China’s differing approaches to the Philippines’ and Vietnam’s activities in the South China Sea (SCS) have drawn much attention this year. While China punished the Philippines for its resupplying missions to the Second Thomas Shoal, China kept silent on Vietnam’s island expansion program. But that silence may be ending.
Recently, several prominent Chinese scholars have condemned Vietnam’s island expansion activities. They worry that Vietnam’s upgraded airstrips, harbors, and embarkments could allow Hanoi to better project power in the SCS at China’s expense. Importantly, these scholars have raised the possibility of Vietnam granting the United States and Japan access to its islands, which could offset Vietnam’s significant military disadvantage vis-à-vis China.
Beijing can no longer keep silent if Vietnam’s activities alter the balance of power and hurt its long-term interests. By condemning Vietnam’s activities, China may enhance its militarization of SCS islands and prevent Hanoi from fortifying Vietnamese islands by adopting policies similar to its current treatment of Manila. China adopting more coercive measures toward Vietnam would likely increase the risk of a military crisis, considering past China-Vietnam maritime standoffs.
How will Vietnam respond if China wants to slow, and ultimately stop, Vietnam’s island expansion activities by coercive means? The stark differences in their maritime capabilities and Hanoi’s lack of a military ally mean that Vietnam cannot deter and defend against Chinese coercive actions if China were to seriously undertake them. However, Hanoi cannot simply back down. Vietnam, naturally, wants to assert its sovereignty — but only to the extent that China will not find its actions too provocative, otherwise Beijing may try to compel Hanoi to stop.
Vietnam’s solution to this dilemma has been dual-pronged, reflecting its effort to balance the two extremes. Vietnam vowing to cooperate with China to peacefully settle their maritime disputes is targeted at dissuading China from undertaking any actions that will significantly hurt Vietnam’s maritime interests. At the same time, Vietnam is quietly building its islands up in preparation for Chinese aggression, betting that its efforts do not cross China’s limit on what Vietnam can do at sea. The 2011 Vietnam-China Basic Principles on the Settlement of Sea Issues is central to this dual-pronged policy.
If China lowers the threshold of what Vietnamese activities it deems acceptable, Vietnam will find it more difficult to maintain the balance between deferring and defying China.
China’s “gray zone” tactics, such as harassing Vietnamese fishermen and sending survey ships into Vietnamese waters, have not been costly enough for Vietnam to stop its island expansion activities. To seriously compel Vietnam to stop those activities, China can threaten to impose higher costs, such as blockading Vietnamese islands or oil rigs, seizing its supply ships, attacking those outposts, or at worst occupying them outright. These actions, varying in the degree of severity, allow China to manipulate the risk of a military clash if Vietnam does not heed China’s demands to stop its island expansion activities. Importantly, this is a clash that both sides understand Vietnam has few chances of winning. Vietnam may be tempted to respond to China’s red lines by intercepting a Chinese blockade, maintaining supply to its outposts, and fortifying their defenses, but each of these moves brings Vietnam closer to a direct clash with China.
China understands the limit of Vietnam’s appetite for risk in this regard. Vietnam is only willing to stand up to China’s coercion if China’s threats do not involve a clear intention to use force if the threat fails.
During the 2014 HYSY-981 and 2019 standoffs, Vietnam swiftly responded to China sending oil rigs and ships to its territorial water by sending ships to interdict the Chinese flotilla. Vietnam tolerated ship ramming and water cannon fighting with China because these behaviors could not lead to the use of military force and China had not communicated beforehand that it would use military force. Importantly, the lack of a clear Chinese military retaliation before the standoffs happened bolstered Vietnamese willingness to run risk. China did not have to use force if its threats failed. Both China and Vietnam deescalated by holding high-level talks during the two standoffs, and China withdrew its oil rig as well as its survey ships after.
When Chinese coercion involves a clear military threat, Vietnam backs down.
In 2017, China threatened to attack Vietnamese bases in the Spratly islands if Hanoi did not stop drilling for oil in a disputed block 400 kilometers off the Vietnamese coast. Hanoi quickly terminated its oil drilling activities despite having signed a contract with a foreign company. In 2018, Vietnam decided to scrap an oil project in a nearby block after China again threatened to use force against Vietnam’s maritime outposts. Observers estimated that Vietnam’s decision in both cases cost the country $1 billion in compensation to Repsol of Spain and Mubadala of the United Arab Emirates. Vietnam’s prompt acquiescence demonstrated how seriously Vietnam understood the risk once China sent a clear military threat. Vietnam worries not only that a naval clash may significantly undermine its maritime security, but also that a naval clash can spill over onto land with even worse ramifications for its continental security.
To be clear, it is unpredictable how Vietnam would respond if China decided to try and coerce Vietnam over an issue that Vietnam considers high stakes in the future, such as occupying one of Vietnam’s SCS outposts like China did to the Philippines’ Scarborough Shoal in 2012. The issues at stakes in the above cases, which did not directly involve Vietnam’s sovereignty over the SCS islands, were not high enough for Vietnam to respond to Chinese coercion with force. The last time China used force to take over Vietnam’s Johnson South Reef, in 1988, Vietnam could not resist due to its limited naval capabilities and its focus on deterring and defending against a second Chinese invasion on land. And there were few risks of the naval clash spilling over onto land since both Vietnam and China were already in a decade-long standoff.
China can thus successfully coerce Vietnam to stop its island expansion activities by sending Hanoi a clear military threat to attack Vietnam’s outposts without a threat to occupy them. Such a threat would leave little uncertainty about China’s next move as well as the costs. Vietnam cannot run the risk of war since the costs of doing so outweigh the benefits of testing China’s red lines. And for Vietnam, stopping its island expansion activities is not a high-stakes move, making it politically easier for Hanoi to give in.
Furthermore, similar to the logic of Chinese coercion of Vietnam on land by threatening to attack were Hanoi to abandon its neutral foreign policy as it demonstrated in 1979, China could threaten to attack Hanoi’s maritime outposts if the latter grants the United States and Japan access. From this perspective, China’s use of gray zone tactics to assert its claims makes it easier for Vietnam to manage its relations with China because the risk of those tactics spiraling into a naval clash is smaller than China’s use of military threat to achieve the same objective. Due to its superior military power, China can afford a higher level of risk of conflict than Vietnam can if it ever decides to increase the degree of severity of its coercion. If the 1979 period taught China anything, it is that China should threaten to use force to punish Vietnam when needed, but China should not occupy Vietnam’s territory to weaken its resistance and to maintain a channel for Vietnam to concede. The 1979 lesson applies to both the continental and the maritime spheres.
Vietnam’s naming and shaming of China for its harassment of Vietnamese fishermen and violations of Vietnam’s territorial water can raise the audience cost for China, but those actions do not and cannot change the maritime military balance. The best Vietnam can hope for is that China will not issue any military threats due to its concerns for audience cost and its overall relationship with Vietnam. China calling for restraint and emphasizing bilateral cooperation after Vietnam explicitly condemned Chinese harassment of Vietnamese fishermen should be taken as a sign that Beijing is not yet ready to jeopardize bilateral ties. The newly established China-Vietnam “3+3” strategic dialogue mechanism on diplomacy, defense, and public security, which is the first of its kind, demonstrate that China and Vietnam are confident in their ability to manage differences at sea.
Freezing the SCS disputes, in which Vietnam stops expanding its islands in exchange for China’s tacit acceptance of Vietnam’s de facto control over them, looks to be the solution that can help both countries avoid a naval clash. Of course, in the absence of Chinese coercion, Vietnam will continue fortifying its SCS outposts in preparation for the worst.