True but they aren’t unwise to do so. Yes it helps some communists but on a practical level Vietnam is too small in population, geography, resources, etc to ever pose a threat to the US order writ large on a global scale. At most they can disrupt their plans regionally. They don’t have the scale to project power in the way the USSR or China can/could and to upend the US led imperialist block, international finance system, international lawfare regime, and international military hegemony. Like Cuba they don’t like it existing but if push came to shove if China fell to capitalism and reaction Vietnam, Cuba, DPRK could be safely embargoed and cut off from the rest of the world, their ability to influence it made minimal without any big waves for global capital.
Also Vietnam’s ideological education from what I’ve heard is not as good. I’m not aware of if they have a comprehensive great firewall like China but there seems to be some real westernization there and much liberalism. The party holds power but do they truly still hold the loyalty of the people? It’s one thing to say the people would join them in repelling the US if it invaded again given their proud history of defeating the US before and a desire for independence. It’s another to ask whether they’re susceptible to propaganda, color revolution messaging and whether Vietnam can succeed where China has in rooting out corruption, because the corruption in China got quite deep, it was a cancer that could have absolutely killed the party and the revolution given a few strokes of luck for the west and another decade.
True but they aren’t unwise to do so. Yes it helps some communists but on a practical level Vietnam is too small in population, geography, resources, etc to ever pose a threat to the US order writ large on a global scale. At most they can disrupt their plans regionally. They don’t have the scale to project power in the way the USSR or China can/could and to upend the US led imperialist block, international finance system, international lawfare regime, and international military hegemony. Like Cuba they don’t like it existing but if push came to shove if China fell to capitalism and reaction Vietnam, Cuba, DPRK could be safely embargoed and cut off from the rest of the world, their ability to influence it made minimal without any big waves for global capital.
Also Vietnam’s ideological education from what I’ve heard is not as good. I’m not aware of if they have a comprehensive great firewall like China but there seems to be some real westernization there and much liberalism. The party holds power but do they truly still hold the loyalty of the people? It’s one thing to say the people would join them in repelling the US if it invaded again given their proud history of defeating the US before and a desire for independence. It’s another to ask whether they’re susceptible to propaganda, color revolution messaging and whether Vietnam can succeed where China has in rooting out corruption, because the corruption in China got quite deep, it was a cancer that could have absolutely killed the party and the revolution given a few strokes of luck for the west and another decade.