Is the U.S. Losing in Vietnam? Russia, North Korea and China Are Gaining.
American officials believed nearly two years ago that Vietnam was about to buy C-130 military transport planes from the United States. In interviews, they said the sale would be a powerful blow to Russia, Hanoi’s main military partner, and a clear sign that geopolitical swing states like Vietnam were tilting toward Washington, not Moscow or Beijing.At Vietnam’s defense expo last December, the country’s prime minister even climbed aboard a visiting C-130, inspecting the cockpit as U.S. commanders watched. A YouTube video seemed to capture a Vietnamese deputy defense minister telling colleagues that three (or maybe 13) planes had been ordered. But then nothing happened.Instead, Vietnam has stepped up purchases of Russian military equipment, routing around U.S. sanctions meant to cut off business with Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Leaked documents and interviews with Vietnamese and Western officials all point to a reinvigorated relationship — a return to distrusting America and relying on Russia, with a surge of high-level meetings and previously undisclosed purchases and partnerships.The evidence reviewed by The New York Times includes records of Vietnam ordering dozens of complex air-defense systems, and high-tech upgrades for submarines, while seeking fleets of new aircraft. Russia and Vietnam have also continued to expand military-technical cooperation through joint ventures. At least one company in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, was added to U.S. and European sanctions and export-control lists in 2024 and 2025, suggesting the business was contributing to Russia’s fight against Ukraine.Most of the transactions and collaborations with Russia have avoided sanctions enforcement, partly with payment systems hidden in other companies, and because the United States let a lot go, believing it was Vietnam’s partner of choice. But Moscow is getting bolder. While many of the secret purchases began during the Biden administration, they appear to be accelerating with President Trump in power — as are public displays of close relations.Russia’s state news agency announced last month that a newly ratified protocol with Vietnam would let debts for military equipment be paid in Russian rubles.“The law was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin,” a Russian statement said.Vietnamese officials say that their country is simply being pragmatic. Russia has been supplying most of their weapons for decades; Vietnam’s diversification process takes time. But after a pause prompted by Russia invading Ukraine in 2022 — and a drive toward other partners, which the Biden administration had encouraged — Vietnam is back in business with Moscow in ways that could reshape security calculations across Asia.Much of the region now worries that President Trump, who will be in South Korea this week for the APEC summit meetings, is pushing Hanoi further away, making Asia more dangerous by alienating not just allies but also newer partners.Exasperation with the United States has been building in Vietnam. Blow by blow, it has risen with the elimination of American aid for clean energy and H.I.V. prevention, up-and-down tariffs, indifference to requests for a leader-to-leader meeting, a Trump family golf development near Hanoi that has enraged local residents, and surprises like the new tax on U.S. imports of furniture — one of Vietnam’s priority industries for growth.It has been 50 years since the war with America ended, but Vietnam is still dominated by factions that either distrust or welcome the West. What Mr. Trump is now doing, according to analysts and officials, is empowering America skeptics and angering America fans.Near the end of the Biden administration, Vietnam worried about being seen as too close to the United States. Now, in private meetings, Vietnam’s leaders have expressed shock at what they described as a confusing and unfair reversal under the Trump administration that disregards Vietnam’s embrace of a comprehensive strategic partnership.“The unpredictability of Trump’s policies has made Vietnam very skeptical about dealing with the United States,” said Nguyen The Phuong, a security analyst at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “It’s not only trade but the difficulty of reading his mind and actions.”New AlignmentsVietnam insists that relations with the United States remain strong. Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said the American people were benefiting.“Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States has a great relationship with Vietnam,” she said in response to emailed questions, “which is how the President was able to open Vietnamese markets to American goods.”But in Japan, South Korea and Australia — and in the American institutions that deal with long-term foreign policy — concern about losing Vietnam keeps growing.Russia is not the only worry. Vietnam’s leader, To Lam, recently visited North Korea and agreed to cooperate on defense. A few days after Mr. Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs slapped a 46 percent tariff on Vietnamese exports (which was later reduced), China’s leader, Xi Jinping, received a red-carpet welcome in Hanoi. Vietnam then accelerated plans for three cross-border railway projects that Beijing had been seeking for years.Vietnam has a long history of independence and post-Cold War neutrality. But officials from the region’s democracies now fear that Hanoi is encouraging more “red nationalism” across society and slipping out of its traditional balance between powers.An alignment or leverage that would make Hanoi more likely to side with China, Russia or North Korea in disputes could lead to a pullback from other partners. South Korea and Japan are Vietnam’s largest sources of foreign investment. Tokyo is building coast guard patrol boats for Vietnam in the hope that they will help monitor and counter Chinese aggression in Asian sea lanes.In some corners of Washington, too, Vietnam’s choices are facing increased scrutiny. A congressional official said that Congress was briefed this year on a classified assessment of Vietnam’s military acquisitions and upgrades of naval and air defenses.It was an early warning of growing alarm about the risks of American disengagement in Asia.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to make his first official visit to Vietnam in early November. Some Vietnamese and American officials, who requested anonymity to avoid repercussions for addressing sensitive topics, said they hoped that the discussions would revive the two countries’ relationship, or at least prevent further decline.Along with addressing war legacy issues, like unexploded ordnance, potential purchases are expected to be discussed. Three Vietnamese officials said the C-130s are back in play. Vietnam has also expressed an interest in co-producing unmanned drones — a key component for the outposts it has been fortifying in the South China Sea to fend off Beijing’s competing claims over waterways and the Paracel and Spratly Islands.Vietnam’s Air Defense and Air Force commander, Maj. Gen. Vu Hong Son, confirmed last month in an essay that major purchases were on the way, including “trainer aircraft, fighter jets, missile systems, antiaircraft guns and new-generation radar systems.”He did not say where the hardware would come from.Some diversification has already happened. Vietnam has started building its own weapons and made modest defense deals with Israel and India, along with a few others.But Vietnam has mostly rebounded to Russia. When Mr. Putin visited in June 2024 — his first trip to Asia since 2018 — he was joined by the head of the Russian state arms exporting company, Rosoboronexport. By that point, Vietnam was already making clandestine plans to buy Russian weapons with secret payments routed through an oil and gas joint venture, according to a 2023 document from Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance.Vietnam was hedging. The United States figured the C-130s were next. But that deal froze, and Russia’s kept going.Documents from another Russian defense exporter leaked last month by a pro-Ukrainian hacker group, black8mirror, show that Vietnam was set to receive nine electronic warfare systems in 2024 for Russia’s Su-35, an agile Sukhoi fighter jet. Another 26 components for mobile ground-based systems that can jam radar-guided missiles were to be delivered in 2025 at a listed cost of $189,739,535.Records from the company, Rostec, also include references to Vietnam seeking new “anti-submarine helicopters” and advanced periscopes for submarines.Previously unreported, the air-defense orders suggested to analysts — who confirmed that the documents offered a credible glimpse of Vietnam’s plans — that a deal for Su-35s and other aircraft was probably already done. One of several Vietnamese officials who confirmed large orders from Russia said the country purchased 40 new Su-35 and Su-30 fighter jets, as part of a deal worth $8 billion, with deliveries delayed as Moscow searches for ways to supply its own war effort and foreign customers.“The Russians have been very adept at finding workarounds, including defense exports through third countries,” said Ian Storey, the author of “Putin’s Russia and Southeast Asia: The Kremlin’s Pivot to Asia and the Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War.”For the United States, closer military ties and the sale of F-16 fighter jets, though much discussed, have not materialized.“Trump is the key point,” said Mr. Phuong, the security analyst in Australia, whose Ph.D. dissertation is about Vietnam’s military. “One official told me that if there is a naval conflict between Vietnam and China, and if Vietnam buys F-16s from the United States, and if Trump thinks that he could make some concession with China, then the United States will ban Vietnam from using the F-16s.”Disruption AheadVietnam’s concerns have not kept it from rushing to win over Mr. Trump. One avenue has been to fast-track the Trump Organization golf complex (earning the president $5 million, financial records show). Hanoi has also promised to buy more from the United States and to keep China from illegally routing exports through Vietnam to avoid U.S. tariffs.This young country of 100 million sends nearly a third of what it makes to America — and there is nothing Hanoi wants more than certainty for trade.Even before Mr. Trump won re-election last fall, Mr. Lam was requesting a meeting, to no avail. Hanoi’s trade negotiators are also desperate for details on new “country of origin” rules and future industry-specific tariffs, which have not been part of the trade announcements coinciding with Mr. Trump’s arrival in Asia this weekend.“Trump regards this as an ongoing reality show — more ‘deals’ or further tariff increases are almost certain to follow,” said Stephen Olsen, a former U.S. trade negotiator who is now a senior fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.Russia has been quick to exploit the growing distance.Mr. Putin invited and hosted Mr. Lam and his wife in Moscow in May. On Sept. 2, Russian troops marched through Hanoi with Vietnamese regiments for National Day, reaffirming “the pivotal role of defense cooperation,” according to Vietnamese state media. Two weeks later, one of Mr. Putin’s closest aides, Nikolai Patrusev, was in Hanoi discussing maritime security. All of the back and forth suggests that for Mr. Putin, Asia has become a place to disrupt American and Chinese plans, and to counter the argument that their rivalry is all that matters.“Russia under Putin wants to be an independent great power,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, “not just the junior partner in the autocratic world.”Beijing seems unconcerned, saying little publicly but still making theatrical displays of its influence.Chinese troops joined Vietnamese military parades in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi this year — in a country that fought Chinese domination for 1,000 years. Vietnam, Russia and North Korea all sent high-level delegations to Beijing for China’s own extravagant military parade.Mr. McFaul said that when he meets with China’s Russia experts, their nationalist self-regard dilutes anxiety about Mr. Putin.“They don’t respect Russia as a great country,” he said. “They see them as a bunch of peasants. The Chinese have a sense of themselves, like, ‘We’ve been a great power for thousands of years, we’re there again, while these guys, the Russians, they’re on the periphery of the global system.’”As it has for a long time, though, Vietnam aims to take the long view. For its leaders, swings in influence now do not dictate future events.As Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam’s famous nationalist, said in 1966: “Everything depends on the Americans. If they want to make war for 20 years, then we shall make war for 20 years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to tea afterward.”Reporting was contributed by Tung Ngo from Hanoi, Vietnam; Eric Schmitt from Washington; Anton Troianovski from Berlin; and Oleg Matsnev from Munich.
已发布: 2025-10-27 09:28:00
来源: www.nytimes.com
