Why Vietnam Is Elevating Foreign Affairs to a ‘Core, Frequent’ Mission
The Communist Party’s upcoming 14th National Congress is set to mark an important change in the country’s approach to foreign policy.
Credit:
Photo 291255513 © Duc Huy Nguyen |
Vietnam’s
draft political report for the upcoming 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) signals a major change in how the country will advance its interests both at
home and abroad.
In the report, the CPV
identifies great power rivalry as one of the most pressing issues that Vietnam must overcome to realize its
target of 10 percent GDP growth in 2026. Hence, it has elevated foreign affairs to the status of a
“core, frequent” mission (“trọng yếu, thường xuyên”) of the party-state, putting it on par with national defense and internal security.
The CPV’s draft political report tasks its foreign service with two key tasks: addressing threats early and from afar; and elevating Vietnam’s international profile and strengthening its strategic autonomy through active engagement with international bodies and partners.
In the past, Vietnam’s diplomacy was more reactive, taking cues from the international environment and then adjusting its domestic policies. Now, the country
wants to play a more active role by having diplomacy shape the international environment in ways conducive to its domestic interests. This change
reflects the ambitions of Vietnam’s new “era of national rise.”
Underneath the language change lies a new strategic thinking. Vietnam is updating its playbook on how to deal with international polarization. This is not the first time that Vietnam has had to cope with international polarization. Throughout the three Indochina Wars, the country had to navigate the U.S.-Soviet and Sino-Soviet rivalries to realize its three goals of independence, unification, and border security. Its means at the time was different.
Hanoi primarily relied on the use of force to defeat France and the United States and their respective Vietnamese collaborators between 1946 and 1975. During the Third Indochina War, Hanoi again used its military to overthrow Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and fight a border war with China, and Vietnamese troops were present throughout all of Indochina.
Diplomacy was relegated to the back seat, as Hanoi adopted the “talking while fighting” strategy. How much Hanoi could negotiate depended on how much territory it held or the military advantage it enjoyed on the ground.
Although the reliance on the use or threat of use of force was effective, it was costly. At the end of almost five decades of warfare in 1991, Vietnam was one of the
poorest countries in the world.
A command economy and a rigid bureaucratic structure were useful for mobilization during wartime, but they soon became a
burden on growth in peacetime. Hanoi well understood the cost of the use of force. As such, it adopted the “Three Nos” non-aligned foreign policy (no military alliances, no siding with one country against another, no foreign military bases, no using Vietnamese territory to oppose other countries) in the early 1990s to complement its domestic reform and to
reassure China of Hanoi’s peaceful intentions.
Hanoi reinforced its commitment to renounce the use of force in 2019 with the addition of a fourth “no”: no using force or threatening to use force in international relations. It is no coincidence that Vietnam’s economy took off as the country demobilized its military and restricted the use of force abroad, most importantly in Laos and Cambodia.
Hanoi’s adoption of the “Three Nos” took place within a non-competitive international environment. The United States was enjoying its unipolar moment, Russia was dealing with internal turmoil, and China was still hiding its capability and biding its time. Laos and Cambodia
werefirmly under Hanoi’s tutelage.
This environment has changed in the past three decades, as the United States is no longer enjoying relative strength vis-à-vis China and Russia, while China has signaled its ambition to assume a bigger role in regional affairs.
Vietnam’s
western flank is being threatened by China’s growing influence in Laos and Cambodia. However, Hanoi understands that it cannot return to the use of force to navigate international polarization as it did throughout the Cold War.
At the same time, being dragged into a great-power conflict is anathema to Vietnam’s strategic autonomy. The country’s
demographic decline, coupled with the painful lessons of war, has necessitated a cost-effective and non-kinetic way to thrive in an unkind environment.
Diplomacy is the most viable substitute for the use of force. This explains why Vietnam is set to elevate foreign service to a “core, frequent” mission level on par with the military and public security. Instead of sending the military abroad as it did in the three Indochina Wars, foreign affairs will now
constitute the first line of defense
beyondthe country’s physical border. Hanoi
visualizesdiplomacy as a comprehensive ecosystem consisting of Party diplomacy, state diplomacy, and people-to-people diplomacy.
Each of the three branches will target a different audience depending on their respective political systems, and on whether they are a state or non-state actor, but together they will communicate Vietnam’s Four Nos to the international community to avoid unnecessary arms races or
complicate territorial disputes.
A case in point is Vietnam’s
military modernization program. Hanoi does not want its neighbors to
misperceive the program as an aggressive move, and by emphasizing its peaceful intentions, Hanoi can carry on with the
modernization necessary to protect its territorial integrity in case diplomacy fails. Shunning the use of force will also
lessen the need for an ally, as it was during the Cold War, and thereby it could augment Vietnam’s strategic autonomy.
And as offense is often the best defense, Hanoi will also go on a charm offensive by emphasizing its “soft power” to win more support for its domestic political programs in international bodies. Hanoi will look to
leverage Vietnam’s culture, language, and national narrative to
win the global competition for cultural influence, and by extension, gain support for its own stance on international issues.
