Jun 27, 2011
By Marianne Brown
Source: Monsters and Critics
Hanoi - As anti-China protests in Vietnam enter their fourth week, Hanoi's recent rapprochement with China has raised the question of how well the government can balance diplomatic requirements with the public's patriotic demands.
A joint press release issued Sunday showed an easing of tensions between the neighbouring countries over their competing claims in the South China Sea. But some elements of the public have expressed anger at Hanoi's perceived stepping down, which according to some observers has provided a boost to anti-government activists.
Outside the Chinese Embassy in the Vietnamese capital, gatherings of dozens of people have been a familiar sight for the past month, waving banners and chanting 'the Spratly Islands belong to Vietnam' and 'China: big country, ignoble behaviour.'
The Spratlys lie in an area thought to be rich in mineral and fish resources, and are the subject of competing territorial claims by China and Vietnam, and several other South-East Asian countries.
Tensions spiked in recent weeks after Vietnam accused China of harassing seismic survey ships and fishing boats in the contested area, while Beijing alleged that Vietnamese boats had entered its waters illegally and endangered Chinese fishermen.
Vietnamese authorities have so far been unusually tolerant of the anti-China demonstrations. But diplomatic imperatives could force their hand after the joint press release, issued following a visit to Beijing by Vietnam's Deputy Foreign Minister Ho Xuan Son at the weekend.
The talks, according to the joint statement published on Vietnam's Foreign Ministry website Monday, 'laid stress on the need to steer public opinions along the correct direction, avoiding comments and deeds that harm the friendship and trust of the people of the two countries.'
Some elements in Vietnam have said they do not want their opinion steered in that direction, and have criticized the government's approach of conciliation towards China.
Banned pro-democracy group Viet Tan recently said the government was 'incapable' of resolving the maritime territory dispute. But it said that the situation shone a useful light on the government's shortcomings.
'The issue of China is a good opportunity to see clearer the government is unfit to lead the country,' said US citizen and Viet Tan member Nguyen Quoc Quan, who served six months in prison in 2008 for preparing pro-democracy leaflets.
For retired US diplomat and journalist David Brown, Vietnam's participation in 'bilateral negotiations', after insisting for months that any talks should be under the aegis of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, 'does appear to be a step back for the Vietnamese,' and could further stoke public resentment.
Sunday's joint statement went further than the usual lip-service to good relations, he said.
'There is a huge amount of institutionalised contact between the Chinese and Vietnamese elite,' he said, adding that every such contact produces a feel-good statement. 'But this one is something more than that,' he said, and could well provoke public resentment.
He explained that '99.5 per cent of the Vietnamese live in the here and now,' and are more concerned with not losing face than a long-term solution. 'The real problem is now having had three or four weeks of bashing China now they are trying to cut a deal,' he said.
But Brown said he did not think that this would provide much useful grist to the mill of the pro-democracy movement. This opinion was shared by Carl Thayer, expert on Vietnam and South-East Asia at the Australian Defence Academy, who said that anti-China sentiment is far from being a threat to the government.
The demonstrations have been small and well-managed, and the very fact that the people are calling on the government to take action 'is reaffirming its legitimacy to handle foreign affairs,' he said.
He conceded that there was chance the government could be seen to be selling out to China. But the alternative, he said, was incurring 'Chinese anger that is going to affect some of the economic and other relationships.'
The government could do more to make the diplomatic course of action more widely understood and acceptable, he said.
'Why can't the defence ministry go to the National University in Hanoi and give a talk?' he said. That would be a chance to explain to the public that 'You can't just kick China in the shins without thinking of what will happen next.'
And trouble-making nationalists could be defused if the government can 'make them understand that diplomacy isn't in black and white in this particular case,' he said.
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