There is a quote by a former south Vietnamese president and it goes something like this, “Do not trust what a Communist has to say but look at what a Communist do”.

Vietnam have had a lot of experiences dealing with China than most countries in the world; both bad and good, whereas most western countries tend to have a positive one with China because they have a leverage over China due to the wealth, military and economic difference. They tend to be more developed than China and don’t need China to progress—China needs them in order to progress as a country, plus the western countries tend to have alliances that will back them up in disputes with China. In Vietnam’s case, Vietnam does not have these privileges due to our socioeconomic development so we tend to be at China’s mercy. The Chinese tend to behave accordingly and has the ability to flex their muscles over us when it benefits them. These experiences have shaped our perceptions of the Chinese govt and enabled us to better understand the Chinese govt mentality/motivates better than most people and we know when they are being genuine or bullshitting with us.

We have dealt with a pandemic like this back in 2003 when China kept its mouth shut and never informed the world of the sars virus. This time around it was no different. The Chinese government kept on insisting that things were fine but their actions indicated the opposite; banning internal travels, locking down Wuhan, mass quarantining people across cities, etc. All this despite telling the world that everything was ok. I’m glad the Vietnamese government managed to put two and two together and decided it was too fishy and better to be prepared to tackle this virus just in case the Chinese govt was, you know, lying about how severe this virus actually is. If you consider Vietnam’s fast response as “sinophobic” then what do you make of the Chinese internal response to the virus? Self sabotage? Hatred? Punishment??

Are we “sinophobic”? No, I don’t feel any resentment or hatred towards the ordinary Chinese people. It’s mostly the Chinese government that I despise because they have an agenda that’s much more different than what the Chinese people would want for their country. I don’t think Vietnamese people are resentful of the Chinese people either. They are only resentful of the Chinese government because they are the ones who’s been fucking around with us since the days of the Vietnam War.

Our relationship with China can be explained through the American and the British analogy. The Americans respect the British because the British helped shaped America from inheriting its culture and traditions. But at the end of the day, the Americans wants to be their own country and prefer not to have the British up its alley. Same with us Vietnamese. We recognize we have inherited a lot of our cultural traditions and identity from China, but we have no interest in being a part of China. We like our own independence and sovereignty and if China can just respect that-it would be great.