(Photo: CGTN)

Recently, military interactions between the US and Vietnam aroused much attention. In January, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited Vietnam. Not long after that, on March 5, the USS Carl Vinson berthed in Da Nang, the first visit of a US aircraft carrier since the end of the Vietnam War.

In fact, this is just a reflection of the increasingly intimate US-Vietnam military cooperation since the normalization of their bilateral relationship in 1995. In 2003, the US destroyer Vandergrift visited Vietnam, marking the opening a new chapter in military cooperation between the former foes. Ever since then, US warships would visit Vietnamese ports every year.

In addition, US and Vietnam established the vice-ministerial Defense Policy Dialogue in 2010. The following year, the two countries signed an MOU on Enhancing Bilateral Defense Cooperation, highlighting five major areas for cooperation – maritime security, search and rescue, UN peacekeeping operations, humanitarian assistance and academic exchanges. In 2015, the US and Vietnam issued the Joint Vision Statement on Defense Relationship, further expanding their defense cooperation. In 2016, during President Obama’s visit to Vietnam, the US announced the lifting of the decades-long embargo on arms sales to the Southeast Asian country.

The growing US-Vietnam military relationship is due to various reasons, but the most important one is the concern about the so-called Chinese assertiveness, especially in the South China Sea area. China’s land reclamation and military deployment in the South China Sea are seen by the US as a major challenge to its dominance in the Western Pacific and the “rule-based order.” So the US has made great efforts to enhance its military presence in this region.

During the Obama administration, these efforts included the US-Philippines Agreement on Enhancing Defense Cooperation, which allows the US to use military bases in the Philippines; the rotational deployment of 2,500 marines in Darwin, Australia and the deployment of four littoral ships in Singapore. The Trump Administration abandoned Obama’s Rebalancing Strategy in Asia but maintained its military component. The expansion of US-Vietnam defense cooperation is also a part of that strategy. The main purpose of this, in the words of some US think tanks and experts, is to make China pay for its behavior in maritime Asia, so as to “push back” China’s actions.

Although the Trump Administration’s top priority in Asia-Pacific is to solve the nuclear issue on Korean Peninsula, it still continued to enhance military deployment in the South China Sea. For example, the US Navy greatly increased the frequency of the Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), which are now carried out on a regular basis. On March 23, the USS Mustin sailed near Mischief Reef. It is already the seventh operation in the South China Sea in less than one year.

On the Vietnam side, it also fears that the growing power of China will threaten its interests in the South China Sea. Since it has realized that Vietnam cannot deal with the issue by itself, it wants to draw in the external powers, such as the US, Japan, India and Australia to counterbalance China. In the view of Vietnam, the external powers can deter China’s aggression and help Vietnam to promote its military capabilities.

So the common interests to “push back China” is a main driver for the US and Vietnam in building their military relationship in the South China Sea. Their relationship may come even closer in the future since, on the one hand, the US-China competition in the South China Sea will be a long-term and complicated one. The US thinks that it is about geostrategy, maritime supremacy, and future international order. In the National Security Strategy report released at the end of 2017, the US listed China as a “strategic rival” and “revisionist” country and one of the three major challenges to US security. This judgment cast a shadow on the China-US relationship. On the other hand, this year, China and ASEAN will begin the negotiation of the text of a code of conduct in the South China Sea. As we know, China and ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, have some different ideas about the code. In order to achieve a result favorable to them, the ASEAN countries may also draw in external forces to exert influence on the negotiations.

So the situation is complex. But the good news is that ASEAN countries have realized that negotiation and dialogue is the only right track to take in solving the South China Sea issue. And the Philippines and Vietnam have also improved their relationships with China. So China should take the opportunity to enhance maritime functional cooperation with ASEAN countries, including joint development, so as to maintain the hard-won stability and peace in the South China Sea.