This is where you boys' study and understanding of history, vis-a-vis inter-states relations, is lacking. The US-UK-Euro analogy I presented is applicable only up to a point. Great Britain and the European countries can only resort of colonialism to assert themselves on the global stage. The young US continued to expand and grow on its own continent and over time grew a geopolitical prominence that eclipsed Great Britain and Europe.
Viet Nam can never be like post-Revolutionary US with plenty of room and resources to exploit, grow and possibly eclipsed larger countries. Viet Nam, if wishing to assert some measure of independence on the world stage in general and in Asia in particular, must take after post WW II Japan, where the people and the country's leadership abandoned imperialism and concentrate on economic prowess. Japan has nowhere the natural resources as the three 'Indochina' countries and Japan eclipsed China in many ways, from economic prowess to geopolitical stature, in Asia in particular and the world in general. The UK is a member of UN Security Council, a group whose membership is based largely upon nuclear arms. Japan, alongside South Korea, would be members of an economic 'security council' on a global scale, if there is such an official organ, and past economic rescues done by either countries reinforce that perception. Unable to emulate the young US after a bloody severance from Great Britain, Viet Nam will not look to China but to the West for a geopolitical severance from a condescending and contemptuous China.