Goldmark: Vietnam keeps a wary eye on China

HANOI, Vietnam

In the old days when you flew into Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, you would look down at the fields and see the huge craters left by bombs dropped from American B-52s.

Very few of those craters are visible today. The bustle and commerce visible in Hanoi make it one of the most dynamic cities of Asia. And Vietnam, against which the United States fought such a bitter and divisive war in the 1960s and '70s, is now in significant respects a quiet, de facto American ally.

Vo Nguyen Giap turned 100 years old this year. His name is not one many will recognize, but he is certainly one of the most brilliant generals of the 20th century. Gen. Giap was the strategist behind the North Vietnamese victory against both the French and the Americans, and his iron will and military genius were at the center of the tenacious grit and determination that allowed smaller, less-well-armed Vietnam to defeat the American giant.

That victory cleared the way for the establishment of Vietnam as an independent, unified country that has since taken its place among the major Asian powers.

Giap is a personality of many different dimensions. He is a poet as well as a general. And his anger was legendary. One French observer who knew Giap compared him to a "snow-covered volcano," because of the fiery temper concealed under his icy exterior.

After the North Vietnamese defeated the Americans and unified the country under their Communist government, they embarked on a rapid and successful program of economic development. Their annual growth rate is in the range of 7 percent per year, and they have been successful in applying the fruits of that growth to produce one of the most dramatic reductions in poverty of any country in the world.

Vietnam had the advantage of starting from a strong base. If you make a list of the large countries of the world -- say, those with over 50 million in population -- and then eliminate those that aren't self-sufficient in terms of both food and energy, you're left with a very small list indeed. By my count, five or less. The United States isn't on it. Brazil is. France is on it -- because of its huge system of nuclear energy plants. And Vietnam is on that list.

Once Vietnam had broken free of the colonial and Western powers that sought to control it, overnight its oldest national security problem became once again its biggest security problem: how to live safely in the shadow of the most populous country on Earth.

Although both are Communist dictatorships, the relationship between China and Vietnam is not an easy one. China's economic and military might is something Vietnam must take into account every day. Vietnam has one of the largest standing armies in the world; but it shares a border with the country that has the largest standing army in the world -- and is busily building the capacity for space and cyber-warfare.

China, for its part, keeps a wary eye on its scrappy, enterprising neighbor to the south, which has proved over and over that it is capable of defending itself vigorously. One of the biggest sources of tension between the two countries arises from their conflicting claims to islands and seabed resources in offshore areas that may contain important hydrocarbon reserves.

The Vietnamese have learned over a thousand years to be pragmatic and flexible. They drew on assistance from Russia and China to defeat the French and the Americans. To counterbalance the Chinese today, they are forming close ties with the three major Western powers in the Pacific: Japan, the United States and Australia. Life is not simple living next to the largest country and the largest army in the world. But if anyone can pull off this high-wire balancing act, the Vietnamese can.

Peter Goldmark, a former budget director of New York State and former publisher of the International Herald Tribune, headed the climate program at the Environmental Defense Fund.