nothing is permanent

This report analyses the difficulties faced by Vietnamese authorities in their efforts to maintain control over rising domestic anti‐China sentiments among Vietnamese intellectuals and college students who view China as Vietnam's ‘historic enemy’.

Vietnam’s management of relations with China has always been the prerogative of a small group within the party and state elite. Vietnam’s elite has not always been unified on how to manage relations with its northern neighbor. Historically internal party contention on relations with China has been insulated from the general public through party discipline and strict controls on the media and publishing industry. Since 2007, the emergence of an anti‐China backlash among a widening circle of Vietnam’s political elite has broken through this insulation and posed two major difficulties for the Vietnamese leadership.

In January 2007, the party Central Committee’s fourth plenum resolved to draw up a national “Maritime Strategy Towards the Year 2020” to integrate economic development of coastal areas with the exploitation of marine resources in the East Sea. Vietnamese economists estimated that by 2020, the marine economy would contribute up to 55 percent of GDP and between 55‐60 percent of exports. Vietnam’s maritime development strategy was completed during 2007 but was not released publicly. According to a very senior party official, Chinese intelligence acquired a copy of this classified document and then began to apply pressure on foreign companies, such as ExxonMobil and India’s ONGC, that were likely to be involved in developing Vietnam’s maritime sector. These companies were warned that their commercial interests in China would suffer if they developed areas claimed by China.