This year I was again lucky enough to be present at the 2014 Shangri-La Dialogue, where the hot topic of discussion was China’s recent aggressions in the South China Sea and its implications on regional security in the near future. For those who are not au fait with the Dialogue, it is an annual three-day Dialogue that is co-organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Singapore Government. Each year, top officials and academics involved in the domain of security and defence are invited to speak on key security issues affecting the region. In 2014, the highlights for me were the speeches by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and of course, the speech by Vietnamese Defence Minister and Politburo Member Gen Phung Quang Thanh (pictured above).
Gen Thanh spoke during the third plenary session of the Dialogue, which addressed the issue of “Managing Strategic tensions”. Gen Thanh largely built on PM Nguyen Tan Dung’s speech at the opening session of the Dialogue in 2013, where he espoused the concept of “building strategic trust” in the region. He also emphasised that major powers had to play a leadership role in building strategic trust, as well as preventing conflict in the region. Thirdly, he touched briefly on Sino-Vietnamese relations and the ongoing conflict between the two countries over China’s deployment of an oil rig in an area that Vietnam claims as its exclusive economic zone. (The full text of his speech can be found here – https://www.iiss.org/en/events/shangri%20la%20dialogue/archive/2014-c20c/plenary-3-bce0/phung-dcf8).
Domestic response to Gen Thanh’s speech at the Dialogue has been largely critical, with many Vietnamese questioning why he adopted such a soft, and in fact friendly, tone towards China. The Vietnamese blogging community has been quite unforgiving and is seeing Gen Thanh’s speech as yet another occasion when the top Vietnamese leadership has shown that it is too afraid of China to defend Vietnam’s own interests.
Why would Gen Thanh, a decorated military officer, deliver such a speech? My sense is that there are three main reasons for his actions.
1. Firstly, Gen Thanh probably did not have much of a choice in the content and tone of his speech as it would have been approved by the entire Vietnamese Politburo. This is standard practice for the speeches of all top leaders domestically and overseas and the Politburo would probably have gone through Gen Thanh’s speech with a fine tooth comb given the heightening tensions with China. Within the Politburo, different leaders advocate different approaches towards China. Some still believe that China is the Party’s (note: not necessarily Vietnam’s) most trusted ally and therefore, good relations must be maintained with China at all costs. On the other hand, some leaders (and most Vietnamese people) believe that such thinking is antiquated and Vietnam needs to refresh its foreign policy and become more independent vis-à-vis China. However, due to the Party’s tradition of consensus decision-making, the Party leaders often resort to adopting “the lowest common denominator” in decision-making and I believe that this is the reason for the disappointing tone of Gen Thanh’s speech
2. Secondly, I believe that Gen Thanh’s speech was not provocative in any sense as the Vietnamese leaders have a very accurate sense of their (lack of) military might compared to China. Already, Vietnam’s fisheries control and marine police resources are stretched close to the limit as Vietnam maintains a presence around the Chinese oil rig and tries to get the oil rig to leave Vietnam’s waters. Therefore, Vietnam clearly does not want to escalate the conflict with China and trigger a confrontation or war. As leader of the Vietnamese Armed Forces, Gen Thanh would have been the most aware of Vietnam’s military limitations.
Apparently, Gen Thanh has not been happy with the amount of criticism thrown his way. In private conversations, he is said to have lamented the fact that he didn’t actually participate in the writing of the speech and he didn’t have much of say in its contents. Nevertheless, Gen Thanh is bearing a lot of the people’s anger at the Vietnamese leadership and it will be interesting to see how this could impact on his political prospects at the 2016 Party Congress.
becomingnguoiviet 