Located on the southeastern coast of Vietnam, the 100-square-kilometer (40-square-mile) Cam Ranh Bay is considered the finest location for a deepwater port in the Asia-Pacific region thanks to its long protective peninsula and deep harbors. Situated along the chokepoint between the Pacific and Indian oceans, the port occupies a vital sea-lane of the South China Sea and provides a southeast gateway to the Indochinese Peninsula.
Because of its strategic location, the Cam Ranh Bay port attracted a great deal of attention from world powers in the past century. The port bore witness to the once-intense geopolitical battle in Southeast Asia. France fortified the port in the late 19th century during its colonial rule of Indochina, and the Imperial Russian Navy subsequently used the port as a staging area prior to the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). The Imperial Japanese Navy later occupied Cam Ranh Bay during World War II and used it to stage an offensive into Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, the South Vietnamese administration offered the port to the United States to serve as its major naval and air base and as a key entry point for supplies. The port was turned over to the South Vietnamese in May 1972, only to be captured by the North during its final offensive in April 1975.
Upon Vietnam's reunification, Hanoi used the strategic base to attract the Soviet Union as part of its Cold War policy to counter both the United States and a hostile China. In 1979, only weeks after China’s invasion across Vietnam’s northern border, Vietnam granted the Soviet Union 25-year access to air and naval facilities at Cam Ranh Bay. During that time, Cam Ranh Bay port became Moscow's largest naval base and staging area outside Soviet territory. Russia withdrew from the port in 2002 due to the rising fees demanded by Hanoi and to Moscow's changing strategic focus, which was shifting away from Southeast Asia.
Since the withdrawal of Russian forces, many of the facilities at Cam Ranh Bay have been insufficiently maintained. This is in part because Vietnam’s own limited naval forces made it unnecessary to revitalize the port. Outside interest in the base at Cam Ranh Bay has never ceased, particularly from Washington, which sees the base as a way to secure its presence and logistical chain in Southeast Asia following its withdrawal from Subic and Clark Base in the Philippines. However, Hanoi has refrained from openly discussing the matter; it has made clear that Cam Ranh Bay is a national asset and that the country is not considering providing the bay to any countries after Russia's departure.
Vietnam's cautiousness over the strategic port to some degree reflects its post-Cold War emphasis on maintaining an independent foreign policy and its anxiety about again being trapped by foreign naval powers as it was during the Cold War. Vietnam also understands that any move to use the port for military purposes could lead to unease among its neighbors, particularly China. Consequently, while attempts were made by Vietnam to improve and upgrade the port's infrastructure in the early 2000s, Hanoi is maintaining a strict line: The port is only for domestic use with limited commercial access for foreign vessels.
Change of Plans
With the geopolitical importance of the Asia-Pacific region climbing along with tensions among claimant countries in the South China Sea, Vietnam appears to be trying to show it can be a reliable partner and a facilitator of outside powers' geopolitical interests. As Hanoi seeks to diversify its foreign policy relations, its previous hesitancy to use the Cam Ranh Bay port is no longer compatible with its foreign policy direction, and strategic interests have outpaced the commercial imperatives that once dominated Vietnam's plan for the port.
In a keynote address during the fifth East Asia Summit in 2010, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung declared that the country was planning to reopen Cam Ranh Bay both for commercial and military use, including the docking and repair of foreign naval ships, after a three-year project to upgrade the port's facilities. As part of the plan, Vietnam has hired Russian consultants to direct the construction of new ship-repair facilities, which are reportedly set to open to surface ships and submarines by 2014. While Hanoi later backed off from the statement, the ambitious proposal soon attracted a great deal of attention from foreign naval powers.
By allowing Russia to direct the construction of port facilities, Vietnam seems to have laid out a favorable condition for Russia. Cam Ranh Bay, should Moscow gain a presence there, would be Russia's farthest port from home. While Russia could maintain a small presence so far from its territory, its military struggles at home would not allow it to significantly build a presence in Vietnam. But even a limited presence at Cam Ranh Bay, which would give Moscow a foothold in the Asia-Pacific rim, would be enough to grab the attention of Beijing and Washington.
Meanwhile, amid its refocus on Asia and its plan to redeploy its naval fleet in the Asia-Pacific region, Washington has shown a strong interest in securing a presence in the port. During a visit to Cam Ranh Bay earlier this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in his mission to forge a strategic cooperation with Vietnam, indicated U.S. interest in increasing its port access to Cam Ranh Bay. New Delhi, which is trying to reinvigorate its stalled Look East policy, has also renewed its quest for increased access to the port as part of its effort to forge closer defense relations with Vietnam.
Vietnam's Strategy for the Port
Vietnam has a multifaceted strategy for the Cam Ranh Bay port. By reopening the port to the outside for commercial use, Hanoi is aiming to generate investment in port upgrades and to develop it into a key service port that could facilitate Vietnam's trade and communications with other countries. Moreover, with the port having already played an important role in the Vietnamese navy's deployment in the South China Sea, further upgrades to the Cam Ranh Bay port could enable future Vietnamese naval deployments in the disputed waters.
More important, Vietnam is looking to capitalize on its strategic port in its so-called omni-directional foreign policies. By offering port access to foreign countries or their navies in a more flexible manner, Hanoi is hoping to attract foreign powers in its attempt to tighten defense cooperation and position itself as a key strategic partner, thereby enhancing its role in the region.
Paramount to Vietnam's strategy is to deter increasing aggression from China over the contentious waters of the South China Sea. For China, any naval base at the port, which is located around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from China's Hainan Island and directly faces disputed islands in the South China Sea, could pose a security challenge. Moreover, the port could be used to encircle China and block its access to the Pacific Ocean. In addition, with the enhanced defense cooperation between Vietnam and the navies of countries such as the United States, Russia and India, Beijing is concerned about the prospect of a more concrete security alliance, which would not only complicate Beijing's maritime claims but also its grip on Vietnam.
Keeping Beijing's concerns in mind, Vietnam, which is restrained by its strong political and economic ties with its northern neighbor as well as its own geographic vulnerability, is looking increasingly to diversify its cooperation and to avoid directly confronting Beijing's strategic sphere. In fact, at the moment it is also not in Vietnam's interests to lease out the entire base at the expense of its own sovereignty. This dynamic has been reinforced by Vietnam's defensive posture, which prohibits foreign bases on Vietnamese territory, military alliances and the use of Vietnamese territory by another country to oppose a third country. But considering Washington's careful cultivation of defense ties with Vietnam, the nationalist sentiment still opposed to a U.S. re-entry, and the Russian navy's limited capability for a substantial deployment in the Pacific, any possibility for a permanent foreign base at Cam Ranh Bay is effectively ruled out in the short term. However, leveraging the base now puts Vietnam in a better position to maximize its gains in the contest for influence in the Asia-Pacific and allows Hanoi to avoid being trapped in any bilateral competitions.
