TAIPEI - Vietnam is expected to keep chasing stronger relations with China, a political adversary for centuries, despite new signs that Beijing has added military infrastructure on several disputed islands in the South China Sea.
The Southeast Asian country, long accustomed to China’s buildup in the contested Paracel and Spratly islands, is anxious to grow its exports and meanwhile wants stronger trade with the world's number two economy China. And analysts say Vietnamese officials are unsure whether U.S. President Donald Trump would help Vietnam defend itself against China if needed.
Officials in Hanoi may figure long-term stable relations with Beijing could lead to negotiations over the Paracels or Spratlys, said Oscar Mussons, international business advisory associate with the Dezan Shira & Associates consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City. China has the world’s third strongest military and Vietnam ranks number 17 on the GlobalFirePower.com database.
“At least they know what they’re going to find. They are going to find only one party, and so somehow they are comrades,” Mussons said. “The only way left for Vietnam is perhaps the diplomacy. They cannot match China’s military power.”
A South China Sea project under Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies this month described new evidence that Beijing is adding naval and air facilities in the Paracel Islands.
China and Vietnam also compete for control of the Spratly Islands, which are claimed as well by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry had published no response on its English-language website to the think tank’s findings as of Monday, consistent with a softer approach to Beijing following senior-level meetings in September and January.
Experts say leaders in Hanoi are learning to accept in private China’s control over the Paracel Islands, despite 43 years of resistance. But, according to Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at The University of New South Wales in Australia, Vietnam, with strong anti-China sentiment among its 93 million citizens, will stick to its sovereignty claims in public but mute official anger or retaliation as it cements stronger economic cooperation, including at sea.
“I think Vietnam will make a pro forma protest about Chinese activities in the Paracels, because it also claims sovereignty,” he said. “So that’s a bit of a ritual. There’s nothing Vietnam can do about it. It’s adjusting to that.”
China cites historical usage records to claim 95 percent of the South China Sea, which stretches from Taiwan to Singapore. All six claimants covet the sea for its rich fisheries. Some are also prospecting for undersea fossil fuels and prize the sea for its marine shipping lanes.
Vietnamese have had little access to the Paracel Islands, 130 tiny land features off its east coast and southwest of Hong Kong, since the People’s Liberation Army of China took control in 1974 after a naval battle with what was then South Vietnam.
Of China’s 20 holdings in the Paracels, three have harbors that can hold “large numbers of naval and civilian vessels,” the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative said on its website in a Feb. 8 report. China has used landfill to enlarge some of the once uninhabitable Paracel islets in addition to an estimated 3,200 acres of reclamation in another disputed chain, the Spratly Islands.
Four other Paracel islets controlled by China include smaller harbors and a fifth is being built on another islet that previously lacked major military infrastructure, the think tank initiative said. Five islands support helipads and Duncan Island, China’s second most advanced military base in the archipelago, berths a “full helicopter base,” it said.
Woody Island, the biggest land mass, has an airstrip, hangars and a deployment of surface-to-air missile batteries, the think tank report added.
On Feb. 5 the Vietnamese foreign affairs spokesman described as “illegal” the establishment of a Bank of China branch on Woody Island. But media reports say Vietnamese authorities put down a protest in Hanoi last month by about 100 people on the anniversary of China’s Paracel takeover.
Deadly anti-China riots followed Beijing’s permission in 2014 for an oil firm to place a rig in disputed waters near the Gulf of Tonkin, which is just east of Vietnam and south of China.
After Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s visit to China last month for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the two sides issued a statement agreeing to settle maritime disputes peacefully and work toward joint development in the gulf.