President Bill Clinton: He's Marching the U.S. Back into Vietnam

President Bill Clinton:
He's Marching the U.S. Back into Vietnam It is a subtle cadence to confrontation between the United States and China

February/March 1996 Issue
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch

It is not inconceivable that in the near future America will again be loading body bags filled with American servicemen out of Vietnam. This time, however, our teenage soldiers will have died defending communist Vietnam and U.S. oil interests from the communist Chinese.
The Clinton administration, convinced that a strong United States economic/political presence in Vietnam is needed as a deterrent to anticipated Chinese military action in Southeast Asia, is pushing the United States quick-step back into that war-torn country and into an unavoidable encounter with the Red Chinese.
Before Washington can check "Chinese ambitions" by establishing a U.S. "diplomatic shield" in Hanoi, it must dispose of the last obstacle preventing normalized relations with Vietnam--the issue of U.S. servicemen still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.
Hidden behind a facade of so-called mutual cooperation in accounting for the U.S. missing in action, U.S. officials have already established a military post and are secretly discussing with the Vietnamese letting U.S. Navy ships use port facilities at Cam Ranh Bay--a highly coveted deep water port in the former South Vietnam built by U.S. forces during the war.
President Bill Clinton, a war protester who left the country to avoid service in Vietnam, made a solemn campaign promise in his drive to unseat President Bush that he would not normalize diplomatic and trade relations with Vietnam until there was a full, good-faith accounting of the missing servicemen. Contrary to that promise, Clinton, citing exaggerated accounts of Vietnam's POW/MIA cooperation, lifted the U.S.-imposed trade embargo against Vietnam on February 3, 1994.
Almost one year later on January 27, ironically, the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement, Clinton allowed Washington and Hanoi to establish diplomatic liaison offices.
The 1973 Peace Accords included a ceasefire agreement throughout North and South Vietnam, withdrawal of all U.S. troops, and a promise by communist Vietnam not to use force to reunify the country. Two years after the U.S. withdrew its troops, Hanoi violated the agreement and occupied South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Since World War II, Vietnam's history has been filled with armed confrontations and war, including having driven out the French in 1954 and establishing North Vietnam as a hard core communist state, defeating the U.S.-backed anti-communist South Vietnam in 1975, invading Cambodia in 1979, occupying it for a decade, fighting a border war with China in 1979, and again clashing with the Chinese in 1988.
The Vietnam War was America's longest war fought both in North and South Vietnam and spreading into neighboring Laos and Cambodia. The war lasted for over 16 years from 1959-1975 during which China and the Soviet Union supported Hanoi in its effort to establish communism in all of Indochina. When the shooting finally stopped after Hanoi had taken all of Indochina, nearly 58,000 American servicemen had lost their lives and over 150,000 were left wounded. Thousands more died later in the United States as a result of their wounds.
Today, Vietnam is still ruled by the same hard-line Marxist-Leninist dictatorial regime that orchestrated the war against non-communist South Vietnam. Although it has taken on some colors of capitalism, Vietnam still continues to severely limit freedom of the press, speech, assembly, association and is unrepentant about its human rights violations.
As recent as Mar. 4, the Vietnamese warned the U.S. State Department that if the United States tries to "raise issues with the goal of changing Vietnam's government . . . such as human rights," it would have "a negative consequence" on the relationship between Vietnam and the United States. Vietnam remains one of the world's poorest countries with a per head income of $170 a year for its 72 million population.

RED CHINA/U.S. MILITARY BUILD-UP

Virtually unnoticed by the U.S. press, Vietnam's former ally, Red China, has steadily, since the early 90s, been building-up its military forces around Vietnam and disputed territories in the South China Sea.
Clinton, in response, has lifted the trade embargo causing a stampede of U.S. business investments in Vietnam. After that, he successfully used the presence of U.S. businesses in Vietnam as an excuse to accelerate the pace towards full normalized relations with Hanoi.
The U.S. established, in 1991, the Joint Task Force for a Full Accounting (JTF-FA) in Hanoi, a military post cloaked in the supposed effort to account for America's missing in action. Instead of experienced intelligence analysts and military personnel familiar with and equipped to deal with searching for missing U.S. servicemen, the U.S. government staffed the JTF-FA with men experienced only in infantry, artillery, and logistics operations. JTF-FA is organized and positioned to be the nucleus for an envisioned U.S. military build-up in Vietnam--the forerunner of a military assistance program for communist Vietnam.
In addition, the U.S. has allocated millions of dollars to build a Star Wars Missile Defense System over Asia.

IT'S ABOUT OIL UNDER THE SPRATLYS

This subtle march to war between the super powers is over an estimated $1 trillion worth of oil and natural-gas resources buried beneath a long string of rocky outcrops--some 1,000 islets and reefs straddling strategic shipping lanes--called the Spratly Islands. They are located about 300 miles east of Vietnam in the South China Sea.
The Chinese, who desperately need oil and gas to continue their economic growth, have declared the Spratlys to be their property. They are also claimed in whole, or part, by Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
All claimants, except Brunei, have staked out a military presence in the Spratlys making that area the most serious potential flashpoint in Asia. China and Vietnam clashed there in 1988 when the Chinese Navy sank two Vietnamese ships, killing more than 70 Vietnamese sailors. Fears of further armed conflict have risen since China enacted a law in 1992 claiming the entire Spratly chain for itself warning Vietnam in January 1993 to resolve the question of ownership of the Spratlys by "peaceful means" or China would, in 1997, take the Spratlys by military means.
Vietnam claimed, in November 1994, its archaeologists had found 330 pieces of ancient pottery resembling Vietnamese artifacts on three of the disputed islands, proving its claim to the Spratlys. The pottery, according to the official Vietnam News Agency, dates back to the 15th and 18th centuries' Le dynasty. To counter Vietnam's claim, China's official Guangming Daily newspaper reported the following month that 10 years of research proves the disputed Spratlys belong to China.
"After 400 scholars and experts toiled for more than 10 years, they obtained innumerable results that proved historically that we discovered and developed the Spratly Islands . . . the Spratly Islands are a sacred and uninfringeable part of Chinese territory," the newspaper said. The Chinese government, which refuses to allow an arbitration body such as the International Court in the Hague to decide the controversy, is demanding that all claimants to the Spratlys enter joint-development pacts with China. "The Chinese government has been proposing, and will continue to propose, bilateral talks with the country's concern to peaceably settle issues and disputes over the Nansha (Spratly) Islands," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian said in February.
"China does not want an inch of any other land, but will brook no invasion of ours," Defense Minister Chi Haitian told a visiting Japanese delegation. China's uncompromising stance on ownership of the Spratlys is causing extreme agitation among the other claimants. They fear Beijing, by refusing to enter into high-level negotiations with all other claimants negotiating as one group, is planning to pick them off one at a time using the divide and conquer tactic.
In an attempt to underscore its claim to the Spratlys, Vietnam awarded the Fairfax, Virginia-based Mobile Corp. drilling rights to the same Spratly oil fields which China awarded the Denver, Colorado-based Crestone Energy Corp. Vietnam recently erected its first lighthouse on the island of Song Tu Tay.
Vietnam, China, and Taiwan keep troops on the islands they occupy and have installed facilities such as air strips and landing docks to underpin their claims.
Last month, after the Philippines released pictures showing a substantial build-up of Chinese vessels and newly constructed Chinese structures on a part of the Spratlys claimed by Manila, Vietnam accused China of "expanding encroachment" and jeopardizing stability and peace in the region. China's Defense Chief denied that China had expansionist ambitions, saying the allegations are being spread in an attempt to poison Beijing's relations with its neighbors.

TAIWAN WANTS PATRIOT MISSLE PROTECTION

Taiwan's Chief of General Staff Liu Ho-Chien said, in a February speech, China is posing a growing threat to Taiwan by talking peace while at the same time building up its forces.
He said China had recently moved two missile contingents and M-class missile bases into China's Fujian Province, making the entire Taiwan area within the target range of Chinese missiles.
Stressing the threat from China, Taiwan's Defense Minister Chiang Chung-ling told parliament Taiwan should buy U.S.-made Patriot missile systems to combat China's M-class missiles.
The most recent flashpoint in the Spratly chain is on the aptly named Mischief Reef, lying 135 nautical miles off the Philippine coast.
The Philippines began beefing up its military presence in the area after discovering the Chinese had built permanent structures and stationed military vessels around the reef.
Philippine President Fidel Ramos sent a strong protest to Beijing. China responded, stating that the structures and vessels were non-military and only in the area to offer support to Chinese fishermen.

CHINA'S MILITARY IS SURROUNDING VIETNAM

China's escalation of its military might in the South China Sea is extensive. Within a hour's flight time from the east coast of Vietnam at Zhanjgiang, China has built facilities for basing aircraft capable of re-fueling, in the air, modern jet bombers extending their range to the Spratlys.
South of Zhangiang, 300 miles east of the shores of Vietnam, the Chinese have constructed a massive airstrip and warship docks on Woody Island, which is part of the Parcel Island chain they seized decades ago from Vietnam.
In the Bay of Bengal, west of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, China has established at least two key military positions, including an electronics monitoring station, and has access to a naval base it built for Burma on Hanggyl Island.
In February, China took delivery of the first of four new patrol submarines recently purchased from the Russians. Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor of James' Defense Weekly, said the Chinese paid $1 billion for the advanced Kilo-class diesel vessels resulting from a deal signed in November.
"This is a major generation jump from China's current fleet, and there are fears that it could use the vessels to push its own interests in the region," Karniol said.
China has about 50 submarines, including 2 strategic missile subs, 5 attack subs, and 39 obsolete Ming and Romeo class patrol subs.
In October, the American aircraft carrier Kittyhawk and a Chinese nuclear submarine squared off in international waters off China's coast in the Yellow Sea. The confrontation was the result of an incident that began after the captain of the Kittyhawk dispatched S-3 anti-submarine warfare aircraft and dropped sonic devices designed to track the nuclear sub. The Chinese military responded by scrambling jet fighters from China's mainland which flew within sight of the American planes. The Chinese withdrew their aircraft and submarine, promising the United States they would "shoot to kill" the next time. Although no shots were fired, U.S. officials acknowledge the confrontation was serious.
In another development which has the potential to further antagonize the Chinese, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott told the press during a January visit to Cambodia, Washington is considering providing lethal military assistance to the current pro-Vietnamese government of Cambodia in its fight against the Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
Chinese officials warned the United States, in February, that it would "increase the danger of nuclear war" if the United States continued with its plans to develop an Advanced Ballistic Missile Defense System over Southeast Asia.
A Khmer Rouge radio broadcast monitored the day after Talbott's announcement accused Washington of providing military assistance to pro-Vietnamese Cambodians and warned that "Americans in Cambodia will be killed if U.S. military aid continues to be supplied to Cambodia."

STAR WARS OVER SOUTHEAST ASIA

In the meantime, while the United States remains busy developing a secret Star Wars-type anti-ballistic missile shield over Southeast Asia, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson reported the Clinton administration is poised to allow the California-based Allied Signal Inc. to sale controversial dual-use technologies to China. Many believe the sale would give China the technological know-how to make engines for long range cruise missiles capable of hitting targets a thousand miles away.
The Star Wars project over Asia is part of an existing defense plan which will spend some $400 million a year to provide limited protection against China for countries such as Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea. Washington, which refuses to name China as the potential threat because of the importance of the Chinese market to U.S. businesses, plans to have the anti-missile nuclear shield in place by the year 2004.
Chinese officials warned the United States in February that it would "increase the danger of nuclear war" if the United States continued with its plans to develop the Advanced Ballistic Missile Defense System.
At a foreign policy meeting in late February sponsored by the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned that China is the real threat for the 21st century. He cited China's rapid military growth and called for a U.S. policy to back Vietnam's communist dictatorship as a counterweight to China.
On March 7, Adm. Richard Macke, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said in Singapore that China's naval build-up is not an immediate threat, pointing out the United States' sizable presence, including aircraft carriers. He said most Asian leaders whom he had met backed Washington's continued presence in the area. In the meantime, the Chinese communists--using the same tactic as the Vietnamese communists in 1973 when they secretly planned to take all of Indochina--are talking peace while preparing to take the Spratlys by military force.
President Clinton is not telling the American people that he has made a conscious decision to prematurely write off the effort to account for America's missing servicemen so that the U.S. can position itself as a "diplomatic shield" to protect communist Vietnam and American oil interests in Southeast Asia. He is certainly not admitting plans to place the U.S. military back in Vietnam. And, in typical forked tongue diplomacy, he is not warning American investors in Vietnam that they are bait in a much anticipated military confrontation with China.

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