In February** Dynamic Incentive Program Vietnam should restore friendly relations with China, but back"Comrades plus brothers"The state is not an easy task.
Vietnam is one of the few neighbors that borders China both on land and sea, which dooms the complexity of our bilateral relations. For thousands of years, the relationship between the two countries has been full of twists and turns, ups and downs.
In the final analysis, this situation has emerged because Vietnam has always cherished unrealistic dreams of becoming a great power. Although Indochina is small, this has not stopped Vietnam from trying to use it as a starting point for its take-off in the hope of making a name for itself on the international stage.
However, the existence of ancient China shattered Vietnam's dream of becoming a great power before it even began. Among the four ancient civilizations, the reason why ancient China can be unique is not only the strong combat effectiveness of previous dynasties, but also the existence of geographical barriers such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Northwest Desert.
In particular, the existence of the Tianshan mountain range, like a check valve in the Eurasian steppe belt, made the nomads go all the way to the west instead of to the east, and the invading forces of the west finally advanced to the east, but turned south and became the power of the Indians.
Vietnam, located on the eastern coast of the Indochina Peninsula, has had a "friendship" with the Central Plains Dynasty since ancient times, because both the Mekong River and the Changshan Mountains are southward extensions of the mountains and rivers of the Central Plains Dynasty.
After the Han Dynasty destroyed the Nanyue Kingdom, northern Vietnam became part of the territory of the Central Plains Dynasty, but it was not until 939 that Vietnam took advantage of the turmoil of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to break away from the Southern Han Dynasty and establish itself as a gateway.
Due to the poverty and weakness of the two Song dynasties, the Central Plains Dynasty was unable to restore its rule over northern Vietnam in time, and the Mongols, although strong, could not compete with the miasma of the tropical rainforest. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Vietnam was re-ambushed, but only things were wrong, and they could only accept the historical transformation of Vietnam from "internal subordination" to "vassal".
However, the compromise of the Central Plains Dynasty was exchanged for the brutal expansion of Vietnam, which eventually seized the Mekong Delta, invaded Cambodia on a large scale, and also competed with Siam for control of Laos, building a mini-tributary system with Vietnam as the core.
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Vietnam even called itself "Little China in the Southern Sky".
After the Sino-French War of 1858, France seized suzerainty in Vietnam from the Qing Dynasty and took over Cambodia and Laos from Siam.
In order to facilitate the administration and fight against the powerful British Burma, the French merged Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and named it "Indochina". During Indochina, southern Vietnam became the center of French colony, and Saigon was even called the "Little Paris of the East" for a time, making Vietnam the big brother of the three Indochina countries.
Coupled with Vietnam's fertile Red River Plain and Mekong Delta, Laos and Cambodia will continue to lead the way even after independence. French colonial rule strengthened the integration of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and at the same time raised Vietnam's status, further fueling Vietnam's ambitions to dominate Laos and Cambodia, as well as dominate Indochina.
Historically, many countries did not form a systematic and mature civilization system before the arrival of Western colonizers, so after being completely overwhelmed by the civilization system of Western colonizers, even if they finally achieved national independence, they inevitably bear the imprint of Western colonialism and take the benefits brought by Western colonizers for granted.
India is a case in point, and even now, India still worships the wealth of Britain as a god, even at the cost of it.
Although Vietnam, as a country in the Chinese cultural circle, has a mature civilization system since ancient times, under the influence of colonial history, Vietnam has also been tainted with French habits.
This shows that Vietnam itself is also aggressive and has inflated ambitions. However, the victory of the proletarian revolutions in China and the Soviet Union, as well as the hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II, allowed Vietnam to hide its ambitions and become a comrade and brother in the new China for a time.
* After the October Revolution, the Communist Party of Indochina was founded, and the Vietnamese, led by Ho Chi Minh, became the undisputed core. After the outbreak of World War II, France quickly surrendered, Indochina became a Japanese-occupied zone, and the forces led by Ho Chi Minh began to receive significant assistance from the United States.
On the eve of the surrender of the Japanese army, Ho Chi Minh led the "August Revolution" and liberated northern Vietnam. After the withdrawal of the Nanking National**, Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh City waged a protracted war with the resurgent France.
Ho Chi Minh was not favored by Stalin because of his radical nationalism, and was even called "Tito of Indochina" by Stalin. However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Ho Chi Minh quickly became an important ally of North Vietnam in the resistance to France due to like-mindedness.
With the strong support of the new China, North Vietnam won a great victory against France in 1954 and promoted the liberation of Laos and Cambodia. Although the 1954 Geneva Accords split Vietnam in two was not Ho Chi Minh's wish, as the United States continued its aggression against North Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union began to support North Vietnam in its confrontation with the United States.
Despite the bitterness between China and the Soviet Union in 1959, they engaged in a fierce competition for aid to counter the United States and win over North Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh is good at playing left and right, often calling for "Big Brother and Big Sister to stop fighting".
However, with Ho Chi Minh's death, North Vietnam began to move closer and closer to the Soviet Union, expressing dissatisfaction with the negative attitude of the new China on the issue of the reunification of Vietnam. After the normalization of relations between China and the United States in 1972, North Vietnam's relations with the Soviet Union became closer, and Sino-Vietnamese relations plummeted and fell to freezing point after the reunification of Vietnam in 1975.
After the reunification of Vietnam, it began to rebuild the Indochina Federation, and while setting off a wave of anti-Chinese movement in the south, it continued to stir up trouble on the Sino-Vietnamese border. In 1978, after the Soviet Union signed a military alliance treaty with Vietnam, Vietnam brazenly invaded Cambodia, and China could not bear it, and then launched a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, which plunged Vietnam into a war that lasted for more than a decade.
The self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, as a war of master teaching apprentices, hit Vietnam particularly hard, not only almost destroying the industrial system in northern Vietnam, but also causing the Soviet Union behind it to suffer heavy losses and eventually collapse.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of socialism, Vietnam, which had lost its supporters, had to go north to seek peace, and the protracted Sino-Vietnamese War finally ended. The end of the Sino-Vietnamese War marked the complete collapse of Vietnam's Indochina federal plan and the complete shattering of Vietnam's dream of becoming a great power.
Theoretically, because the root of Sino-Vietnamese relations lies in Vietnam's unrealistic great power ambitions, when Vietnam has to recognize the reality, there will be no obstacle to the turnaround of Sino-Vietnamese relations.
Vietnam ostensibly claims to be free from the world, but in practice it shows that they are not reconciled. In addition to their control of Laos, they continue to cause trouble in the South China Sea and have even joined forces with their former enemy, the United States.
Like Laos, France expanded in Indochina during its colonial period and stole several Spratly islands and reefs, leaving behind endless hidden dangers. After World War II, Japan occupied all the islands and reefs in the South China Sea that had been stolen by France, but China reclaimed them in 1949.
However, due to the weak strength of China's navy, the management of the South China Sea is inadequate. In the 70s, after the discovery of rich oil and gas resources in the South China Sea, neighboring countries began to dispute sovereignty over islands and reefs in the South China Sea, among which Vietnam was particularly arrogant, they not only stole a number of islands and reefs in the Spratly Islands, but even extended their hands to the Paracel Islands, until 1974, when the Chinese People's Liberation Army fully recovered.
Although Vietnam continues to steal islands and reefs in the South China Sea, and uses its rich oil and gas resources and so-called exclusive economic zone to expand its living space, the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is an irresistible historical trend, and it is only a matter of time before it recovers all the islands and reefs.
In the current situation, Vietnam must recognize that its power is limited and it cannot resist the tide of history. Therefore, Vietnam's policy of "innovation and opening up" must also be adjusted accordingly, and it is obviously not a wise choice to follow the example of its northern neighbor in its entirety.
As the focus shifts to economic development, the sudden emergence of the southern economy has become an important factor that Vietnam must pay attention to. The South has always maintained close relations with the United States, and the reunification of Vietnam has not completely liquidated these ** elements, so today's Vietnam has chosen to rebuild old friendships with the United States and rely on the United States to confront its northern neighbor.
This is not because Vietnam is subservient to the United States, but because the United States is able to provide security and economic support to Vietnam.
The problem is that the rise of the South has upset the balance of power since the reunification of Vietnam, leading to the risk of the North and the South. At the same time, the United States failed to provide sufficient support at a critical moment, and Vietnam could not rely on it for a full-scale war.
In addition, the foreign investment needed by Vietnam is not something that the United States can provide. Since the end of World War II, the United States has spilled over its industry and capital many times, but Vietnam has been unable to develop its domestic industrial system due to the protracted war, and it is not in a position to undertake the transfer of American industries.
Therefore, Vietnam can only embark on the road of export processing industry by undertaking basic processing with supplied materials. Due to the large gap between the industry and the United States, only we can complement the Vietnamese industry.
We have also transferred a large number of industries to Vietnam, making it an important part of our industrial chain.
Although Vietnam is ostensibly reluctant, it has to admit that it is economically close to us. In order to emphasize its independence, Vietnam has implemented many non-traditional reforms, such as privatization of land, the abolition of the lifelong system of civil servants, the introduction of universal suffrage, and the lowering of financial barriers.
However, for the small country of Vietnam, reforms to stand alone often fail and may pose huge potential risks to itself, especially the free flow of foreign capital, which threatens to undo the gains of Vietnam's economic development.
Therefore, Vietnam should put aside its historical baggage and re-establish good relations with us, even if it is just to imitate our practices, which will bring important achievements to Vietnam's development.
The biggest advantage of Vietnam today is that the ASEAN countries, which once opposed China under the organization of the United States, have finally found a long-term way to success after decades of struggle, and that is to cooperate with us.
This means that Vietnam, as a member of ASEAN, can also use ASEAN's platform to engage with us in the South China Sea region through peaceful means. It is hoped that the friendship between China and Vietnam will last for a long time, and that even if it cannot return to the brotherly relationship of the past, it will become a model for close neighbors.