Sino File | How can communist Vietnam be friendlier to the US than China?

Few things are more ridiculous in international politics than when a former enemy offers to mediate disputes between two former allies. But that’s exactly what happened when US President Donald Trump told Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang he could help solve the long-standing territorial disputes between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea. A little more than 40 years ago the two communist countries were comrades-in-arms against the US in the Vietnam war.

Trump’s offer in Hanoi on Sunday of last week came just hours before his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping began his second state visit in three years to the former communist ally. It also came soon after a summit in Beijing that highlighted Trump’s “bromance” with Xi. The leaders of the world’s two largest economies both visited Hanoi after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in the Vietnamese port city of Da Nang on November 10. Trump’s overtures to Hanoi – which have the potential to antagonise Beijing – betray the fact that relations between Washington and Hanoi and Washington and Beijing are both stronger than those between the two communist former allies.