Zarvan
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The Dangerous Battle for the South China Sea - China's no Stranger to Naval Conflict: Two Chinese Vessel (L & R) is pictured ramming a Vietnamese fisheries Surveillance Ship KN-951 in Vietnam's waters on June 24, 2014
XUAN MAI: Vietnam's military is steeling itself for conflict with China as it accelerates a decade-long modernisation drive, Hanoi's biggest arms buildup since the height of the Vietnam War.
The ruling Communist Party's goal is to deter its giant northern neighbour as tensions rise over the disputed South China Sea, and if that fails, to be able to defend itself on all fronts, senior officers and people close to them told Reuters.
Vietnam's strategy has moved beyond contingency planning. Key units have been placed on "high combat readiness" - an alert posture to fend off a sudden attack - including its elite Division 308, which guards the mountainous north.
The two countries fought a bloody border war in 1979. The likely flashpoint this time is in the South China Sea, where they have rival claims in the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.
"We don't want to have a conflict with China and we must put faith in our policy of diplomacy," one senior Vietnamese government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. "But we know we must be ready for the worst."
Most significantly, Hanoi is creating a naval deterrent largely from scratch with the purchase of six advanced Kilo-class submarines from Russia.
In recent months, the first of those submarines have started patrolling the South China Sea, Vietnamese and foreign military officials said, the first confirmation the vessels have been in the strategic waterway.
DIVISION 308
Militarily, the tensions are palpable northwest of Hanoi at the headquarters of Division 308, Vietnam's most elite military unit, where senior army officers talk repeatedly about "high combat readiness".
The phrase is on billboards beneath images of missiles and portraits of Vietnam's late revolutionary founder, Ho Chi Minh, and its legendary military hero, General Vo Nguyen Giap.
Perched between Vietnam's craggy northern mountains and the ancient rice paddies of the Red River Delta, 308 is Vietnam's oldest division and still effectively guards the northern approaches to Hanoi.
Reflecting deep-set official sensibilities towards offending Beijing, one senior officer, Colonel Le Van Hai, said he could not talk about China. But Vietnam was ready to repel any foreign force, he told Reuters during a rare visit by a foreign reporter.
"Combat readiness is the top priority of the division, of the Ministry of Defence and the country. We can deal with any sudden or unexpected situation ... We are ready," he said.
"High combat readiness", along with references to the "new situation", increasingly feature in lectures by senior officers during visits to military bases and in publications of the People's Army of Vietnam. The phrases also surface in talks with foreign military delegations, diplomats said.
"When Vietnam refers to the 'new situation', they are using coded language to refer to the rising likelihood of an armed confrontation or clash with China, particularly in the South China Sea," said Carl Thayer, a professor at Australia's Defence Force Academy in Canberra who has studied Vietnam's military since the late 1960s.
While ramping up combat readiness, Hanoi's once-reclusive generals are reaching out to a broad range of strategic partners. Russia and India are the main source of advanced weapons, training and intelligence cooperation. Hanoi is also building ties with the United States and its Japanese, Australian and Filipino allies, as well as Europe and Israel.
The outreach covers weapons purchases, ship visits and intelligence sharing but will have its limits. Hanoi shuns formal military alliances under a staunchly independent foreign policy.
Vietnam is seeking more Russian jet fighter-bombers and is in talks with European and US arms manufacturers to buy fighter and maritime patrol planes and unarmed surveillance drones, sources have told Reuters. It has also recently upgraded and expanded air defences, including obtaining early warning surveillance radars from Israel and advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries from Russia.
Indeed, increases in Vietnam's military spending have outstripped its South East Asian neighbours over the last decade, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). 34:49
"They are not doing this for national day parades ... they are building real military capabilities," said Tim Huxley, a regional security expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Singapore.
Vietnam's foreign ministry said in a statement to Reuters that modernizing the military was standard procedure for all nations.
"The relationship between Vietnam and China is maintaining a positive development trend in all fields, including the defence sector," the statement said.
OIL RIG FLASH POINT
While communist parties rule both Vietnam and China and share political bonds, the two countries have a history marked by armed conflict and long periods of lingering mistrust.
Fresh academic research has revealed how the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979 was more intense than is widely known, rumbling on into the mid-1980s. The two sides then clashed at sea in 1988 when China occupied its first holdings in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea - a defeat still acutely felt in Hanoi.
China also took full control of another South China Sea island chain, the Paracels, after a naval showdown with then South Vietnam in 1974. Hanoi still protests China's occupation.
More recently, China's placement of an oil rig in disputed waters for 10 weeks in the middle of last year sparked anti-Chinese riots across Vietnam.
The rig's placement on Vietnam's continental shelf 80 nautical miles from its coast was a game-changer, officials
Vietnam builds military muscle to face China - The Economic Times
