| |
DIPLOMACY:
VIETNAM
Ahoy
Hanoi
With India
and Vietnam reviving old bonds, the chances of a strategic tie-up become
stronger
By
S. Prasannarajan in Hanoi
There,"
said King Lyu Thaui Toa over 990 years ago, "all is flourishing and
prosperous. It's the most beautiful site bringing together men and riches
coming from the four cardinal points. It's also an excellent capital for
a royal dynasty for ten thousand generations." Then, it was known
as Thaeng, the Ascending Dragon. Today, it's Hao Noai, Two Rivers, or,
in English, Hanoi.
 |
| The
Singh-Nien interface was marked by warmth |
And Jaswant
Singh, on a two-day visit, didn't forget to wish the city a happy millennium
anniversary 10 years in advance. The not-so-new dynasty of communists,
the Indian foreign minister's host, almost copied the king to return the
compliment though it didn't exactly say, "Here, all is flourishing
... It's the most beautiful site bringing together men and riches."
That would
have been too Chinese. The spirit of socialism in Hanoi is willing to
be prosperous, but, as a punprone travel writer once wrote, the flush
is not working. Maybe the sanitary system of communism is too cautious
to make life comfortable all of a sudden. But there was no caution, only
trust and warmth, as Hanoi turned the 10th Indo-Vietnam Joint Commission
meet into a celebration of brotherhood. The high point of this renewed
bonding will be Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's visit to Vietnam next year.
Take this
from Singh's Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Dy Nien, an old India hand-Banaras
Hindu University scholar and former counsellor at the Vietnamese Embassy
in Delhi. Vietnam, he said, supports India's bid to become a permanent
member of the Security Council. Also, Vietnam wants India to be a decisive
member of APEC. The tone: this Asian is worth the friendship. And he was
not too demanding. More imports, and not rice alone; impetus to trade;
more Indian investment in telecom and software technology-Nien was businesslike.
The agreements couldn't have disappointed him. "The trade imbalance
has been corrected," Singh says. And President Tran Duch Luong told
him, "Vietnam treats India with strategic importance."
This new-found
importance is not matched by investment. India doesn't even figure among
the first 10 investors in Vietnam. The generally low foreign investment
has hit Vietnam's industrial growth and taken the sheen out of its version
of perestroika, the doi moi that began in 1986. The slowdown is partly
because of outside cynicism and greatly because of the refusal to open
all gates to the market.
The New
Abroad: Now, it seems, the doi moi is becoming Asia-specific. The
wise men of the politburo, steeped in the memory of the struggle against
France and the US, are still wary of the outsider. The near abroad is
more comprehensible-with one defining exception: China, which is aspiration
and fear. Aspiration: dynamism in the market and dogma in the party, or,
free market and fettered citizen. Fear: a nasty neighbour with extra-territorial
ambitions. It's a case of geography defining history, more aptly a historical
enemy. The last war with the "big bully" was in 1979 and Hanoi
is still suspicious of Beijing. A section of the ruling class believes
the US could be a buffer between the traditional antagonists. Others can't
come to terms with it. They prefer a neighbourhood power. Why not India?
China may not be a common enemy, but it concentrates the minds of Delhi
and Hanoi. "We don't trust China," says a Vietnam Foreign Ministry
official. "India is a rising power in South Asia, a traditional friend."
China was
not mentioned during Singh's visit but the Chinese subtext was transparent.
His being there was part of a strategic process: George Fernandes' Vietnam
visit, their naval chief in India, the Indian naval chief's forthcoming
visit to Hanoi and the grand Vajpayee finale. All this cannot be accidental.
Singh colonising the government-owned Vietnam News' front page too was
not accidental. "Hierarchy here is measured in news columns,"
Hari, the only Indian journalist in Vietnam, says. Singh would like to
see it civilisationally: "A new partnership for the new century."
For Hanoi, it is an emerging geopolitical hierarchy in the Asian century.
Top
|
|
With
all the noise about the cabinet resolution on dilution of the government’s
stakes in public sector banks, is anyone buying shares of these banks,
asks V. Shankar Aiyar in 