nbcnews.com – by ERIC BACULINAO

BEIJING — Vietnam’s prime minister, a former child messenger for the Viet Cong, has spent his 10 years in power standing up to the Chinese and steering his country closer to the U.S.

Tipped as a strong candidate to become the head of Vietnam’s Communist Party at next week’s National Congress, Nguyen Tan Dung has already been dubbed his country’s “Putin.”

“No one in Vietnam has done a Vladimir Putin, who has served as prime minister and then president,” said Professor Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnam affairs at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy.

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Simon Long
Mon Nov 02 2015

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ASIA
East Asia is the scene for an unprecedented experiment in international relations. Never before have so many countries been so intertwined economically with one big power (China) while looking to another (America) as the ultimate guarantor of their security. So far the experiment has seemed a stunning success. For 40 years, America has not just kept the peace; it has enabled a continental economic boom. And the biggest beneficiary of that has been China. Yet that order is now fraying, as China chafes under what it sees as an American-led world order that is impeding its rise and its natural regional predominance. In 2016 the tensions that this fraying produces may become acute, posing awkward questions for other countries in Asia.

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CLSA
Xi Jinping’s ambitious strategic initiative – an adaptation of the historical Silk Road – could sow the seeds for a new geopolitical era