plawolf
Lieutenant General
Sino-Vietnamese conflicts are conflicts between brothers. When an orange round eye tries to wedge himself in you can guarantee that the knives will point outward. Do not underestimate the Erlang Alliance.
Vietnamese are no brothers of Chinese. If they could, the Vietnamese would genocide all Chinese without hesitation.
China should harbour no illusions about Vietnam. Indeed, they are an exponentially bigger threat than India will ever be because they are smart enough to not let their irrational hatred of China stop the from copying everything from China.
This visit isn’t about brotherly friendship, but rather keeping your friends close and enemies closer.
Vietnam is too smart to allow itself be used as an Eastern Ukraine to soak up Chinese munitions, but it would have happily jumped in and stabbed China in the back and opened up new fronts if it looks like the fight isn’t going China’s way. That in turn means China needs to divert significant resources and forces to keep a weary eye on them to make sure they don’t get any stupid ideas.
Trump fucked up being too greedy and arrogant with Vietnam, and needlessly burnt a bridge with a potentially eager ally. China seized the opportunity to further bind Vietnam into its economic system and further mitigate that risk by making China too economically import for Vietnam to backstab.