CardSharp
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2010
- Messages
- 9,355
- Reaction score
- 0
The ball is in China's court now, the government needs to avoid knee-jerk reactions and work with friendlier South East Asia countries.
Vietnam's relationships with its neighbors ain't exactly good, if China can persuade other ASEAN countries that U.S is bent on upsetting the strategic balance in the South East Asia in an effort to contain China, then I see this nuclear deal as a free gift handed to China by the U.S.
Another dimension is the power struggle of the pro-US and pro-China factions in the Vietnamese Communist Party is intensifying before next year's party congress, if China openly oppose the deal it will only weaken the hand of pro-China factions.
So China needs to work quietly behind the scene and let Vietnam's neighbors like Cambodia and Laos to voice their concerns.
I think you hit upon a interesting point about what China needs to do and what it is doing with regard to foreign policy with neighbouring countries.
It really hasn't made the effort to solve problems multi-laterally and continues to weld the stick menacingly.
Recall in the 1990's Taiwanese elections, where the CCP thought it could scare the electorate into not voting for the DPP by firing missiles over Taiwan (the pro-separation party in ROC for those not familiar). How did that turn out? It galvanized Taiwanese support against China and gave the DPP a big majority.
The CCP has learned not to do that with Taiwan now and relations have markedly improved in the 2000's with wooing, and sweet heart trade deals. If this episode proves anything it's that the carrot is mightier than the stick.
But this is a lesson the CCP hasn't learned with our other neighbours. As a consequence, the whole neighourhood is all hot and bothered about the rise of China and is running to the US for a counter balance.