By Carl Thayer
In managing relations with India and China, Vietnamese diplomacy has grown dynamic and creative.
Vietnam is a master of using its multilateral relations with external powers to insulate itself from unwanted pressures from any of the major powers. Vietnam’s agility to pursue multilateral balancing will be put to the test this week by two separate but interrelated events.
First, China’s State Councilor Yang Jiechi will return to Hanoi for a two-day visit from October 27-28 to attend the seventh Vietnam-China Steering Committee for Bilateral Relations. Second, simultaneously, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will travel to India for a three-day visit from October 27-29.
Council Yang last visited Hanoi on June 18, ostensibly to attend a “leaders’ meeting” of the joint Steering Committee according to Chinese sources cited by Kristine Kwok of theSouth China Morning Post. This meeting solely focused on the oil rig crisis and was marked by the public exchange of recriminations over South China Sea sovereignty disputes.
The joint Steering Committee for Bilateral Relations held its first meeting in Hanoi in November 2006. The second meeting was held two years later in Beijing in January 2008. The next three meetings were held on an annual basis alternating between Hanoi (March 2009 and September 2011) and Beijing (July 2010). The most recent numbered meeting of the Steering Committee, the sixth, was held in Beijing in May 2013.
The convocation of a leaders’ meeting under the framework of the joint Steering Committee appears unprecedented. The holding of two meetings of the Steering Committee in such a short space of time is also unprecedented.
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