Did america getting its ass kicked mean friendship? I hear alot that vietnam likes america more than china which doesnt sit right with me is that actually true, also they like america but hate the french? I heard vietnam be called the mexico of asia. Maybe its my own personal left wing bias but I literally cannot see any reason why vietnam would respect america and hate china.
There’s a lot of misinformation being spread by the USA and their relationship with Vietnam. To make it seem like Vietnam is “allied” with the USA against China. For the longest time Vietnam has been actively pursuing a neutral position in international affairs. They have only a single military alliance, and that’s with Laos (who they have a great relationship with and is the much smaller Nation so more to protect Laos).
They trade with China and the USA. China actually has a higher tier trade relationship with Vietnam than the USA. In general when polled Vietnamese generally hold unfavourable feeling to towards both the Chinese and the USA (because of the wars), but still are very favourable towards the Russian Federation, as a legacy of their close ties to the USSR, but also because Russia is one of their biggest trading partners in terms of weapons and military technology.
“Vietnam is closer to the US than China” is just Western cope like how Putler would run out of missiles. In truth, Vietnam try to be neutral to both countries, which means de facto being closer to China than US because they shares a land border with China while the US is separated from Vietnam by an ocean.
This, the core of Vietnamese foreign policy is “never get drawn into a foreign war again”
I have only seen polls where Vietnamese opinion on the US is comfortably positive ,annoyingly so, while opinions towards China are at the absolute best close to 50-50