Vietnam has managed its differences with China without bloodshed, even as Beijing keeps pressing its expansive claims across the South China Sea, also called the East Sea. Hanoi’s answer has been steady resistance, not surrender and not escalation.
S D Pradhan said Vietnam’s dexterity in handling a powerful neighbor with an expansionist approach offers an instructive model in diplomacy. He said Hanoi’s broad strategy is not to defeat China but to live alongside it without sacrificing its autonomy or national interests, and that its approach is neither submissive nor confrontational.
The stakes are plain. China claims almost 90% of the South China Sea, and its nine-dash line continues to expand. Beijing has built artificial islands and turned them into military outposts, changed the traditional names of several features to bolster its claims, and carried out aggressive patrols in waters claimed by Vietnam. In 2014, China placed a giant oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam near the Paracel Islands, an episode that sharpened tensions without tipping into war.
Vietnam’s response has been to hold its ground while keeping the dispute below the level of armed conflict. Hanoi objected when China challenged its drilling operations along with those of foreign countries, and in some incidents Beijing’s forces sank Vietnamese fishing boats. Even then, Vietnam did not allow the confrontations to escalate into war.
That restraint does not amount to acceptance. Hanoi has firmly resisted China’s expansive claims, upheld the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and backed the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling. It remains the most vocal opponent of what it sees as China’s illegal claims, a posture that has defined the relationship for years and still shapes how both sides move in the contested waters today.
The friction is what gives Vietnam’s approach its force. China keeps pushing, Vietnam keeps resisting, and the region remains tense without crossing the line into open conflict. For now, Hanoi’s real achievement is not a settlement. It is surviving the pressure while keeping its own course intact.
