Vietnam officially approved the U.S. Starlink, or building base stations near the Chinese border, drawing external attention.
On February 14, the Department of Telecommunications of the Vietnam Ministry of Science and Technology issued a statement confirming that it had granted Starlink (Vietnam) Company telecommunications, network infrastructure, radio, and low-Earth-orbit satellite licenses, fully opening up access to Starlink.
According to publicly available information, the company initially plans to build four ground stations in Vietnam and deploy 600,000 terminal devices, with the northern ground station mainly targeting users in the Red River Delta and the Gulf of Tonkin, with Hanoi City, Haiphong City, and Quang Ninh Province as potential areas.
Although Vietnam began allowing pilot projects for low-Earth-orbit satellite telecom services five years ago on March 26, 2025, providing convenience for Starlink to enter the market, there were controversies over internal review issues, which were only resolved by December.
For Vietnam, relaxing regulations to allow Starlink's entry is mainly to cater to the Trump administration of the United States, consolidating the US-Vietnam tariff agreement, and secondly, to seek to enhance communication capabilities in remote areas and islands in the South China Sea that have been occupied.
At the same time, the risks brought by Starlink are also significant, for example, in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Iran's internal affairs, Starlink has become a main tool for the United States to interfere in other countries' internal affairs due to its ability to bypass regulation. Obviously, its access also increases the risk of ideological infiltration by the United States in Vietnam, undermining its governing capacity.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1857160431128712/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author himself.