Many Westerners are under the impression that Russia became China’s junior partner in the sixteen months since the special operation began, the status of which was supposedly due to the economic-financial desperation brought about by the West’s sanctions, but this is a grossly inaccurate assessment. There re many pieces of objectively existing and easily verifiable evidence debunking this claim, with the latest news that Russia will continue strengthening its military ties with Vietnam being among them.
That Southeast Asian country’s Defense Minister just visited Moscow to hash out the details of their updated strategic partnership per the roadmap agreed upon by their leaders in early December 2021. While there, he pledged that “Vietnam will be with you under any circumstances” and also revealed that one of the purposes of his trip was to expand cooperation on the Russian-Vietnamese Tropical Center, which just celebrated its 35th anniversary.
According to him, “We will discuss areas of research and development work that both sides want to advance. For example, how to improve the durability of weapons and equipment that we acquired from the USSR and the Russian Federation, as well as health preservation issues with respect to submariners, military pilots and soldiers who work in harsh conditions.” The only opponent against which this military equipment might realistically be used is China, with whom Vietnam contests part of the South China Sea.
The reader should review several related analyses at this point for important background information:
* 9 December 2021: “The Russian-Vietnamese Strategic Partnership Advances Moscow’s Greater Eurasian Vision”
* 14 May 2022: “Interpreting The Vietnamese Ambassador To India’s Remark About Defense & Nuclear Energy Co-Op”
* 6 July 2022: “Russian-Vietnamese Relations Are A Model For Cooperation Between Big & Medium Countries”
* 2 September 2022: “Vietnam’s Outgoing Envoy To India Shared Some Insight Into His Country’s Multipolar Strategy”
* 4 May 2023: “RIC’s Differences Should Be Candidly Acknowledged Instead Of Denied Or Spun By Alt-Media”
A summary of the abovementioned insight will now be shared for the reader’s convenience.
In short, Russia’s strategic partnership with China is aimed at accelerating the global systemic transition to multipolarity and doesn’t entail Moscow supporting Beijing’s claims to its eponymous South Sea, which is one of several sensitive issues that they’ve agreed to disagree on. Russia, Vietnam, and their shared Indian partner all have an interest in balancing China in that body of water, albeit in friendly, gentle, and non-hostile ways unlike the unfriendly, harsh, and hostile ones that the US envisages.
This has taken the form of Vietnam multi–aligning between those two on a bilateral basis as well as exploring multilateral cooperation via the potential purchase of jointly produced Russian-Indian BrahMos supersonic missiles. From Russia’s perspective, this balancing act proves its independence vis-a-vis China while bolstering Vietnam’s defensive capabilities so as to deter any unilateral action by Beijing to forcefully settle their dispute, just like its military exports to that country do the same vis-a-vis Hanoi.
The example of Russia’s growing military ties with Vietnam therefore shatters not only the Mainstream Media’s false claim that the former is China’s junior partner, but also the Alt-Media Community’s false impression that there supposedly exist no sensitive differences between Russia and China. If there was any truth to either of the aforesaid views, then Russia wouldn’t be strengthening Vietnam’s military capabilities through the planned expansion of their cooperation via the Tropical Center project.
