India and Vietnam

Abstract

In an interview with visiting Indian journalists in September 1990, Foreign Minister Nguyên Co Thach remarked that both India and Vietnam had a common friend in the Soviet Union.¹ India’s relations with Vietnam are important for a complete understanding of both Indo-Soviet and Vietnam-USSR equations. From an Indian perspective, ties with Vietnam have a threefold significance: bilaterally; as a complicating element in Sino-Indian relations; and as a consolidating factor in Indo-Soviet relations. As for the American relationship as a factor in New Delhi’s calculations, Indian policy was never to support Hanoi as a gesture of defiance against the United States. Rather, the policy of more-or-less consistent Indian support for Hanoi incurred the accumulating displeasure of Washington and has acted as a long-term irritant. As we have seen in previous chapters, Indo-Soviet relations have flowered since the mid-1950s. India’s good relations with Vietnam had an adverse secondary impact on relations with China and the USA, and this in turn had a further tertiary effect of reinforcing Indo-Soviet ties from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1980s.