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SCMP Reporter

A Vietnamese government minister  has warned that Vietnam has 'all capabilities' to deter any use of force against it and urged  greater transparency and trust in military relations with China.
 Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, the deputy defence minister,  said an improved military relationship could bolster the broader Sino-Vietnamese relationship.
 'No confidence-building measure could be better than transparency,' Vinh said of the troubled  relationship in a  rare interview between a senior Vietnamese military official and a foreign media  organisation.
 'We ... would never want to use force or threaten to use force in order to gain our own interests,' Vinh said. 'Another clear message that we have sent to all the international community is that we never accept ... any solution that involves the use of force or the threat of ... force and we have all capabilities in order to deter that.'
 When asked if he was suggesting China had recently threatened Vietnam, he said that 'was a question for China and not for Vietnam'.
 Alarmed by China's military build-up, Vietnam has embarked on its own modernisation, including an agreement to buy six Kilo-class submarines from Russia for more than US$2 billion, its biggest ever arms purchase.
While acknowledging tensions in the South China Sea, which he referred to as 'the East Sea',  he spoke of growing  co-operation between Chinese and Vietnamese forces. He mentioned increased exchanges of young officers, delegations and  advisers  and joint patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin, where territorial disputes have been resolved.
 Vinh spoke of a desire for  agreements on behaviour at sea and formal channels to settle incidents - moves that promoted 'goodwill' and 'contribute very, very much to the bilateral relationship'. 
 He said it was possible for Vietnam to develop better ties with the US and Russia as well as China, saying 'all countries were praying for peace, all trying to develop a peaceful relationship'. 
Vinh's comments follow an apparent diplomatic victory for Vietnam late last week when US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton backed Hanoi's attempts to internationalise solutions to territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
 Clinton used a visit to Hanoi for the top annual security forum to warn that such solutions were now in the US 'national interest' and a 'diplomatic priority' - statements that come despite backroom attempts by Beijing to shut down regional discussions.
 Instead, China wants bilateral discussions with individual claimants to the islands of the strategic, oil-rich sea  - Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei.
 Vietnam and China claim all of the strategic Paracel and Spratly archipelagos,  with China occupying all of the former and Vietnam  much of the latter. 
The US has become increasingly concerned at Chinese threats made against big oil companies to get them to halt  exploration deals with Hanoi and by China's detention of hundreds of Vietnamese fishermen.
Vietnam, the current chairman of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has been pushing  to turn an existing regional agreement calling for restraint in the South China Sea into something more concrete. 
 Vinh, considered a rising star  in the Vietnamese leadership,  has led a  flurry of military diplomacy to foster broader and improved regional discussions.
 Today,  he will  invite 17 defence ministers to attend the inaugural Asean Defence Ministers Plus Eight meeting in Hanoi in October.  The grouping will link the 10 nations of Asean with regional powers including not just China, Japan and South Korea but also the US, Russia and Australia.
 Vinh has travelled  much, including to Beijing and Washington, to push the initiative, despite the country's military being one of the most secretive and insular in the region. 
While it is expected that South China Sea issues will be raised, the meeting's agenda has yet to be  decided. The calling of the meeting reflects both a growing  desire to improve  ties between potential rivals  in a changing region as well as a growing  desire in Southeast Asia and Washington for US  involvement to counter China's rise. Vinh said it was important to foster 'brainstorming' to find practical solutions and create momentum for future sessions. He hoped to create a 'cosy' atmosphere, he said. 
Despite fears in the region that military tensions will grow, he said he believed in a 'very bright future', with all  countries involved understanding the advantages of peace.
 'We have concrete evidence and logic for this,' he said. 'We can see that we are living in a civilised world of the 21st century where we have well-established legislation and binding documents that will make it difficult for any country ... that wants to infringe the peace.'
Vinh's comments provide a rare window into Sino-Vietnamese military ties, one of the region's most important yet secretive and suspicious strategic relationships.
China provided weapons and sanctuary to Vietnamese communist revolutionaries from the earliest days of their long but successful wars against French colonialists and then American forces.
 But souring relations between Beijing and Hanoi degenerated into violence in late 1978, when then- paramount leader Deng Xiaoping  ordered People's Liberation Army troops to cross Vietnam's northern border to 'teach Hanoi a lesson' for its invasion of Cambodia, which drove the China-backed Khmer Rouge from power.
The punitive action may have only lasted a month but was exceptionally bloody, involving tens of thousands of PLA casualties. 
Ties were restored in 1991, but historical struggles against China are a feature of local folklore and, at times, official propaganda.
 Vinh is the son of a famed general, Nguyen Chi Thanh, who was killed in the Vietnam war, and is seen as a future defence minister. Until recently, he  headed the powerful intelligence apparatus of the Politburo's Central Military Commission.  As in China, Vietnam's five-man commission is headed by the chief of the Communist Party.




A flash of steel and the velvet glove from Vietnam