OFF-BALANCING VIETNAM

Vietnam has always maintained its traditional wariness of China and recently, it has been the most vocal among the Southeast Asian countries in expressing its apprehension over Chinese expansionist design on the South China Sea. This stemmed from its long experience of challenging China’s imperial foray into Southeast Asia for the last two thousand years. In 2010, the Philippines became Vietnam’s closest partner and supporter among the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in opposing China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea. This is because of two reasons: unlike Vietnam, the Philippines has the strategic advantage of being a formal treaty ally of the United States, and it observed that two allies signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) in 2014. The agreement provides for the temporary deployments of American forces in five Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) air bases all over the country. And second, the Philippines filed a claim against China in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague challenging China’s “nine-dash line” claim in the South China Sea. Fortunately, for both the Philippines and Vietnam, the PCA ruled that China’s historic claim has no legal basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The change in Philippine foreign policy under President Duterte was a major shock to Vietnam. First, President Duterte put aside the PCA ruling that invalidates China’s nine-dash line. Second, he distanced the Philippines away from the United States and in the process watered down the EDCA by shifting the alliance away from its focus on Chinese expansion in the South China Sea to counter-terrorism and Humanitarian Assistance