Challenge and Cooperate

In this chapter, writer Bernard Moreland compares the responses of Vietnam and the Philippines as case studies in dispute management with China. It hold valuable lessons for India

The responses of China’s neighbors to Beijing’s maritime expansionism offer a spectrum of case studies, from Japan’s uncompromising resistance to Malaysia’s willful ignorance of China’s seizure of its sovereign maritime rights. Among the countries aggressed by China, the Philippines and Vietnam have responded with policies that are nearly diametrically opposite, offering a rare natural experiment in the efficacy of different approaches. In hindsight, Vietnam’s response seems to be the more effective of the two because it pragmatically leveraged Vietnam’s strengths rather than resorting to ideological concepts such as international law or relying on foreign alliances.

Vietnam — A Thousand years of Independent Management of Its China Problem

Hanoi’s management of the colossus to its north is informed by Vietnam’s long experience with China and its independence from alliances. Vietnam is unusual among China’s gray zone victims because — like China — it is led by dictatorship, an ancient form of governance that was once the global norm and is now in resurgence. Similar to the Chinese dictatorship, authoritarian Vietnam until recently maintained expansive South China Sea claims that were prima facie untenable under international law.

China’s aggression toward Vietnam has followed the historical pattern of how dictatorships usually deal with each other, with straightforward combat resulting in the establishment of dominance and norms. The two parties will achieve mutual understanding of China’s supremacy through warfare with each other, but that will fade over time until China recalibrates the relationship with renewed combat, usually in response to increasing disobedience of subordinate Vietnam. The most recent examples occurred in 1974, 1979, and 1988, and came close to repeating in 2014 after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) ordered a Chinese-flagged floating oil platform to drill inside Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In historical contexts, this relationship is often described as suzerainty. Beijing and Hanoi refer to it euphemistically with terms such as “comprehensive cooperation.”

More than any other in East Asia, the Sino-Vietnamese maritime relationship has characteristics that would have been recognized by Thucydides, who wrote in his imagined recounting of the Melian Dialogue that “the strong do what they will while the weak do what they must.” China has tended to act opportunistically, recognizing power vacuums and moving quickly to take advantage to them. China established its presence in the Paracel Islands by attacking Vietnamese forces there in 1974 as the United States was withdrawing from Vietnam. The PRC first established its foothold in the Spratly Islands by using warship anti-aircraft cannon to massacre about sixty Vietnamese sailors standing in waist-deep water at Johnson South Reef in 1988. The only thing “gray” about that encounter was that China claimed that its naval destroyers were engaging in a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization mission when they slaughtered the Vietnamese. The Soviets at that point were withdrawing their support for Vietnam.

China’s gray zone aggression toward Vietnam in the maritime realm has evolved from the naked military violence (followed by disinformation) of 1988 toward intimidation backed up by discreet threats of violence. In 2007, China used governance cutters with strengthened hulls to ram the Vietnamese-contracted British Petroleum oil survey ship Geo Surveyor working in disputed waters. Vietnam’s smaller coast guard cutters were overwhelmed by the larger Chinese ships, which had prepared for the aggression, and Vietnam was forced to suspend its oil prospecting efforts in areas where Vietnam’s excessive claims overlapped China’s. Beijing’s methods were internationally unacceptable, but Hanoi lacked credible allies to help it counter Chinese aggression.

Although the international community formed a fleet to enforce flag state rights under international law in the Gulf of Aden against Somali pirates, it lacked the stomach for similar international enforcement of Vietnam’s coastal state rights in the South China Sea against Beijing’s aggression.

Vietnam and China subsequently entered into delineation and joint patrol arrangements in the Gulf of Tonkin, a norm that has held to this day. Elsewhere, however, Chinese cutters continued to harass, ram, or cut cables of Vietnamese ships attempting to exploit Vietnam’s offshore hydrocarbon resources.

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In 2014 China ordered a deep-water oil platform, Hai yang Shi You (HYSY) 981, owned by state-owned China National Offshore Oil Company, to drill in Vietnam’s EEZ. Vietnam responded by provoking anti-Chinese outrage in its citizenry, unfortunately triggering lethal riots that killed both Chinese and non-Chinese civilians. Vietnam also encouraged aggressive behavior against the oil rig by its fishing fleet.

Hanoi’s behavior was extremely risky. It showed staggering boldness in confronting and provoking China’s superior and better prepared forces, but it risked tipping the dispute into combat, which — as in all previous Chinese recalibrations — would have certainly gone badly for Vietnam.

By some measures, the Vietnamese fared poorly. Hundreds of Vietnamese fishing boats put to sea, but none penetrated the Chinese security cordon. Chinese militia boats and coast guard cutters used water cannon that shattered pilothouse windows on Vietnamese boats, swept their electronics and antennas, and in some cases broke bones. At least two Vietnamese fishing boats were deliberately rammed and sunk by China’s People’s Armed Force Maritime Militia (PAFMM) fishing boats miles away from the rig, with at least one Vietnamese fisherman killed. HYSY 981 completed its test drilling and returned to China unharmed.

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