Shadow of the Dragon: Vietnam's Continuing Struggle with China and the Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy

By Henry J. Kenny. Washington: Brassey's, 2002. 176 pages. $49.95 ($24.95 paper). With the end of America's Indochina war in the 1970s and the passage of time, Vietnam has slipped from the collective consciousness of US policymakers and the general public. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is no longer America's adversary, and in 2003 the sights of the George W. Bush Administration are focused on the "Axis of Evil" triumvirate and the tentacles of global terrorist networks. Today, communist Vietnam seems relatively inconsequential to the United States. What significance can a moderate-sized Southeast Asian country of 77 million experimenting with free-market economics and ruled by a seemingly anachronistic and repressive Leninist party-state have for the United States? Henry Kenny, a long-time Vietnam watcher, contends that Vietnam's significance is that it represents a counterweight to China in Southeast Asia. He asserts that encouraging a more strategically self-assured, economically vibrant, and democratically oriented Vietnam is in the US national interest. Kenny highlights the tyranny of geography, which dooms Vietnam to be forever in the shadow of the giant Chinese dragon. Indeed, in terms of population and area, Vietnam is roughly equivalent to a medium-sized Chinese province. As a consequence Vietnam has learned to be extremely wary of antagonizing its vast northern neighbor. That is not to suggest that Vietnam's relations with China have always been warm or even cordial. On the contrary, as Kenny notes, relations have tended to go through a cycle of cooperation and conflict, a pattern that dates back centuries. But mostly Vietnam has tended to accommodate China. While the Chinese and Vietnamese communist movements were allies in successive struggles against the French and then against South Vietnam (and its major patron, the United States), there were underlying tensions in the relationship which bubbled to the surface in the form of a brief but bloody border war in early 1979. The bad blood persisted until the 1990s when the collapse of the Soviet Union and the pragmatic concerns of both party-states resulted in a rapprochement. In 1999 the two countries resolved most of their land border disputes and the following year reached an accord over the dispute in the Gulf of Tonkin. Nevertheless, territorial disputes remain over islands and waters in the South China Sea. According to Kenny, four of the five potential flashpoints in the sea involve disputes between China and Vietnam. "Future conflict [between China and Vietnam] over the South China Sea," Kenny contends, "is a definite possibility." Vietnam is circumspect where China is concerned and, hence, extremely cautious in improving ties with the United States. Certainly Hanoi has been hesitant to host senior US officials, especially defense figures. A visit by Defense Secretary William Cohen, for example, had to be postponed twice in the late 1990s and finally took place in 2000. A visit in early 2001 by Commander of US Forces in the Pacific Admiral Dennis Blair was canceled by Hanoi literally at the last minute. …