I could simply say: Underestimate Vietnam at your own peril: but I'll add:
You got the facts wrong, china has superior assets in general and a lot more money to spend in defense, but Vietnam has been preparing quite a bit and preparing for future threats as well, just one example: Vietnam has been setting up a very sophisticated radar network, with both passive and active radars dedicated to detect stealth aircraft as preparation to when china deploys the J-20.
Air and sea, particularly sea is where Vietnam is weakest, they are working in that direction but it does take time, anyway, I tell you again, Vietnam is not a pushover and china will do well not to find that out the hard way.
Its true that chinese and vietnamese are very similar, but vietnamese are a lot nicer that chinese by a long shot. I know both very well.
The Chinese here or on other internet sites, they can only talk to make them feel better of themselves. The reality is they can do nothing to Vietnam. How many time Vietnam battle with them? More than 10 since ancient and we always came out on top. Not only we beat them, we beat their boss the Qing Manchus and the Mongol Yuan.
The Chinese have not won a single major battle in hundred years. while we brought the entire France empire to collapse with the battle of Dien Bien Phu which triggered France's colonies to fight for independent, we discouraged the American expand their influence in Asia. We faced two front war, South west battle to get rid of Chinese pawn Khmer Rouge, and Northern front against the Chinese massive invasion, and we still came out on top.
The Chinese on here think by showing some copy cat weapons can really scare us? Only in their dream Vietnamese scare of Chinese. Just look at the Haiyan rig and how we response to that move, just make Vietnamese more angry and aggressive toward the Chinese.
Le Duan and the Break with China
In the wake of WWII, everyone held the
international gendarme to be American imperialism. They could take over and bully all of the world. Everyone, including the big powers, were afraid of the US. It was only Vietnam that was not afraid of the US.
I understand this matter for my line of work has taught me it. The first person to fear [the Americans] was Mao Zedong. He told me, that is, the Vietnamese and Lao, that: “You must immediately turn over the two liberated provinces of Laos to the [Vientiane] [government]. If you do not do so, then the US will use it as a pretext to launch an attack. That is a great danger.” As for Vietnam, we said: “We have to fight the Americans in order to liberate southern Vietnam.” He [Mao] said: “You cannot do that. southern Vietnam must lie in wait for a long period, for one lifetime, 5-10 or even 20 lifetimes from now. You cannot fight the Americans. Fighting the US is dangerous”. Mao Zedong was scared of the US to that extent.
But Vietnam was not scared. Vietnam went ahead and fought. If Vietnam had not fought the US, then southern Vietnam would not have been liberated. A country which is not yet liberated will remain a dependent one. No one is independent if only one-half of the country is free. It was not until 1975 that our country finally achieved its full independence. With independence would come freedom. Freedom should be freedom for the whole of the Vietnamese nation.
I have to repeat it like that, for before China had sent advisers to us [some of our Vietnamese] brothers did not understand. They thought the [Chinese] were very capable. But they are not so skilled, and thus we did not follow [the Chinese advice]. In 1952, I left northern Vietnam for China, because I was sick and needed treatment. This was my first time abroad
. I put questions to them [the Chinese] and saw many very strange things. There were areas [which had been] occupied by Japanese troops, each with a population of 50 million people, but which had not [had] a single guerrilla fighter.
When I returned from China, I met Uncle [Ho]. He asked me:
- —This was your first time to go abroad, isn’t that right?
- —Yes, I went abroad for the first time.
—- What did you see?
- —I saw two things: Vietnam is very brave and they [the Chinese] are not brave at all.