RTAF – Air Attaché Office in Hanoi
DEFENSE NEWS BULLETIN 31.May.2022
1. VIETNAM’S RARE COMMEMORATION OF A DEADLY SOUTH CHINA SEA BATTLE IS A QUITE BUT DIRECT MESSAGE TO BEIJING.
In March, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh paid homage to several dozen Vietnamese sailors and marines who were killed in a battle with Chinese naval forces at Johnson South Reef in 1988.
In a ceremony at a memorial to the battle in Khanh Hoa province, Chinh laid a wreath, burned incense, and wrote a tribute to those killed in the fighting. The ceremony was accompanied by a front-page editorial in Nhân Dân, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
The actions may seem unremarkable, but they were actually unprecedented.
(Students dressed as sailors prepare to perform a dance depicting Vietnam’s defense of South China Sea islands during a ceremony at the start of a new school year, in Hanoi, September 5, 2016. HOANG DINH NAM/AFP via Getty Images)
Vietnam has long avoided officially discussing or commemorating the battle, which was a stinging defeat and remains a source of anti-Chinese sentiment. In previous years, citizen-organized memorial events and demonstrations marking the battle have even been suppressed by Vietnamese authorities.
The official reticence stems largely from a desire to keep that anti-Chinese sentiment from growing and to avoid antagonizing Beijing, which is Vietnam’s largest trading partner.
But the high-profile commemoration this year, along with Vietnam’s recent actions in the South China Sea and its own military investment plans, may be a message from Hanoi to its larger, better-armed neighbor.
A complicated history and long-standing dispute
(A Chinese outpost in the disputed Spratly Islands in 1988. Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Johnson South Reef is part of the Spratly Islands, a group of over 100 islands, rocks, reefs, and other features in the South China Sea about 500 miles west of Vietnam’s southern coast.
With a total area of about 7.2 square kilometers, Johnson South Reef only has a few stretches that are naturally above water for a few hours a day during low tide. Johnson South Reef and several other features make up an area known as Union Banks, which forms the southwestern part of the Spratly Islands.
The Spratly Islands, like other islands in the South China Sea, have long been the subject of intense territorial disputes.
Beijing has made sweeping claims over the region that have been challenged by its neighbors, many of which have their own claims. An international tribunal has also ruled that Beijing’s claims to rights within what it calls “the nine-dash line” were without legal basis.
(Protesters at an anti-China rally in downtown Hanoi, June 2, 2013. HOANG DINH NAM/AFP via Getty Images)
China and Vietnam’s history make their South China Sea disputes unique. As a fellow single-party communist state, China was Vietnam’s biggest supporter as it fought France, South Vietnam, and the US — but historical divisions kept Beijing and Hanoi from forming an ironclad alliance.
In 1974, China attacked and seized the all of the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam in a days-long naval battle that killed or wounded about 100 South Vietnamese soldiers, sank 1 corvette, and damaged three frigates.
Despite being at war with the South, Hanoi protested Beijing’s actions because it had its own claims on the Paracels but ultimately did nothing because it faced more pressing matters on the mainland.
Sino-Vietnamese relations didn’t get much better after Hanoi defeated South Vietnam in 1975. In 1979, the two countries fought an intense border war that lasted less than a month but caused large casualties and intermittent clashes in the area until 1991.
Johnson South Reef
(An aerial view of Chinese development on Johnson South Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in 2015. Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Following the 1979 war, tensions between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea increased.
By the late 1980s, China began to assert its claims to the Spratly Islands more aggressively, and in 1988 it began deploying soldiers and maritime militia on some of the islands, such as Fiery Cross Reef.
Vietnam vigorously protested and began deployments of its own, a number of which were to the islands and reefs of Union Banks.
Between March 11 and March 13, 1988, two armed Vietnam People’s Navy transport ships and a landing ship were sent with some 100 soldiers and building materials to make outposts on Johnson South Reef, Collins Reef, and Lansdowne Reef.
The Chinese had deployed to nearby Hughes Reef, which was under their control. By March 14, three Chinese frigates were in the area, monitoring the Vietnamese.
(Johnson South Reef, pictured here on May 25, 2018, is in the southwest portion of Union Banks in the Spratly Islands DigitalGlobe via Getty Images)
It remains unclear how battle erupted on the morning of March 14.
The Vietnamese claim that their landing parties, who had placed multiple flags on the then-submerged Johnson South Reef, were confronted by Chinese soldiers who demanded that they leave. After an attempt to dislodge them failed, the Chinese frigates opened fire with 37mm anti-aircraft and 100mm naval guns.
The Chinese claim that the Vietnamese on the reef and on one of the transport ships fired on them first.
Regardless of how it started, the battle was a total defeat for the Vietnamese. Unable to hide or move on the submerged reef, 62 Vietnamese sailors and naval infantry were mowed down in a matter of minutes. The Chinese frigates then turned to the VPN ships and sunk the transports, killing two more Vietnamese sailors.
The Vietnamese landing ship was damaged and its crew beached it on Collins Reef, where it was destroyed. By the end of the day, 64 Vietnamese were killed, nine were captured, three ships were sunk or destroyed, and Johnson South Reef was under Chinese control.
Preparing for the future
(Chinese troops on patrol in the Spratly Islands, February 9, 2016. Thomson Reuters)
Vietnam’s official commemoration of the battle at Johnson South Reef this year was seen as an assertion of sovereignty and as a reminder of how Hanoi had defied its larger neighbor in the past — a message made necessary by Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
In the years since the battle, China has worked to turn the reefs and islands that it controls in the South China Sea into small fortresses. Through land reclamation, China has expanded existing features and built artificial islands to which it has deployed weapons and troops.
Today, Johnson South Reef has a 27-acre artificial island with a port, helipad, a radar station, and close-in weapon systems for air and missile defense.
(The Vietnamese Navy’s first Kilo-class submarine, named Hanoi, in Cam Ranh Bay, January 3, 2014.
Vietnam News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
Vietnam still claims all of the Spratlys, and it has tried to bolster the defenses on the islands still under its control.
Hanoi has also been modernizing its military, including by acquiring six Kilo-class submarines and Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles from Russia.
Vietnam has also improved its relations with its neighbors in recent years, likely with the goal of countering China. Hanoi has joined naval exercises with India and Japan, hosted Australian navy ships, and improved ties with its old enemy, the US.
Though China and Vietnam have close economic ties, their tensions have never truly faded. As Beijing continues to bolster its military and grow its reach, Vietnam is looking to make sure it can defend its interests and avoid a repeat of the events in 1988.
(By Business Insider)
2. VIETNAM RELATIONS ARE A QUITE US VICTORY ALREADY.
There’s no need to empower hard-liners by a potentially provocative upgrade.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh is making his first visit to the United States later this week for the U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit. Since the mid-1990s, when U.S. President Bill Clinton and a cohort of bipartisan allies reestablished relations with Vietnam, the two countries have achieved remarkable things. Hanoi is now one of Washington’s top trading partners in the region, and the United States has invested billions of dollars in Agent Orange remediation and other remaining war legacy issues, showing how, with persistence and trust, former adversaries can turn into partners.
U.S. officials, including most recently U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Marc Knapper, are calling for an official upgrade to a “strategic partnership” from the current status of “comprehensive partnership” to recognize the remarkable success of the relationship. In Hanoi, the label given to a bilateral relationship determines the number of bureaucratic and budgetary resources and frequency of official exchanges allocated to a partnership.
An upgrade to “strategic relationship” would augment resources dedicated to the effort and likely involve more defense-related activities, including the sale of U.S. military equipment to Vietnam now that a previous ban has been lifted. The upgrade can and should happen in good time, and indeed, the current collaboration on maritime security and maritime domain awareness capabilities suggests the United States and Vietnam enjoy a de facto strategic relationship. But pushing the upgrade during Chinh’s visit could be counterproductive.
Hard-liners in Hanoi are jittery about the possibility, as they see it, of the United States using Vietnam to ratchet up great-power competition in mainland Southeast Asia. Some in Hanoi believe, despite 30 years of achievements, that U.S. core interests in Vietnam are to push for peaceful evolution leading to the eventual diminution of the Communist Party’s role. Others in Hanoi aligned with China’s strategic interests are pushing back on a strategic deepening of U.S.-Vietnam relations and suggesting a containment play by Washington. When these factions have reason to align, all forms of progress between the United States and Vietnam can slow.
(U.S. Navy Capt. David Bretz (right) shakes hands with Vietnamese military officials during the arrival of the USNS Mercy in Nha Trang in central Vietnam on May 17, 2018)
By focusing on substance, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinh can emphasize areas of agreement and mutual interest. They can also acknowledge recent areas of friction—including on the Russian invasion of Ukraine—while demonstrating that relations are now secure enough that these disagreements don’t threaten to sap the momentum from growing ties.
There is much more substantive work to be done. Vietnam’s economy is rapidly industrializing, and in a decade or two Vietnam could play a similar role to South Korea in its economic relationship with the world and the United States in particular. This is a future where Vietnam’s firms are tightly woven into U.S. supply chains, its brands are globally recognized, and Vietnamese films are winning Oscars. Pitching a free trade agreement is not a politically realistic move given current sentiments in the United States, but when delegations meet in Washington, the two countries can aim for modest wins through the existing Trade and Investment Framework Agreement while embracing aspects of the forthcoming U.S. Indo-Pacific economic framework, with a focus on secure supply chains and digital cooperation. These efforts would lay the foundation of a multistep process that could eventually result in a bilateral free trade agreement.
When Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, visited the White House in 2015, he emphasized that war legacies cooperation formed the cornerstone of the bilateral relationship, outlining past success and articulating new needs. The United States continues to respond to war legacies needs with annual congressional funding allocations to efforts for Agent Orange remediation and services provided to the generations young and old that suffer from the spraying of dioxin.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, in particular, has done heroic work on these issues for years. When he meets with Chinh at the Capitol, it will be important for future Senate champions of the effort, from both sides of the aisle, to be there shoulder to shoulder to demonstrate the sustained U.S. commitment to addressing war legacy issues. On the docket should be a shift in emphasis to the provision of direct assistance to victims of Agent Orange and collaboration on locating the remains of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, in addition to Americans, killed in the conflict. Vietnam can also assist the United States in augmenting its effort to address these issues in neighboring Laos and Cambodia, building much-needed trust in countries historically close to Vietnam yet with prickly relations with the United States.
Cooperation on climate mitigation and adaptation is a new and highly promising frontier for U.S.-Vietnam relations. At last year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference, Chinh made ambitious commitments to decarbonize by avoiding building new coal plants and transitioning toward clean energy. These goals cannot be reached without domestic reforms that open lanes wide for foreign investment in clean energy assets such as solar, wind, and liquefied natural gas.
Capacity-building toward those investment reforms supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Agency for International Development can open avenues for broad U.S. investment in a decarbonized future—although the United States should be cautious of the power of the Vietnamese state-run coal sector and avoid creating unnecessary frictions. The threats to climate security to Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are shared by neighbors in Cambodia and Laos and as such, as with the war legacies example above, deepened collaboration on U.S.-Vietnam climate security can spill over to increase resilience and adaptation in those countries while bolstering Vietnam’s position as a regional leader.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius (2014-2017) titled his recently published autobiography Nothing Is Impossible. It chronicles the once perceived insurmountable achievements of the individuals in both countries who have brought the U.S.-Vietnam relationship to the level of trust and productivity it enjoys today. Getting here has been an exercise in trust-building and strategic patience.
Focusing on growth in areas of mutual interest and general alignment, such as trade and investment, war legacies, and climate, will deepen and widen the U.S.-Vietnam relationship, bringing it steps closer to an official upgrade. This will also pay off in robust economic and geopolitical benefits to both Vietnam and the United States. But for now, let’s avoid unnecessary stresses and make that upgrade when the time is right.
(By Foreign Policy)
3. VIETNAM, INDONESIA CONTINUE TO STRENGTHEN DEFENSE COOPERATION.
The Vietnamese Minister of National Defense and his Indonesian counterpart affirmed that compliance with international law is necessary, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the East Sea, effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and early completing the signing of an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) following international law.
(General Phan Van Giang, Minister of National Defense welcomes Indonesian Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto)
This morning, Politburo member, Deputy Secretary of the Central Military Commission and Minister of National Defense General Phan Van Giang chaired a ceremony to welcome Indonesian Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto along with a high-ranking delegation of the Indonesian Defense Ministry for their official visit to Vietnam from May 12 to May 14.
This is the first visit of Minister Prabowo Subianto to Vietnam following the invitation of the Vietnamese Minister of National Defense after he was appointed as minister in October of 2019, contributing to promoting defense cooperation between the two countries in the coming time; and this is his first foreign visit after the Covid-19 pandemic has been under control.
The visit is in the context of a good strategic partnership and increasingly strengthened political trust between the two countries. Additionally, the two sides are concentrating on defense cooperation based on positive results.
On this trip, Minister Prabowo Subianto will have a courtesy visit to Vietnamese President of State Nguyen Xuan Phuc and join in some activities of the 31st Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games 31) in the country.
Right after the ceremony, Vietnamese National Defense Minister Phan Van Giang and his counterpart Prabowo Subianto attended a talk. At the talk, the two sides agreed on a high assessment of defense cooperation between Vietnam and Indonesia. On the foundation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two countries on strengthening cooperation between defense officials, related signed activities in 2010, and a joint vision statement on defense cooperation in the period 2017-2022, the two parties have effectively coordinated to organize dialogue, consultation and delegation exchange programs, training sessions for naval forces, coast guards, and cooperation programs between research institutes, and so on.
Particularly, from the end of 2019 up to now, although the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the cooperation activities implementation, the two sides have maintained and paid special attention to the national defense cooperation, and achieved various practical accomplishments, remarkably, dialogue mechanism maintenance, cooperation under the online form, signed cooperation documents between naval and coast guard forces of the two nations and coordination in term of staff training.
The two ministers also agreed that the two sides will continue to effectively implement cooperation contents in the field of national defense signed by the Governments and the Ministry of National Defense of the two countries in the upcoming time; to bring into play the effectiveness of dialogue mechanisms; promote the exchange of delegations at all levels; strengthen cooperation between naval and coast guard forces of the two countries, education and training, defense industry, rescue, military medicine, involvement in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions and so on.
Two ministers also discussed the international and regional situations that the two sides have concerned about, including the East Sea issues.
The two sides affirmed the necessity of maintaining a peaceful, stable, secure and safe environment for navigation and aviation in the East Sea in compliance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the East Sea; effectively implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and soon completing the signing of a substantive and effective Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) under international law.
Minister Phan Van Giang proposed that the two countries’ maritime law enforcement agencies strengthen coordination in exchanging information and handling issues arising at sea based on conformity with the strategic partnership between the two countries and the spirit of humane treatment toward fishermen. Besides, Minister Giang respectfully invited leaders of the Indonesian Ministry of Defense to attend and send national defense enterprises to join the Vietnam International Defense Exhibition which is expected to take place in December of 2022.
Some photos are captured at the welcome ceremony for Indonesian Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto and a high-ranking delegation of the Indonesian Defense Ministry this morning:
(By SGGP English Edition)
4. FIRST VIETNAM – CAMBODIA BORDER DEFENSE FRIENDSHIP EXCHANGE HELD IN BINH PHUOC.
The first Vietnam – Cambodia Border Defense Friendship Exchange continued with activities in Loc Ninh district, Vietnam’s Binh Phuoc province on May 15 after activities in Snuol district of Cambodia’s Kratie
The welcoming ceremony for the Cambodian delegation, led by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Samdech Pichey Sena Tea Banh, was held at Hoa Lu International Border Gate under the chair of Vietnamese Defense Minister General Phan Van Giang.
After the welcoming ceremony, Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh witnessed his Vietnamese counterpart saluting the national marker at Hoa Lu International Border Gate. The two defense ministers then planted trees and observed joint patrol of the border defense forces of the two countries.
After that, the two delegations visited and presented gifts to Loc Tan A Primary School. Speaking at the gift presentation ceremony, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Tea Banh complimented the school’s teachers on their teaching efforts, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. He strongly believed that in the coming time, with the care and support of the Party, Government, and people as well as teachers’ high responsibility, the school’s students will obtain higher academic results, contributing to the development of Vietnam’s education sector.
Talking about the Vietnam – Cambodia relationship, head of the Cambodian delegation affirmed that Cambodia and Vietnam are brotherly neighbors with time-honored traditional friendship. In the past, the two countries stood side by side in the resistance war for national independence. More especially, amid the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two governments, militaries, and people have presented medical supplies and sent medical personnel to assist each other in pandemic prevention and control.
In addition to that, the two countries have continued maintaining and strengthening cooperation in political, military, educational, and socio-economic fields. Recently, the two sides have fostered their cooperation in tourism and history.
The Cambodian defense minister emphasized that the strategic historical and traditional relationship has demonstrated the two countries’ desire to develop their good neighbors, traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation.
The Cambodian official hoped that Vietnamese students will study hard to achieve high academic results and to become future leaders of the nation. He also expected that the Vietnamese children will unite with their Cambodian peers to further preserve and protect the traditional friendship of the two countries.
Below are photos of the activities of the first Vietnam – Cambodia Border Defense Friendship Exchange in Binh Phuoc province.
(General Phan Van Giang (L) receives Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Samdech Pichey Sena Tea Banh at Hoa Lu International Border Gate)
(At the border marker saluting ceremony)
(Vietnamese Defense Minister General Phan Van Giang and Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Tea Banh)
(The two defense ministers plant a friendship tree)
(Delegates cut the ribbon to inaugurate the Vietnam – Cambodia military-civilian friendship infirmary)
(Vietnamese and Cambodian defense ministers visit Loc Tan A Primary School)
(Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Tea Banh speaks at the meeting with Loc Tan A Primary School’s teachers and students)
(General Phan Van Giang presents gifts to teachers and students of Loc Tan A Primary School)
(Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh offers gifts to the school’s teachers and students)
(The two defense ministers and the school’s teachers and students in a joint photo at the event)
(By QDND News)
(THE-END)