According to Reuters, the Biden administration is negotiating with Vietnam on a "largest-ever" arms transfer agreement to export advanced weapons and equipment, including F-16 fighters. However, there is a problem at present, compared with low-cost Russian weapons, the price of the United States is too expensive, and Vietnam does not have so much money to buy it.
Therefore, the United States and Hanoi are discussing a special military financing package to help Vietnam "afford" or, to put it bluntly, to borrow money from the United States to Vietnam and let Vietnam buy American weapons.
In this regard, Reuters believes that this strengthening of military cooperation between the United States and Vietnam is likely to trigger opposition from China. Because "China is alerting Western countries to try to curb its own behavior."
U.S. F-16 fighter
So, if this news reported by foreign media is true, the United States and Vietnam are really negotiating a transfer and sale agreement for advanced weapons, what does it mean for China? And what impact will it have on the security situation in Southeast Asia?
First of all, comprehensive foreign media reports say that the "largest arms sales agreement in history" between the United States and Vietnam is still a matter of eight words. At present, the two sides are engaged in negotiations, and whether they can finally negotiate is still a matter between the two sides.
Even from another angle, the Western media reported it at this time, which actually exposed the signs that the arms sales agreement between the United States and Vietnam may not succeed in the end. The logic is very simple, such arms sales agreements, which are detrimental to peace and stability in Southeast Asia, are reported before formal negotiations are reached, and will certainly encounter opposition and resistance from regional countries.
US President Joe Biden with General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong
If the United States and Vietnam can really reach an agreement on this issue, then the West will not release the news in advance. Now that the negotiations have not yet reached a conclusion, Reuters reported the news, which is more like a diplomatic strategy of the United States deliberately letting loose the wind to drive a wedge between China and Vietnam, making China wary of Vietnam and further forcing Vietnam to move closer to the United States.
Second, from Vietnam's point of view, Vietnam does not have any "enemies" at present, and the focus of policy is to develop its own economy.
The recent closer ties between the United States and Vietnam do not mean that Vietnam needs to seek U.S. military protection. But in the current global economic downturn and Vietnam's exports are blocked, Hanoi hopes to get more investment from the United States and export more goods to the United States.
Philippine Presidents Marcos Jr. and Biden
At this time, the United States wants to win over Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines, and use them to deal with China. Therefore, Vietnam has developed relations with the United States on the basis of not offending China as much as possible.
In the final analysis, the focus of Vietnam's development now is on the economy, not on the defense and military level. Vietnam's overtures to the United States, or to elevate relations between the United States and Vietnam, are essentially seeking more economic support from the United States, rather than really wanting the United States to support them militarily.
Moreover, the fundamental purpose of the United States' export of advanced weapons and equipment to Vietnam is, of course, to use Vietnam as a pawn or proxy to contain China. However, from the comparison of military strength between the two sides, the gap between China and Vietnam is growing, and the F-16 may have been a relatively advanced weapon in the past, but it is not much of a threat to China today.
Chinese Air Force J-20 fighter
Whether it is the J-16 or the more advanced J-20, China has begun mass production and formed deployment. Against this background, it is unrealistic for the United States to hope that exporting a few F-16 fighters to Vietnam will encourage Vietnam to provoke China and undermine the security situation in Southeast Asia.
From this point of view, even if the United States and Vietnam strengthen military cooperation now, and even, as Reuters reported, the United States really exports F-16 fighters to Vietnam, in fact, it may not be able to undermine the military power pattern in the Asian region at the military level, thus affecting China's superior military deterrence in the region.
Finally, from the perspective of geopolitical games, the current increase in the strategic layout of the United States in Southeast Asia is indeed a problem for China that needs to be vigilant. To put it in layman's terms, at present, the United States is almost doing its best to create unstable factors around China in an attempt to contain China's development.
The United States has stimulated the escalation of the situation on the peninsula
And around us, there are only a few places that can cause trouble. For example, the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea are the three most sensitive and most prone to conflict between China and the United States. Among them, on the Korean Peninsula issue, because the DPRK already possesses nuclear weapons in fact, it forces the United States not to dare to provoke the escalation of the situation on the peninsula too much, so as not to "provoke the nuclear upper body."
The Taiwan Strait issue is essentially China's internal affair, and although the United States is still frequently playing the "Taiwan card" to contain China, the ability and price that both sides can pay on this issue are not proportional. Moreover, international public opinion is also not favorable to the United States.
To put it bluntly, if the United States wants to make trouble in the Taiwan Strait, China will do its best, and the international community will not support the United States, and then the United States may fall into the dilemma of "unable to win militarily and being isolated diplomatically". Obviously, although the situation in the Taiwan Strait is tense, the possibility of a direct conflict between the United States and China in the Taiwan Strait is relatively small, and it can be said that both sides have concerns and cannot let go.
The United States wants to make waves in the South China Sea
In comparison, only the South China Sea may become a place for Americans to "do it". As we all know, the South China Sea is China's vital "strategic corridor". At the same time, there are a few countries in Southeast Asia that have some undeserved "territorial" ambitions, which are easy to be used by the Americans.
The particularity of geographical location, as well as the current idea of the United States vainly trying to "replicate" the Eastern European model in the Asia-Pacific region to suppress and consume China, all determine that Southeast Asia may become the "chess eye" of the Sino-US game.
And Vietnam, a country, belongs to a "chess eye" in the whole of Southeast Asia. To put it bluntly, if the United States wants to consume China in the form of proxy wars, it can only start from Southeast Asia, and if it wants to start from Southeast Asia, it cannot avoid Vietnam.
Sino-Vietnamese relations are stable
It is precisely because of this special status that Vietnam is now receiving special "attention" from the United States. Although it seems unlikely that Vietnam will sacrifice Sino-Vietnamese relations in order to strengthen ties with the United States. The Prime Minister of Vietnam has said more than once that Sino-Vietnamese relations are the top priority of Vietnam's diplomatic strategy.
But the mouth of the United States is a "deceitful ghost", when Biden visited Vietnam in early September, he said in Hanoi that he had "no intention of encircling China", but now in order to dig the foot of the wall and undermine Sino-Vietnamese relations, even the F-16 has been taken out as "bait", which must have some attraction for Vietnam.
From this point of view, China should stabilize Sino-Vietnamese relations as much as possible to avoid Vietnam being used by the United States, so as to stabilize the South China Sea and the whole of Southeast Asia.