Ðằng Vân
China: a malevolent superpower
If Communist Vietnam’s prime-minister Nguyen Tan Dung and state president Nguyen Minh Triet fail to realize how malevolent their northern neighbor is, they do so at their own peril, at the peril of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and at the peril of our national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Such peril is increasing day by day in magnitude for, if the experts are correct and the 19th century was the century of Great Britain, the 20th that of the USA and the 21st that of China, then for a backward nation the like of Vietnam, things will be really bad.
China, especially a Communist China is nothing like the USA as a modern superpower, not even like Great Britain of more than 100 years ago. Leaders of Communist China are dictators of the Stalinist mould. They like to have things their way and they have never experienced any opposition within their own vast country. They despise western bourgeois virtues. They are ready to trample human rights. Now that Marxism Leninism has been thrown into the dustbin of history, they don’t need to pay lip service to communist camaraderie. Thus Communist Vietnam and North Korea are no longer allies but lackeys who must be always at the service of the emperors of the Middle Kingdom.
They had no regard for the CPV when they blatantly invaded the Paracel Archipelago with superior naval power, despite the fact that it has been Vietnamese territory since time immemorial. It had been confirmed as our territory even under the period of French occupation. They unceremoniously invaded parts of the Spratly Archipelago, which is even more distant from the shores of China and being claimed by Vietnam and other South East Asian nations. It is not surprising that Dung and Triet are desperately trying to suppress all information about Chinese aggression within Vietnam, forbid all anti-Chinese demonstrations and negotiate in vain with China for a secret and peaceful settlement of the dispute. Of course they are living in dreamland and will soon be given a rude wakening shock. That’s only on the sea west of Vietnam.
East of Vietnam there are other things happening that both Dung and Triet rather ignore. But they do so at an immense price too. Remember the 1979 war between China and Vietnam when paramount leader Deng Xiao Ping ordered the Chinese PLA to cross the northern Vietnamese border to teach their communist southern comrades a lesson? This was mainly because the CPV dared to wrest control of Laos and Cambodia from China. The CPV helped Hun Sen defeat Pol-Pot who was a loyal ally of Beijing. The CPV stationed a few divisions of its most battle-hardened troops in Laos to protect its interests. Nowadays, Chinese investments and migrants in Laos and Cambodia are so overwhelming that they have effected a qualitative change on the loyalty of both leaderships in these two countries. These two countries are now among the strongest allies of China.
Indeed Vietnam is being trapped by China from both flanks: east and west. There is no escape. Control of these two archipelagoes not only gives China control over the resources of the rich sea bed, but also a strategic advantage over any economic activities or military moves of Vietnam well into the future, especially if Vietnam happens to turn to the west for help.
Beijing is not only an aggressive superpower but also an insolent one. Just look at the recent incident involving the USNS Impeccable earlier in March 09 when it was sailing in international waters. It was considered by China to be too close to its waters and Chinese sailors reportedly turned their backs and bared their buttocks at sailors on the Impeccable.
The arms of China can also reach very far: It successfully pressured South Africa to refuse entry permit to the Dalai Lama to attend a peace conference in Johannesburg also earlier in March this year. As a consequence members of the Nobel Committee cancelled the conference because of the ensuing international outcry. But does Beijing give a damn? Certainly not.
In Australia, a Chinese company Chinalco wanted to pay $19.5 billions to buy into mining giant Rio Tinto. This would bring its investment up to 18% of Rio Tinto.
The Australian government is considering whether to allow the deal to go ahead. The sticking point would be that Chinalco is not a private independent company in the western sense of the word. Not only is it an arm of the Chinese state, further and more significantly its leadership is direct appointees of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a one party dictatorship. Should the Australian national interests be sold to leaders of a one party dictatorship never sanctioned by a free and democratic vote of their own people? This begs big questions not only on security but also on moral grounds.
PM Dung and State President Triet are not foreign to one party dictatorship and the dirty machinations of immoral men wielding absolute power in corrupt societies the like of China and Vietnam. They are two of them. They should know that as time goes by, Chinas will be stronger and stronger. What they see and experience now is only a modest version of things to come when China realizes its full potential. Its malevolence towards Vietnam and the CPV will know no bounds and the wrath of the Vietnamese people against Dung, Triet and the CPV, for bedding their traditional sworn enemy, will explode onto the international scene in all its tragic splendor.
Ðằng Vân
27 March 20 09