By NGUYEN MINH TRI

Quang Ngai Department of Foreign Affairs

Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam (tringmqn@gmail.com)

New developments of rising China in the South China Sea have posed serious threat looming over the sovereignty of Vietnam, driving the political elites of this small country into devising appropriate strategies to cope with. Apart from those strategies of common knowledge there emerges a new food for thought of exercising people-to-people diplomacy, a kind of Vietnam’s “soft power”, as offset against the new great power of China with its redoubtable military clout in the struggle for sovereignty over the South China Sea. Some pros and cons of several strategies shall be explored in the article with an ending open for further thinking about a new kind of “soft power” - people-to-people diplomacy. The capacity of such nongovernmental diplomacy strategy Vietnam could employ shall also be juxtaposed by other household ones such as internationalization and balancing.

South China Sea or East Vietnam Sea or whatever it may be called all refer to a part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Strait of Malacca in the southwest to the Strait of Taiwan in the northeast, with over 500 million people in Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam living within 100 miles of its coastline.

With over 200 identified islands and reefs within the sea (most significant of them are Paracel and Spratly Islands), this body of water holds one third of the all world's marine biodiversity (i.e. coral reefs and valuable fisheries). It is also thought to be abundant in oil and natural gas reserves: an estimate of 28 billion barrels and some 266 trillion cubic feet respectively. Above all, South China Sea is a strategic maritime link between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca, the Sunda Strait, and the Lombok Strait with over half of the world's oil tanker traffic and over half of the world's merchant fleet sailing through its waters every year, making it one of the world's busiest international sea lanes. Ostensibly, its extremely significant geopolitical sense makes South China Sea covetable for navy powers, and unfortunately root of and the way where the story of all disputes over the region begins to go.

South China Sea

Presumably, history of the South China Sea in late second half of the twentieth century has been condensed with numerous competing territorial claims arisen over the sea, particularly since the advent of modern undersea oil and natural gas exploration. Such disputes, which have been regarded as Asia's most potentially dangerous point of conflict, include those between Vietnam and China over the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands, over which the claimants have both been vigorous so far in prosecuting their claims.

In reality, pragmatic disputes and conflicts between China and Vietnam over the South China Sea, namely the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands, did not by and large crop up until late twentieth century milestoned by the Battle of the Paracel Islands, a naval clash between China and South Vietnam on 19 January 1974 which resulted in the occupation and establishment of China’s control over all of the Paracel Islands (called Hoang Sa by the Vietnamese, and the Xisha Islands by the Chinese). And a China-initiated brief maritime clash later on 14 March 1988, known as Spratly Islands Naval Battle between People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) of China and Vietnam People's Navy, was just a not-hard-to-comprehend follow-on move by Beijing in realizing its well-preset expansionism to gradually hegemony over the sea. Recently, tensions in the South China Sea have been escalated when People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) overtly and repeatedly attack and hold Vietnamese fishermen hostages while fishing in Vietnam’s territorial waters. The worst case was recorded on 28 September 2009 when Chinese military men in PLAN uniform fiercely opened fire at a group of 17 Vietnamese fishing boats while they were seeking refuge in the Paracel Islands from Ketsana Typhoon.

In another move, in May 2009, in its objection note to Vietnam and Malaysia joint submission sent to the UN’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, China did for the first time ever show the UN a map with U-shaped dotted line (cow’s tongue) depicting its maritime border enclosing almost 80% of the South China Sea. This publicity of such a cow’s tongue map has, undoubtedly, no longer concealed Beijing’s desire for domination over this very important geopolitical body of water, including all islands and reefs within the sea.

China’s cow’s tongue claim

For Vietnam, having abundant historical experience with the problems posed by a strong and domineering China (Thayer 2002, pp. 265-87), and resigning herself to the neighbor’s domination for a thousand years in history, this country has definitely been far from strange to those aforesaid flagrant and perverted developments of the now learning-to-be-superpower in the South China Sea. The true is, this weak and poor South East Asian country has no other choice than employing a foreign policy that could both preserve its sovereignty and seek to avoid the costs of alienating the region’s rising great power (Danny Roy 2005, pp. 305-22). However, such a foreign policy merely serves as somewhat of fundamental principle, and what are specific strategies for the sovereignty not to be seriously threatened, even lost, in the long term have never been no longer a puzzle for Vietnamese political elites to resolve. This article will explore this question, reasoning that, while basing on international laws (UNCLOS et al.) to take proceedings and balancing with the United States and others against China are critical strategies, the approach of what may be termed nongovernmental diplomacy or people-to-people diplomacy seems not to be second to any, and thus needs not to be disregarded.

As a natural reaction, what a small country like Vietnam could immediately do with the imminent threat looming over its sovereignty and territorial integrity from the neighboring “fire-spitting dragon” is resort to international laws as “firm and trustworthy” tools to raise its voice against the predator.

In theory, there is good reason for Vietnam as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council to either take these disputes to the International Court of Justice or request for consultations as well as technical assistance for ways the disputes to be settled from this most important international justice-preserving body. The International Court is unquestionably an influential international forum where the S-shaped country of Vietnam could argue for and persuasively defend her own national legitimate interests by demonstrating all indisputable historical and archeological evidences she has ever had about the sovereignty she established in the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands hundreds of years ago. In the legal sense, according to UNCLOS, the most important international legal instrument on the sea ratified by almost all countries round the globe (China included), any country contiguous to sea has its 12 nautical miles of territorial waters plus an exclusive economic zone of maximum 200 nautical miles from that country’s baseline. In the light of this UNCLOS provision, the Chinese “cow’s tongue claim” that “licks” some 80% of the South China Sea (leaving just a narrow strip running along the coasts of the rest countries of Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Brunei around this body of water) intrinsically proves baseless. And the way Beijing used force to dispossess the whole Paracel Islands and parts of the Spratly Islands in 1974 and 1988 respectively is unjustifiable.

However, the game is not solely played by Vietnam. What if China, with its formidable military strength of a rising great power, shows willingness to accede to such mode of settlement and also presents to these good offices similar evidences in the way its opponent does? If this is the way the story goes, namely the case is accepted and handled by the International Court in a spirit of “fair play”, it will seem an initial success for Vietnam no matter what the ultimate results of the settlement are, even she may lose the game, because what this small country strongly desires for is that “justice is done”. This “humble aspiration”, if not stemming from her status of a weak state, comes from Vietnamese culture that always admires (but not always believes in) what is read “reason is right” rather than “might is right”.

Despite the fact that such humble “justice dream” may never comes, internationalization of these disputes over the South China Sea is more than necessary for Vietnam to do in a couple of ways (regrettably, Vietnam has thus far not). Firstly, though the case possibly not accepted or handled by the International Court, or China may refuse compliance with any adverse judgments by this world’s justice body, the litigation could to a more or less extent generate some international pressures on the Chinese clout as this “quasisuperpower” may potentially challenge similar legal proceedings against it from a number of states with whom it has been involved in certain disputes of the kind. Secondly, in case China turns its back on any international judgments, the world community could through it better comprehend the Chinese pattern of behavior, thus thinking of devising any measures as they may be necessary to deal with this “peaceful rising”. At least, some lessons learned may be drawn and precautions be taken in coping with China, which in turn may result in changing somehow the way this great power behaves the world of which Vietnam is a member. What is more, though miraculously fast growing into a superpower in both economic and military might terms, Beijing can be more than sufficiently aware that any overt aggressive attitudes now may lead to the bankruptcy of its “peaceful rise theory”. In fact, although former President Jiang Zemin pioneered to slightly change his predecessor Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy of “take the low profile and never take the lead” or “avoid confrontation and seek opportunities for cooperation with the United States” into one of “great power diplomacy under the global climate of one super power, several great powers”, under Mr. Jiang, China continued to avoid direct conflicts with the United States (Willy Lam, Far Eastern Economic Review: http://feer.com/essays/2009/may/beijing-learns-to-be-a-superpower).

From other perspective, experiences from world political life have indicated that international legal instruments are sometimes nominal, being something in name only, not in reality, or just the rubber stamps for small states to deceive themselves to draw on. Some scholars and writers have even gone a bit further to doubt the capability of international laws in protecting justice, focusing on the bitter reality of realpolitik and power politics. In fact, great powers tend to employ realpolitik rather than nominal legal instruments in their foreign policy as well as dealing with international issues for the sake of their own interests. And those incidents that France carried out some 210 nuclear tests from 1960 to 1996, the US launched war against Irag in 2003, Russia attacked Georgia in 2008 and China expanded its clout to the Paracel Islands and parts of the Spratly Islands in 1974 and 1988 respectively have been striking examples of this tendency (Le Vinh Truong, Vietnamese Sovereignty and International Laws, available at: http://tuanvietnam.net/vn/tulieusuyngam/8092/index.aspx). These were really a deadly blow on international laws.

Accordingly, it would be apparently insufficient and impracticable for Vietnam just to rely on international laws to prosecute her claims, though justice may lie in her thinking. That China overtly declared its “cow’s tongue theory” about the South China Sea recently this May has strikingly demonstrated that it would scarcely be willing to settle the aforesaid disputes via international legitimacies. On the contrary, China has even demonstrated its willingness to display its new military capabilities and at times to use force to claim maritime territory (US Senator Jim Webb, available at: http://webb.senate.gov.newsroom/record.cfm?id=315847&). From this it follows that, there seems little doubt that China will escalate intimidation over Vietnam and others to gain its total control over the South China Sea, unless there are appropriate and meaningful checks and balances.

China’s expansion of economic and political influence, especially its rapid modernization of PLAN with mighty submarine fleet and surface combatants do pose substantial threat to the current geopolitical balance in Asia, hence prevailing over its opponents in those disputes over the South China Sea. In this regard, only the United States has both the stature and the national power to confront the obvious imbalance of power that China brings to these situations. And only the United States, as a relevant player, could “maintain a geostrategic balance in the region that ensures fairness for every nation in Asia, and protects the voice of every country seeking a peaceful resolution to their disputes” (US Senator Jim Webb, available at: http://webb.senate.gov.newsroom/record.cfm?id=315847&).

Jim Webb’s statement can be well read that Vietnam, as a nation in the region involved in territory disputes with China over the South China Sea, should handshake with the US to counter-balance China. This is, no deny, necessary. With hugely imbalanced might vis-à-vis China’s in all aspects of power, especially navy potency, it should be wise for Vietnam to avoid any direct and tête-à-tête confrontation with this colossal neighbor, if not wishing to take the “lose side”. Provided that interdependence and mutual benefits are created, promotion of diverse and closed cooperation with the lone superpower may work as a talisman for Vietnam not to be intimidated by China. On the other hand, the US itself can not be happy to see the high-handed behavior of China in the South China Sea that is not only impacting the region but also U.S. interests. “No other topic brings into light the enormous and complex challenges facing the United States in Asia,” emphasized Jim Webb in his opening remarks at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Marine and Sovereignty Disputes in Asia held a few months ago.

In fact, over the past years Hanoi has made quiet efforts to balance China by hailing nascent military and security ties with the United States. Specific U.S.-Vietnam cooperation has still been confined to “marginal” activities such as counter-terrorism, searching for American GIs missing in action (MIA) during the Vietnam War, combating drug trafficking, search-and-rescue, or disaster relief (Storey 2005a, p.6). More recently, this “exploring” cooperation between the two former foes has been heightened by exchange of visits to one another by either high-ranking military officials. A year after Vietnamese Defense Minister General Pham Van Tra visited Washington, in 2004 Admiral Thomas Fargo, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific and General James L. Cambell, commander of U.S. Army forces in the Pacific were welcomed in Hanoi. U.S. warships and naval vessels have many times since a couple of years ago made port calls either in Saigon or Da Nang. In April this year a military mission of Vietnam was welcomed on board the U.S. flat-top USS John C. Stennis in the South China Sea just one month after Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet visited Hanoi. All the more so, the Vietnamese defense cooperation with the U.S. has so far remained at a modest level, still too low-intensity balancing against China.

There are good grounds for Vietnam’s reservation in this sensitive area of cooperation with her former adversary. On the one hand Vietnam wishes to bolster ties with the U.S., but on the other she does not want to antagonize China. Offending Beijing carries high costs, and Hanoi is always careful to avoid provocation or confrontation with China (Danny Roy 2005, pp. 305-22). Moreover, the Vietnamese top brass apparently resent U.S. human rights criticisms, and there is widespread belief that the Americans always seek to oust socialist ideology in Vietnam. Anyhow, while both the United States and China pose potential security problems, Vietnam is to take all into consideration prior to making decision about which side to choose. Naturally, she shall balance with the “lesser evil” against the “greater evil”.

Meanwhile a closer cooperation with the United States is necessary for Vietnam, there are several reasons for precautions to be taken as the realpolitik tends to be “favorite food” of the great powers. Firstly, there is no warranty for the fact that the Americans would not sacrifice Vietnam in exchange for their more lucrative interests they may have in China. This is not unlikely to happen as far as benefits of a 1.3-billion-population market are concerned. Secondly, the great powers as world political game players tend to go in cahoots with one another for their respective interests, regardless of whoever is to suffer. John Baylis and Steve Schmidt (The Globalization of World Politics, 2006, pp. 162) wrote, “realism taught American leaders to focus on interests rather than ideology, to seek peace through strength, and to recognize that great powers can coexist even if they have antithetical values and beliefs”. And the silence/neglect of the U.S. in the naval clash between China and South Vietnam in 1974 (the U.S. 7-th Fleet operating nearby turned its back on the S.O.S messages from the South Vietnam Navy; South Vietnam that time was still a close ally of the U.S.) was an example. Similar was the case of Spratly Islands Naval Battle between People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) of China and Vietnam People's Navy some 14 years later. What different was the neglect of the Soviet Union instead (Soviet Navy Fleet was at the time in Cam Ranh Bay, not far from the clashed waters, and Vietnam was also a close ally of the Soviet Union). Last but not least, few would affirm that the United States does really want the disputes over the South China Sea to be soon and permanently settled. Tensions in the South China Sea seem a good reason for the U.S military presence in the region as well as a precondition for the U.S. to perform its bargaining position toward either claimant, China or Vietnam. Arms sale will be excluded?

A new ASEAN consisted of the three pillars: ASEAN Political-Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community, and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community, with its motto “one vision, one identity, one community” has suggested another alternative for Vietnam to draw on as somewhat counterweight against China. With its institutionalized Charter that entered into force in December 2008, this regional body seems to have risen above its internal institutional weaknesses of an earlier informal association that at times failed to function as a coherent bloc. Provided that the individual states of ASEAN have properly incorporated their national interests into the regional ones and this organization acts in a coherent way, this entity shall, no doubt, have its redoubtable voice in either bilateral or multilateral relations.

The time is coming to Vietnam as this country shall take the rotate presidency of ASEAN in 2010. What Vietnam could do, both in accordance with ASEAN Charter and good for her national interests, is to gradually realize strong political commitments of ASEAN top leaders to build ASEAN into a “fuller” security community. The issue of South China Sea why not be put on the agenda of the coming summits (meets at least twice a year, according to the effective ASEAN Charter). There seems little doubt that Vietnam could win meaningful supports from other member states, at least from those members also involved in certain disputes with China over the South China Sea such as Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Brunei, thus building up a strategy called “herd of buffaloes fights tiger” in dealing with China’s “cow’s tongue claim” (Giap Van Duong, available at: http://tuanvietnam.net/khi-trung-quoc-tang-cuong-tranh-chap-bien-dong). The reality has pointed out that Beijing would wish to address its specific disputes over the South China Sea on the basis of bilateralism, i.e. with each state involved rather than with whole ASEAN as a bloc. The regionalization of these disputes will pose remarkable pressures on China.

However, scholars suspect the possibility of a security community in the developing world, arguing that a security community requires a liberal-democratic milieu featuring significant economic interdependence and political pluralism (Karl W. Deutsch, 1961, p. 98). In this sense, ASEAN Way is much distinguished from the way European Union goes. The strength of ASEAN security community now is insufficient in the absence of an effective mechanism of military cooperation; all vital decisions of ASEAN are made on the basis of consensus. Meanwhile, intra-ASEAN disputes and disagreements tend to be on the increase, ranging from the issues of human rights in Myanmar to disputes over the ownership of the Temple of Preah Vihear between Thailand and Cambodia as well as tensions around Cambodian Government’s appointment of Thai ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra as its senior economic advisor. What is more, Southeast Asian countries have particular fears of China stemming from geography and historical experience, thus few could avoid China’s intimidation and dares to antagonize this country of formidable military clout. In practice, most of ASEAN countries are bandwagoning with China to remain good relations, and/or to avoid costs of alienating this rising power. In this context, a dream of an ideal ASEAN security community that Vietnam has strongly desired to turn to as the offset against China may take long to come true.

What earlier analyzed has pointed out the necessity of taking advantage of the “external force” (either having faith in international laws or counting on a counter-balance from the U.S. or ASEAN) in Vietnam’s strategies, yet it has also revealed that this “external force” alone is inadequate and unviable for the sovereignty struggle of this country. Let us see how the approach of what may be termed nongovernmental diplomacy or people-to-people diplomacy could work to generate an “internal force” or “soft power” resilient enough for poor and weak Vietnam to protect herself.

The concept “people-to-people diplomacy” is herein only confined to including the engagement of the whole Vietnamese people (domestic and overseas) with the peoples of other countries in transnational or inter-societal networks, as opposed to merely interstate ones. The people-to-people diplomacy is by nature the democratization of foreign policy, allowing all the Vietnamese people within the country including overseas to make their own contributions to “doing foreign affairs”, inter alia, protecting national interests, viz. the national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

This kind of “soft power” did and is forcing the Chinese’s hand to think twice about their ambitions in the South China Sea, including the claims over the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands. Beijing’s reaction to those Vietnamese student-initiated demonstrations in Hanoi and Saigon as well as a number of similar protest marches hither and thither round the world by the Vietnamese overseas strongly expressing objection to the Chinese Government’s decision to establish Shansa City (including the disputed Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands) late 2007 could hardly conceal its embarrassment to a certain level. In response, Beijing then dispatched a note to Hanoi officially requesting Hanoi “to do something” about such “informal” protests from the people, though Hanoi then replied, “it was spontaneous, beyond its intention” before releasing its official objection to the said Shansa City incident of Beijing.

Why it is such informal and spontaneous protests but not the official objection from Hanoi Administration that the Chinese care? Simple is the answer. The Chinese has envisaged the “internal force” constantly simmering inside the Vietnamese people that is not easy for any military might to avert it from bursting into flame when the time comes. The strength of this “internal force”, seemingly soft in appearance, is redoubtable to any exotic forces as it has roots in and emanates from patriotism and indomitability of a people. Historical lessons have surely taught the Chinese enough.

In the context Vietnam can not rival China for economic and military potencies, and Hanoi for some reason or others can barely raise its voice strong enough against perverted developments of Beijing, it shall be sagacious for the feeble to exercise its “soft power” of people-to-people diplomacy. Each common person is an ambassador; each personal blog is a spokesman. It is these people’s ambassadors and spokesmen that will make every person from the grassroots level aware of the cultural values and national spirit of his or her own homeland that they rather die to protect. Not only this, these ambassadors and spokesmen without cravat, who could speak their minds, will bring the truth to people and friends the world over, hence creating an innegligible encouragement.

In fact, while the disputes over South China Sea have not been satisfactorily covered by over 700 state-controlled newspapers and magazines in Vietnam due to the so-called “sensitiveness”, thousands of personal blogs (as spokesmen without cravat) have broadened people’s minds across this country. Though it is still far from the fact that these personal blogs could convince Chinese people to believe that the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands are of Vietnam, they do convince the Vietnamese people and the progressive humankind as well.

Nongovernmental organizations (civil societies, associations, clubs, mass organizations) have also contributed to make the Vietnamese people-to-people diplomacy more forceful. It was Vietnamese Fishery Association that sent strongest protests to China, even prior to the Vietnamese Government’s protest, when Chinese Navy opened fire at a group of 17 Vietnamese fishing boats while they were seeking refuge in the Paracel Islands from Ketsana Typhoon a few months ago. In this sense, the Vietnamese people-to-people diplomacy may be assumed somewhat offset against China, although the whole country of Vietnam has never been “anything” in the eye of the Chinese.

Above all, the employment of people-to-people diplomacy shall significantly weigh in the promotion of democracy in Vietnam, one of the most important remedies, inter alia, which could pave the way for this country to grow stronger in many ways. And a strong and “healthy” country is intrinsically immunized against any “disease” as well as threat from outside.

All in all, whereas the “external force”, no matter how weighty it may be, just works as a necessary condition, only “internal force” of Vietnam stirred up and consolidated by people-to-people diplomacy could generate a sufficient condition to deal with this “big brother” of the same ideology. And this Vietnam’s “soft power” of people-to-people diplomacy may be some food for further thought.