US-Vietnam Nuclear Deal A Defeat of Chinese Diplomacy

The 30 years long war (1945-75) in South-East Asia was not just a conflict between the geographical entities, that is France to be followed by the United States of America, and Vietnam, but between ideological realities – that is Capitalism and Communism.

Written by

SOROOR AHMED

Published on

August 16, 2022

The 30 years long war (1945-75) in South-East Asia was not just a conflict between the geographical entities, that is France to be followed by the United States of America, and Vietnam, but between ideological realities – that is Capitalism and Communism.

Thirty-five years down the memory lane the same Communist Vietnam has now entered into a nuclear deal with the capitalist United States of America. The latter might have lost in the battleground, but in the field of ideology it can now claim that it has won, albeit after so many years.

The announcement of the nuclear deal with the United States was made when the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was having its conference going on in Vijayawada. The mention of the CPI(M) needs to be made here as this is the party which withdrew support from the United Progressive Alliance government in July 2008 on the issue of nuclear deal with the United States. Today too it is not with the government over the issue of Nuclear Civil Liability Bill. (However, it is RJD’s Lalu Prasad and Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav, who are today more bitterly against the Congress-BJP deal over the Bill).

Besides, it was the Left in India, which wholeheartedly backed the Communists of Vietnam in their struggle against the imperialist design of first France in the immediate post-Second World War years and then subsequently by the United States of America till April 30, 1975 when the last American soldier left the soil. Mera Naam Tera Nam Sab Ka Nam Vietnam was the catch-slogan of the Indian Communists in the decades of 1960s and 1970s.

While Vietnam lost millions of its people, 58,000 American soldiers died in the war, which went down in the history as the legendary struggle against a Super Power. But that Vietnamese victory was not possible without the help of the then Soviet Union – and to some extent China in the earlier years too.

Today Vietnam would not have announced its plan to sign the nuclear deal with the United States of America had the Soviet Union been strong. Nor was it an ideological patron but most of Vietnam’s business and trade relationship was with the Soviet Union or Eastern Bloc countries. The fall of Communist ideology in the Soviet Union and the capitalisation of Chinese Communism left many traditional Communist countries high and dry. But in its place emerged some other anti-US countries in Latin America, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. They may not be pure Communist countries, but are still considered Left-leaning states, which follow anti-capitalist policies.

These so-called neo-Left countries of Latin America are not yielding to the US pressure though so closer to it than the former Soviet bloc countries.

Vietnam’s drift towards the United States has something to do with the rise of China as a global power. The capitalist United States knows the art of encircling China from all sides – from South Korea, Japan, down to now Vietnam, Thailand and India. Besides, America has its bases in several Central Asian Republics.

The Chinese design always alarmed the regional small countries and Vietnam was one among them. It faced the Chinese invasion in 1978 only three years after the withdrawal of the American forces. Though the Vietnamese gallantly stalled the Chinese advancement compelling the latter to withdraw sometimes later, the war damaged the future prospect of the Chinese diplomacy in the region. Save Myanmar in the south, North Korea in the east, and possibly Pakistan on its south-west China cannot rely much on any of over a dozen countries having their border with it.

As a distant enemy is better than the one just close by, Vietnam of today decided to befriend the United States with whom it fought such a long battle rather than with the one with which it had a few days of bloody border clashes.

Though the Americans exploited the big brotherly attitude of China for its own sake, its latest ‘victory’ over Vietnam has its own price. The Vietnamese know that the Americans cannot dare to look towards them with an evil eye because it has already got embroiled itself in various countries. So Vietnam would always pose before the world that it has signed an agreement with the United States on equal term rather than under any pressure.