why cant India be strategic partner of Vietnam.
and why cant India provide arms to Vietnam for SELF DEFENSE?Whats wrong with it?
I mean not for aggression against China but definately for DEFENSE and for ensuring Vietnam security India can provide all kind of weapons to Vietnam from Brahmos, LCA, Agni, LCH, Arjun etc etc.
I see nothing wrong in providing arms to Vietnam for defensive purposes. Also giving away Tibet was a big mistake by India. India didnt realise at that point of time but realized its mistake very late. Is this history in repeating? China making its move slowly and eating away SCS like it did with TIbet and India not moving a finger? Will it haunt India 10-20 years later if Vietnam looses and China overtakes SCS? the answer is 99.99% Yes.
So India needs to be proactive and DEFINATELY help Vietnam by providing arms for its self defense.
China is making a big noise about SCS but i do not think they will eat the island
The argument of china is weak, its claim say historical it belong to china based on 11 dotted line created in 1947 that was revised to 9 dotted line in 1949.
Diplomatically and politically, its failure as no countries wants to negotiate with china on this issue. This is partly Chinese govt creation, they should not have politicized this issue internally; by talking about it directly to Chinese people and externally; by threatening to use force if needed to retake it.
Perhaps a join effort was plausible in the past and maybe still is possible, but this will need a back down from the Chinese govt. I don’t know how the CCP is going to engineer a back down on its claim as far the Chinese people are concerned having hyped it up so much, in order for joint effort with other countries possible.
The only other solution is militarily, yes they got away with attacking Vietnam’s islands in SCS in the 1970’s with blessing of United states, but this time around it will be a huge gamble, if they plan to retake any island with force.
The United states would have interfered diplomatically in the crisis between Japan and China on Diaoyu/ Senkaku recently; try to broker a peace but I bet you it fail hence Mrs Clinton was forced to make a public statement that these island will be defended by US in war.
So if China takes these island by force, then world war three!!!. China and its allies on one side, Japan- US and rest of the west on another and the first person to use nuke will end humankind over some islands . Therefore, this will not happen!, Same with Philippines.
The only difference perhaps is Vietnam it does not have an alliance with US or Japan but Russia, history is not a good judge of this; nevertheless, the world will not sit by if Chinese start rolling over Vietnam. Initially it will come in form of economic and trade sanction which will cripple China this might also lead to world war 3 ( like US economic and trade sanction was reason why Japan went to war with America during WW2).
There will not be peace in the SCS for a while but also cannot see war.
Regardless of what the PLA might brag about and
HongWU might say on this forum
, Politically CCP's main objective is to have control over the Chinese people , so it will be pretty stupid and strategic blunder to engineer a conflict or war which is bound to humiliate them .