Following the conclusion of President Xi Jinping’s Hanoi trip earlier this week, China has claimed itself to be Vietnam’s best choice for trade and diplomatic partnerships in the Asia Pacific region.
Perhaps, but the proof will be in the pudding. Will Vietnam directly export its rare earths, as the US hopes, or send them for processing in China? Chinese pundits want to know. They also want to know whether Hanoi will lease a military port to Washington.
On Wednesday, China and Vietnam signed 36 agreements, covering the Belt and Road Initiative, development cooperation, digital economy, green development, transportation, inspection and quarantine, defense and law enforcement and maritime cooperation. But Vietnamese media said Beijing and Hanoi have failed to reach agreements on nine other issues, including metals and rare earths mining.
During his own trip to Hanoi in September, US President Joe Biden signed deals with Vietnam on semiconductors and rare earths. He encouraged US investment in rare earth exploration in Vietnam – which is ranked third in the world in its rare earths potential – to counter China’s world domination of the minerals.
Rare earths
Some Chinese pundits said China will boost trade and investments with Vietnam as long as Hanoi continues to maintain a good relationship with Beijing. They said if Vietnam is going to use US investment to explore its rare earth reserves, it should consider shipping the deposits to China for refining.
According to the US Geological Survey, Vietnam’s rare earth reserves stand at 22 million metric tons, compared with China’s 44 million metric tons.
Rare earth deposits in Vietnam have remained largely untapped, due to the low prices that are effectively set by China, which was the largest rare-earths supplier in the world last year.
This week, Beijing said it is ready to offer grants to Vietnam to build the railway between Kunming and the Vietnamese port city of Haiphong. The railway will pass through Vietnam’s rare-earths heartland.
“If Vietnam asks China to build a railway in its territory, it’s natural for both sides to form a rare earth partnership,” a Shanxi-based columnist says in an article published on Friday. “It will be embarrassing if China is building the railway while the US is extracting the minerals in Vietnam.”
He says the proposed construction of a Sino-Vietnam cross-border railway will make it more difficult for Vietnam and the US to form a rare earth partnership. He says, even if the US starts mining, it will have to send the minerals to China for refining.
“The US offered to help Vietnam develop its mining industry in a bid to obtain its rare minerals, but such a move will only increase the cooperation between Vietnam and China,” Huang Xuan, a Heilongjiang-based writer, says in an article, adding that China is good at refining rare earths.
‘The outsiders’
The same writer praises Vietnam for maintaining a friendly relationship with China, for example, by importing Chinese raw materials and intermediate products, refusing to condemn Russia in the Ukraine war and supporting Palestine. She says Vietnam and China agree that maintaining stability in the South China Sea fulfills both countries’ interests.
Xi Jinping told Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong on Wednesday that both China and Vietnam should be “alert to and oppose any attempts to mess up Asia Pacific.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry had in the past said that the US and NATO were the “outsiders” who tried to mess up Asia Pacific. It had criticized the US and Philippines for strengthening their military ties after Philippine President Bongbong Marcos took office in June 2020.
“We have to admit that the encirclement deployed by the US in the South China Sea is taking shape and posing security risks and threats to China,” a writer using the pen name “Zhenjiang” says in an article published on Friday.
“Fortunately, China has also strengthened its military power in the region over the past few decades,” he says. “If the US wants to gather its allies to cause trouble at China’s doorstep, it needs to take into consideration the naval and air power of the People’s Liberation Army.”
He says the US definitely wants to rebuild a navy base in Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay, an American military port during the Cold War period. He says, if this is the case, the PLA will deploy J-20 fighter jets and launch Dongfeng-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles to punish the trouble-makers.
‘Historic significance,’ ‘new milestone’
But, getting back to the fancy words: The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday that Xi’s visit to Vietnam on December 12-13 is of great historic significance and marks a new milestone in the two countries’ bilateral relations.
The ministry would say that, of course, especially with a view back to Biden’s meeting with Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi on September 10. Those two had agreed to elevate the US-Vietnam relationship to “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” for the purposes of “peace, cooperation and sustainable development.”
Mao Ning, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said the Vietnamese side firmly supports and will actively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by Xi.
“The Vietnamese side emphasized that China is the only country that can contribute to all the priorities of Vietnamese diplomacy and growing relations with China is the top priority and strategic choice made by Vietnam, which will not be disturbed or sabotaged by any external forces,” Mao said. “This sets a solid political foundation for building a China-Vietnam community with a shared future.”
Xi’s trip to Vietnam is aimed at telling the mainland Chinese people and the West that Beijing has still had a strong influence on its neighboring countries, Huong Le Thu, deputy director of the Asia Program at the International Crisis Group, told the United Daily News in an interview.
“Vietnamese leaders have so far managed its relations with the US and China quite well,” she said. “They understand the challenges and opportunities created during the competition between great powers, and how to make use of Vietnam’s strategic position.”
She said the question is how long Hanoi can sustain the situation. She said Vietnamese leaders need to deal with the US and China carefully as both had fought with Vietnam in the past.
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