India and Vietnam raised their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2016, and maritime capacity building has been one of its most concrete strands, including Indian credit lines for patrol boats and training for Vietnamese personnel. The coast guard channel matters in particular because much of the friction in the South China Sea is handled not by navies but by coast guards and maritime militia, in a grey zone below the threshold of armed conflict - fisheries enforcement, survey ship escorts, standoffs at contested features. A coast guard that is well trained, well equipped and practised at coordinating with partners is therefore the instrument Vietnam actually uses. For India, the engagement fits the Act East policy and its wider positioning as a security and capacity-building partner across the Indian Ocean and beyond. The 2015 MoU on Coast Guard Cooperation gave the relationship an institutional spine, and the High-Level Meeting is its review mechanism.