Posted on 11/08/2010 9:52:24 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Nyugen Tan Dung, the Vietnamese prime minister, said Cam Ranh Bay, 180 miles north west of Ho Chi Minh city, would stand ready to service ships and submarines "from all countries".
Russia is to help rebuild the port as part of an £1.3 billion defence deal signed earlier this year.
The move is one of a series of interlocking regional arrangements that are being put in place to counter China's growing might.
In October, Vietnam signed an agreement giving Indian naval ships base facilities at its ports. India, in turn, agreed to help Hanoi expand its naval logistics capabilities, and to train its army in jungle warfare.
Russia is selling Vietnam a raft of state of the art military hardware, including six submarines and 20 Sukhoi 30 fighters.
The port was used as a naval base for the French forces in Indochina, by the Japanese navy in 1942, by the US Navy during the Vietnam war, and by the Russians during the Cold War.
Beijing and Hanoi have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute over the oil and gas rich South China Sea.
China has laid claim to the entire 1 million square mile South China Sea, and its ships have harassed Vietnamese fishing boats and oil exploration teams.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
One of the more interesting turns in that region. So much chess in play. China, where to begin describing a ticking time bomb.
Wouldn’t mind seeing Vietnam and Russia take down the chicoms.
The Russians will stay away from such a fight.
The Russians are in no way of fighting a war. Their military is decaying and turning into junk.
http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/Russians-Admit-Their-Stuff-Sucks-10-21-2010.asp
The Vietnamese are fricking smart.
They know how to preserve their sovereignty.
Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma have already sold their souls to the Chinese.
The Vietnamese will embrace Russia, India and the US to keep the Chinese at arms length.
It is a smart move.
It is ironic, the US and Russia have a history of meddling in Vietnamese affairs, but the Vietnamese know that their only existential threat is China.
On the other hand, in America, the Mexicans are an existential threat to our territorial and political integrity, yet the Democrats and Republicans want to exponentially increase the rate of our destruction by our de facto open borders policy and their push for regularizing 20 million foreign criminals.
No country in the world is as suicidal as the US, except maybe Britain and their love for the Muslims.
I love how people look at Russia as it was in the early 1990’s when it had problems. I can’t go into a full explanation here but Russia is rapidly modernizing its military.
They are doing it by goiung to the west and “purchasing” it because they are incapable of developing their own. Their technology like the article says sucks and they freely admit it.
China and Vietnam are old enemies. They fought a few battles in the 80’s and China got spanked.
It seems like I recall some Western oil company doing offshore oil surveys that were within VN's territorial limits sometime in the 1990s.
I don't know much of Cam Ranh Bay's airport has been kept in good condition but when I landed there in 1971 it had the world's longest runway and held that distinction throughout the 1980s. Huge airport.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
AP November 02, 2010
Vietnam's Cam Ranh base to welcome foreign navies
HANOI, Vietnam
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9J7QPI80.htm
(excerpt)
Vietnam's offer comes amid concern among Southeast Asian countries over a series of aggressive moves by China on the high seas and long-running territorial disputes -- including a recent spat with Vietnam after China arrested nine of its fishermen near disputed islands in the South China Sea. China eventually released them.
Cam Ranh is strategically located near key shipping lanes in the South China Sea and is close to the potentially oil-rich Spratlys and Paracel islands. The Spratlys are claimed by Vietnam, China, Malaysia, the Philipines, Brunei and Taiwan. The Paracels are claimed by Vietnam and China.
U.S., which has irked China by voicing concern that the territorial disputes could imperil those international shipping lanes, has recently promoted its ties with former enemy Vietnam including U.S. Navy port calls and flying high-ranking Vietnamese officials to a U.S. aircraft carrier off Vietnam's central coast.
Cam Ranh bay served as a U.S. air and naval base during the Vietnam War. It was taken over by the former Soviet Union in 1979 under a 25-year rent-free agreement, then returned to Hanoi in May 2002. Vietnam has said it would not allow a foreign base in the bay again, but would develop it for national economic development and defense.
(end excerpt)
Viet Nam is a traditional enemy of China, and India has border issues, not to mention the Chinese kissing the you know what for Pakistan which sponsors terrorist attacks against India.
But chinese shipping has to go past Singapore/viet nam and India, so they are in trouble if they go to war.
China is also pushing the Philippines and Vietnam to give them the Spratlys Islands, where Phil and Vietnamese fishermen traditionally fish...rumors are that there is a big natural gas field there.
The Vietnamese need training in jungle warfare? What happened? (Or is that meant to say that India is going to train its own army in jungle warfare?)
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