Dealing with China (2)
Long before China’s ‘swarming’ at Ayungin Shoal, which has held us helplessly at bay, Vietnam was already having regular water cannon skirmishes with China.
Here in Part 2, we focus on the qualities we need in dealing with China instead of strategies and weaponry, as shown in Part 1. Read Part 1 first — https://tribune.net.ph/2023/12/dealing-with-china-1/
The Vietnamese Model
The Vietnamese warrior today has been sharpened by centuries of war against superior giants.
Centuries ago, Vietnam defied and splintered from the powerful Chinese Empire. Viet means south, nam means kingdom — the kingdom south of the empire. Vietnam then destroyed the even more powerful French colonization in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Finally, Vietnam defeated the United States, which was forced into a massive evacuation after two decades of a guerrilla and conventional war, an embarrassing blow for a superpower facing a "lowly" Third World country.
The Vietnamese is a natural warrior, the Filipino a natural adventurer and survivor, evident from our millions of OFWs worldwide, our biggest dollar earner today. The French and the Americans failed to colonize the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese kept their culture intact. The Filipino was colonized and assimilated into the foreign cultures of Spain and America, that is why we speak English fluently and abound in call centers.
The anthropological roots of the contrast between the Vietnamese versus the Filipino is geographic and linguistic all at once. Vietnam is monolithic, one solid landmass. The Philippines is granulated, thousands of scattered islands, with its total shoreline longer than that of continental USA. Vietnam has one central language. The Philippines has about 125-odd dialects. Vietnam has a single ethnic root except for a few minorities like the Hmong. The Philippines has about 85 ethnic groupings.
Anthropologically, Vietnam and the Philippines are complete opposites. Vietnam is neutral gray, the Philippines a rainbow. Our contrasting traits were formed by these differences, especially belligerence versus subservience, survival instincts, ability to resist foreign cultural assimilation.
Long before China's "swarming" at Ayungin Shoal, which has held us helplessly at bay, Vietnam was already having regular water cannon skirmishes with China. It is not a matter of weaponry or alliances but political will, of courage rather than support from allies. Vietnam succeeded in forcing China to close an oil rig very near the Vietnam shores by 1) harassing the oil rig, 2) launching a nation-wide boycott of Chinese goods.