By Carl Thayer
Beijing and Hanoi are looking to reset bilateral relations following a turbulent year.
When the China-Vietnam oil rig crisis broke out in May, regional analysts opined that bilateral relations had been set back several decades as a result of the worst crisis since the 1979 border war. This assessment was premature. There are now signs that Beijing and Hanoi are moving to reset their relations and pick up where they were prior to the oil rig crisis.
The oil rig crisis witnessed physical confrontations by Chinese and Vietnamese civilian law enforcement vessels, an upsurge in anti-China sentiment in Vietnam including violent anti-China riots, the evacuation of Chinese workers from Vietnam, a drop in Chinese tourism to Vietnam, and Vietnamese threats to take international legal action against China. There were even calls by Vietnam’s political elite “to exit China’s orbit.”
Initially China played diplomatic hardball and rebuffed all Vietnamese efforts to send special envoys and to open up bilateral channels of communications between government ministries and agencies most directly affected. Vietnamese leaders held two main concerns. First, they could not appear to be buckling under pressure from Beijing, especially given the intensity of domestic anti-China sentiment. Second, Vietnamese leaders wanted to contain the fallout from the oil rig crisis and prevent it from damaging the broader bilateral relationship.
Chinese leaders also had a re-think. On June 18, State Councilor Yang Jiechi traveled to Hanoi to attend the annual meeting of the Joint Steering Committee that oversees the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Media and academic commentary focused almost exclusively on Yang’s remarks on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
The significance of Yang’s visit was that he came at all. It signaled that China wanted to prevent South China Sea disputes from rupturing the broader bilateral relationship.
Read the full story at The Diplomat