RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIAN
“[We] underscored [our] unwavering support for the peaceful resolution of [South China Sea] disputes in accordance with international law, without the threat or use of force,” declared US President Joe Biden and Vietnam’s paramount leader Nguyen Phu Trong in a joint statement after their recent meeting in Hanoi.
The two sides affirmed their shared commitment to “freedom of navigation and overflight and unimpeded lawful commerce in the South China Sea,” underscoring the two sides’ deepening maritime security cooperation in a new Cold War era.
During his historic visit, Biden upgraded bilateral relations to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” (CSP), effectively putting Washington on par with Hanoi’s traditional allies in Russia and fellow communist China.
The two former foes, who fought a decades-old war across Indochina in the second half of the 20th century, described each other as “critical partners” in a “critical time”, reflecting the sea change in the trajectory of US-Vietnam relations over the past decade.
Although both sides insisted that their burgeoning alliance has nothing to do with other powers, it clearly has everything to do with China.
Beyond hemming in an expansionist China in the South China Sea, the Biden administration is also counting on Vietnam to “de-risk” US supply chain reliance on the Asian superpower.
Accordingly, the US president’s visit was accompanied by a major gathering of top American semiconductor companies in Hanoi.
In an exercise in realpolitik, the Biden administration, which has touted democracy promotion as core to its foreign policy agenda, has seemingly overlooked intensifying human rights crackdowns in the Southeast Asian nation.
Biden’s visit to Hanoi came shortly after visiting another critical non-ally partner, India, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi.
And just as with Vietnam, the Biden administration, which has courted back authoritarian Arab allies, seemingly glossed over India’s troubling democratic backsliding in recent years.
By and large, constraining China’s ambitions seems to be the main driving force of Washington’s increasingly post-ideological foreign policy.
Deft diplomacy
Not long ago, the Biden administration alienated many partners by pushing a moralistic and ideologically-tinged foreign policy, which sought to differentiate from the transactional approach of its predecessor through democracy and rights promotion.
Almost immediately, however, the Democratic White House alienated critical partners across the Indo-Pacific. On one hand, Vietnam and Singapore were slighted by their exclusion from the global “Summit for Democracy” in Washington.
The Biden administration also ruffled feathers in democratic nations such as India, where top officials lambasted any criticism of their country’s deteriorating human rights conditions.
Both India and Vietnam also fretted over Western sanctions against Russia. For its part, New Delhi not only refused to join the global sanctions regime against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but it instead stepped up energy imports from the Eurasian power.
US President Joe Biden and Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong in a moment of reflection in Hanoi, September 10, 2023. Image: Twitter / Pool/ EPA
With China emerging as a central obsession of the Biden administration, however, a more pragmatic approach has begun to define Washington’s strategic posture in the past year.
By all indications, Washington has scaled back its threats of sanctions against any potential Indian purchase of high-end Russian weaponries in favor of tighter defense cooperation.
The purpose is to reduce the South Asian power’s reliance on Russian technology, while strengthening India’s ability to balance a resurgent China, with which it shares a heated border dispute in the Himalayas.
Crucially, Washington also sees India as a key partner in enhancing the maritime security capabilities of allied nations such as the Philippines, which has purchased the Indian-made Brahmos supersonic missile system.
The Biden administration’s strategic embrace of India was on full display during the G20 Summit, where Washington, along with key Arab and European allies, agreed to co-fund a massive transregional infrastructure project that connects India to Europe via the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.
The project’s apparent aim is to bypass neighboring Pakistan and Iran, both key nodes in China’s Belt and Road vision.
“It’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal. This project will contribute to making the Middle East a more prosperous, stable and integrated region,” declared Biden following the declaration of the mega-project during the G20 Summit in India.
Reality check
Just days later, Biden visited Vietnam to upgrade yet yet another vital partnership in the region. Crucially, his trip coincided with the gathering of executives from Amkor, Intel, Google, GlobalFoundries, Marvell, and Boeing, who are reportedly exploring ways to diversify away from China.
Intel already has a US$1.5 billion factory in Vietnam, while Amkor is constructing a semiconductor assembly and testing factory.
Marvell is also looking at building a semiconductor designing firm, while GlobalFoundries is exploring options to aid Vietnam’s ambitions to become a major chip-making powerhouse outside of Taiwan, South Korea and China.
Notwithstanding all the bonhomie and mega-announcements, neither India nor Vietnam are in any mood or position to join an overt anti-China campaign.
For its part, India is jealously guarding its own strategic autonomy by maximizing fruitful ties with multiple superpowers. The South Asian nation also seems in no mood to directly take on China in the near future and is instead focusing on economic development and military modernization at home.
As for Vietnam, it similarly seeks to avoid alignment with any major power. In fact, paramount leader Trong first met Chinese President Xi Jinping last year to place bilateral ties on a more even keel.
Crucially, Vietnam is undergoing a major political transition, which has empowered more traditionalist, Western-skeptic factions and politicians.
Booming US-Vietnam ties over the past decade have ironically coincided with the gradual sidelining of more reform-oriented and liberal-minded figures in the Vietnamese Communist Party.
Latest purges have largely empowered members of the security establishment, who are deeply concerned about the prospect of “color revolutions” and Western-backed democratic uprisings amid rapid economic growth, which has created an increasingly large and sophisticated middle class.
Reports even suggest that the Vietnamese siloviki is secretly pursuing a multi-billion-dollar defense deal – worth $8 billion over 20 years – with Russia potentially in contravention of US sanctions.
A Vietnamese naval soldier oversees a missile test in the South China Sea in a 2016.
In a leaked document, the Vietnamese security establishment, which is largely Soviet-trained and reliant on Russian-built weapons, made it clear that they “still identify Russia as the most important strategic partner in defense and security.”
Earlier, the Biden administration subtly warned Vietnam against pursuing mega-defense deals with Russia, its top supplier over the past half-century. But Hanoi has correctly recognized the Biden administration’s unwillingness, if not inability, to go hard on like-minded powers on Russia-related issues lest it undermines its broader China strategy.
“I’ll leave to Vietnam and my friends in Hanoi to comment on their own views and their own position, but certainly we’ve made very clear what our position is on that matter,” said United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink on Vietnam’s Russia relations.
But when pressed on whether Vietnam could face sanctions for its Russia ties, the top-ranking US diplomat coyly said, “Vietnam is one of our most important partners in the region, and I’m very optimistic about our future.”
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