Vietnam’s top legislator, Vuong Dinh Hue, has spent this past week in Beijing following an invite from Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress. Hue serves as chairman of Vietnam’s National Assembly, meaning that he occupies a position designated as one of the “four pillars” of the Vietnamese political system—the other three being the General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), the president, and the prime minister. So far, Hue’s visit has not included any groundbreaking announcements in bilateral relations, but the legislator and his Chinese counterparts have articulated a shared commitment to deepening cooperation in trade, infrastructure, and the South China Sea. Hue has met with President Xi Jinping, and the two stressed their nations’ overlapping ideological goals and development interests. Chinese and Vietnamese officials spoke of streamlining customs enforcement, furthering collaboration in infrastructure projects in the Hanoi area, and establishing a hotline to manage issues in the South China Sea. The significance of this story is not to be found in the specifics of any new agreements but rather in what it indicates about Hanoi’s management of relations with the world’s great powers and its refusal to be swallowed in their strategic competition.
One of the most widespread tropes about US-Vietnam relations found in popular history works and the American press is the idea that even though the US abandoned the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) and the latter’s non-communist government was defeated two years later, Washington still won the peace because the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) has embraced market economics and aligned with the US against China. The typical narrative is that following unification in 1975, Vietnam soon found itself at war with China in 1979 — less famously Hanoi and Beijing also fought a series of battles and skirmishes throughout the 1980s — and the rupture in relations between the two former communist allies outlived the fighting.
According to this narrative, the ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea keep tensions alive and have bubbled up periodically, notably in 2014 when Vietnamese protestors took to the streets in response to a Chinese oil rig’s deployment to disputed waters. Therefore, Hanoi has sought to build relations with Washington and the latter’s regional allies to form a balancing coalition against Beijing. The SRV’s recently signed comprehensive strategic partnerships with the US last September, Japan last November, and Australia this past March have been framed as a major step in this direction.
This tale ignores the post-Cold War thaw in relations between the two Asian communist states. The SRV undertook a series of policy changes towards the end of the Cold War: economic renovation or doi moi in 1986, withdrawal from the Cambodia quagmire in 1989, and normalization with Beijing in 1991. The Vietnamese constitution was even modified to remove language antagonizing the giant next door in 1988. In 2008 China became Vietnam’s first comprehensive strategic partner, placing its level of relations with Hanoi just below Cuba and Laos’s great friendship and special solidarity status.
Despite warming relations with America and its allies, Vietnam is equally, if not more, committed to maintaining close relations with China. In December of last year, President Xi made his first trip to Vietnam since 2017 and signed 36 agreements (a record between the two in the twenty-first century), including on maritime cooperation and infrastructure development. China’s historical support for Hanoi against the French Union and later the US and RVN and its professed commitment to building socialism remain tools of soft power. For instance, the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City portrays the People’s Republic of China as a friend of Vietnam, and, according to scholar Tuong Vu, VCP General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong remains a believer in Marxism-Leninism in some capacity despite the last several decades of reform.
The historical tension with China has, until recently, been ignored and arguably suppressed for the sake of bilateral relations. While the first two Indochina wars are designated the “Anti-French Resistance War” and the “Resistance War against the USA for National Salvation” respectively, the 1979 campaign is given the less antagonistic title “War to Defend the Border.” Official commemorations have traditionally been limited and have usually excluded references to China in favor of speaking of an ambiguous “enemy.”
Vietnam has also worked to maintain healthy relations with another American adversary: Russia. In the month following Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi, Vo Van Thuong, the SRV president at the time, invited Vladimir Putin to the country. Although President Thuong recently resigned following a tenure that lasted fewer than 12 months, General Secretary Trong again extended an invitation in March, which Putin has accepted. Russia became Vietnam’s second comprehensive strategic partner in 2012, and the two continue to cooperate in the realms of defense and trade. This past March, Hanoi hosted its thirteenth Strategic Dialogue on Diplomacy, Defense, and Security with Moscow and has avoided explicit condemnation of Moscow’s current war with Kyiv. Russia has been the largest supplier of arms and military equipment to Vietnam by a huge margin since 1990, and the two countries engage economically through joint ventures such as Vietsovpetro, an oil entreprise in Vung Tau.
It may strike some as surprising that Vietnam— a middle power that appeals to international law to bolster its claims in territorial disputes against a larger neighbor— would take an equivocal stance towards Moscow’s “Special Military Operation,” but it reflects Hanoi’s “Four No’s” policy. Vietnam officially adheres to principles of non-alliance, not siding with one country against a third, not hosting foreign military bases, and not threatening or using force in diplomacy. Such a policy enables Hanoi to avoid antagonizing or provoking any great power, which in turn allows it to foster relations with as wide an array of countries as possible. Thus, while it is unlikely that Hanoi will ever side actively with Beijing and Moscow against Washington, it is also improbable that it will join a balancing coalition against either of them.
The odds become even less likely when Washington’s and Hanoi’s ideological intransigence is considered. Biden has implemented a foreign policy oriented towards the protection and promotion of liberal democracy. Administration officials have spoken of a Manichean global conflict between democracies and autocracies and the urgency of defending democracy against tyrants abroad and demagogues at home. Joe Biden himself has stood by his condemnation of Xi as a communist dictator (to the visible consternation of Antony Blinken) and announced further sanctions against Russia in response to the death of the dissident Alexei Navalny in prison.
Regardless of whether this is the correct line to take towards Beijing and Moscow, it necessarily limits Hanoi’s warmth towards Washington. The SRV remains a one-party state with an official adherence to the principles of Marxism-Leninism. While Hanoi and Washington ostensibly share an interest in an international order in which countries play by the same set of rules, the former shares with Moscow and Beijing an interest in non-interference in internal politics. The VCP, therefore, continues to warn of “peaceful evolution” or regime change backed by Washington and occasionally leans into Cold War-era anti-American rhetoric to discredit dissidents overseas. Overseas Vietnamese political organizations opposed to the VCP, such as the US-based group Viet Tan, are branded as terrorists and reactionaries. According to analyst Nguyen Phuong Linh, the Politburo’s balance has recently tilted towards former military officers and former internal security officials, which suggests a shift away from performance-based legitimacy in favor of nationalism and political security. This may in turn slow the expansion of cooperation between Hanoi and the West.
None of this is to say that the US and SRV will not continue to enhance their relationship as time passes. Vietnam will likely only grow in the coming years as an industrial hub for American manufacturers looking to de-risk from China, and the sale of UAVs and coast guard vessels to Hanoi has become a point of collaboration with Washington since the lifting of an arms embargo in 2016. Nevertheless, the interpretation of Vietnam’s recent upgrade of relations with America and its allies as a strategic check against growing Chinese assertiveness and Russian aggression is inaccurate and wishful thinking.