Vietnamese Arms Buildups for National Defense and Modernization

Summary: Vietnamese arms buildups prioritize Vietnam’s claims to the Paracel and the Spratley archipelagos and needs for national defense and modernization.

South China Sea claims concerning Paracel and Spratly archipelagos: Voice of America, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Communist Party and the national military acknowledge Vietnamese arms buildups for national defense and modernization in confidential reports from senior officers in Vietnam to Reuters international news agency of London, England.

Senior officers in Vietnam’s Communist Party, the Socialist Republic’s founding and ruling political party, bring to worldwide attention tensions with the neighboring People’s Republic of China. The stress comes from rival claims to the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos in the waters called East Sea by Vietnam and South Sea by China. Both countries deem that the two sets of islands belong within their respective borders even though just Paracel is roughly equidistant from the two neighboring republics.

Location and resources explain the archipelago’s appeal.

Carl Thayer, professor at Australia’s Defence Force Academy in Canberra, finds repetitions of the phrases “high combat readiness” and “new situation” explanatory of Vietnamese arms buildups.

Lectures by senior military officers during visits to military bases, publications by the People’s Army of Vietnam and talks with foreign military delegations generate both phrases. The phrase high combat readiness has high profile usage amid captioned billboard images of military hero General Vo Nguyen Giap and revolutionary founder Ho Chi Minh.

Professor Thayer indicates that since the 1970s “When Vietnam refers to the ‘new situation’, they are using coded language to refer to the rising likelihood of an armed confrontation or clash with China, particularly in the South China Sea.”

Confrontations in 2014 over a Chinese oil rig 80 nautical miles off Vietnam joined clashes from 1974, 1979 and 1988 to advance both republics’ arms buildups.

Loss of Paracel and Spratly islands in 1974 and 1988 and of the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 kindled Vietnam’s pursuit of intelligence-sharing, training and weapons-buying arrangements. Vietnam looks to American and European fighter-planes, patrol-planes and unarmed surveillance drones; Israeli early-warning surveillance radars; and Russian jet fighter-bombers, Kilo-class submarines and surface-to-air missile batteries. Division 308, Vietnam’s most elite and longstanding military unit, maintains alerts against attacks along the 1,400-kilometer (875-mile) China-Vietnam border while military outposts fortify coasts and islands.

Vietnam notes China’s airstrip-building on Spratly reefs and submarine base defenses on Hainan.

A $5-trillion, ship-borne trade that involves Brunei, China, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam operates yearly through China’s South Sea and Vietnam’s East.

The situation prompted China’s Defense Ministry to observe in a statement for Reuters: “Both sides should look for a basic, lasting solution both sides can accept.”

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute quantifies the decade-long, upward-trending military spending by Vietnam’s national government as far exceeding that of any other Southeast Asian country.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry revealed to Reuters that “The relationship between Vietnam and China is maintaining a positive development trend in all fields, including the defense sector.”

Both countries’ statements strengthen regional peace while both contingency plans suggest national preparedness.

Carlyle "Carl" Thayer of Australia's Defence Force Academy finds explanations of Vietnamese arms buildup in repeated phrases, such as "high combat readiness" and "new situation"; Edwin Wriston/U.S. Navy photo of Carl Thayer at U.S. Naval War College 2015 Current Strategy Forum, Newport, Rhode Island, June 17, 2015: U.S. Naval War College, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

South China Sea claims concerning Paracel and Spratly archipelagos: Voice of America, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:South_China_Sea_claims_map.jpg

Carlyle "Carl" Thayer of Australia's Defence Force Academy finds explanations of Vietnamese arms buildup in repeated phrases, such as "high combat readiness" and "new situation"; Edwin Wriston/U.S. Navy photo of Carl Thayer at U.S. Naval War College 2015 Current Strategy Forum, Newport, Rhode Island, June 17, 2015: U.S. Naval War College, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavalwarcollegeri/18279432024/

For further information:

New China TV. 9 November 2015. "Chinese soldiers sweep for mines along Sino-Vietnam border." YouTube.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeAHcMnAJVM

Reuters TV @ReutersTV. 17 December 2015. "Vietnam gets ready to strike back at China." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/ReutersTV/status/677538741427298304

Torode, Greg. 18 December 2015. “Vietnam Builds Military Muscle to Face China.” Reuters > Business.
Available @ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-china-conflict-insight-idUSKBN0U000320151218