of a wider reopening while the coronavirus is still rampaging is causing remains unclear what kind of quarantine and testing rules the Southeast Asian nation will impose on foreign visitors when it reopens after a two-year closure. It doesn’t help that Vietnam has been seeing a surge, with daily cases averaging about 165,000 in the past week through March 14.

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