US-Vietnam Relations: A Strategic Upgrade and Its Regional Ripple Effects
By Cao Le Quynh Anh
Abstract
The recent upgrade of United States-Vietnam relations to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has raised questions about Vietnam becoming an unspoken ally against China. This improvement of Vietnam-US relations reflects the deepening political trust between the two countries and the mutual benefits they see in each other. Vietnam seeks support from the United States to strengthen its market economy and enhance its security, while the United States aims to promote rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific region. However, this upgrade does not imply any alliance options because the alliance is inherently not feasible in this case. Vietnam remains cautious about China’s reaction and seeks to maintain its independence and self-reliance by not taking sides in the US-China rivalry.
Introduction
Vietnam-United States relations have officially upgraded to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership; this is the highest level of partnership in Vietnam's bilateral ties. This is also the first time in the 20 years of implementing this partnership framework since 2001 that Vietnam skipped the intermediate step of being a strategic partner to upgrade straight to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the United States. President Biden did not attend the ASEAN summit in Jakarta, which took place on September 5. Instead, after the G20 summit, he visited Vietnam to meet CPV’s leader, Nguyen Phu Trong, on September 9 and returned to the US by September 11, America's historic Memorial Day. The recent visit was highly symbolic and significant. Regarding the significant symbolism of this visit, the concern that many observers debate is whether Vietnam will soon become an unspoken “ally” of the United States to act against China after this “handshake”? I think the brief answer is no.
Why Vietnam Says “No” to the Politics of the Alliance
During the Cold War, Vietnam walked a tightrope between two great powers that shared the same ideology but were full of friction: China and the Soviet Union. Vietnam’s choice to ally with the Soviet Union through the mutual defense treaty led to a fierce military response from China. China deployed about 300,000 soldiers across the entire border to attack Vietnam in 1979 (Womack, 2006, p. 200). Even when Vietnam's Gac Ma Reef (Johnson South Reef) was occupied by China in 1988, the Soviet Union chose not to step in to protect Vietnam (H. S. Nguyen, 2023). Vietnam failed and paid a bloody price for its choice of alliance. History claims that choosing an alliance is not possible for a country that is a “tyranny of geography,” like Vietnam (Thayer, 1994, p. 528).
Once bitten by a snake, that person would be afraid of the ropes for ten years. Acknowledging the lesson about alignment, Vietnam continuously introduced the policy of “Three No’s”, then “Four No’s”, which are: no participating in military alliances, no siding with one country to go against another, no foreign military bases permitted in Vietnamese territory or using Vietnam territory to counteract other countries, and no using force or threatening to use force in international relations (H. H. Le, 2018, p. 218; Huynh, 2022). Since Doi Moi—the renovation of Vietnam's strategic thinking—in 1988, Vietnam has persisted with a foreign policy of “diversification and multilateralization” with all countries (H. H. Le, 2013, p. 357, 2018, p. 23). This policy avoids the risk of putting all eggs in one basket, in which Vietnam proactively interlocks the diverse interests of major powers into Vietnam, causing any force that wants to oppress Vietnam to consider violating the interests of other countries (Vuving, 2006, p. 810; Tran V. T., 2015; T. H. Le, 2018, p. 138).
The upgrade of Vietnam-US relations
Vietnam has maintained this hierarchical bilateral partnership for more than 20 years since 2001, when Vietnam established the Strategic Partnership with Russia. As of 2015, Vietnam has established and upgraded partnerships with 25 countries, including 4 comprehensive strategic partners, 15 strategic partners, and 10 comprehensive partners (Tran V. T., 2015). Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is the highest level of cooperation in Vietnam's bilateral ties, not only reflected in the scale of cooperation, which would include more sensitive fields like defense but also showing a profound level of political trust (Vu Le, 2014). The Strategic Partnership comes second in the hierarchy in that both states have in-depth cooperation in certain fields but do not necessarily include defense and security cooperation (T. H. Le, 2018, p. 129). Before President Biden's visit, Vietnam had four comprehensive strategic partners, which are China, Russia, India, and South Korea. Vietnam also established a Strategic Partnership with 4 out of 5 of the five permanent members of the Security Council, except that bilateral ties with the United States remain in the Comprehensive Partnership established in 2013.
The establishment of a comprehensive partnership with the United States also raises controversy when some argue the Vietnam-US relationship is actually much stronger than its title. Some scholars from the Vietnamese side also comment that the US-Vietnam relationship could have been upgraded to a strategic partnership in 2013, but because of human rights barriers, the two governments had agreed to establish ties at a lower level (H. H. Nguyen, 2023). However, President Biden's visit last September showed a historic symbolism in US-Vietnam relations when the two sides bypassed the intermediary level of strategic partnership to upgrade straight to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
This upgrade demonstrates the remarkable development of political trust between two countries that were once war enemies and ideological opponents. Not only that, but the upgrade also shows that each side needs the other in its strategic calculations. Vietnam needs America's support to become robust in the market economy and self-reliant in security. Attracting US investment capital into businesses and science, technology, and innovation industries could help Vietnam make an economic breakthrough and escape the middle-income trap (H. S. Nguyen, 2023). Through upgrading ties, the United States also desires to make the Vietnam-US relationship a model of cooperation between the United States and other Southeast Asian countries, thereby attempting to promote rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific (Kurlantzick, 2018; Stromseth, 2022).
Vietnam walks a tightrope in the US-China strategic rivalry
Such an upgrade in relations affirms the deep and genuine Vietnam-US relationship (Pham & Murray, 2023; Wells-Dang, 2023). However, regarding the intensifying US-China rivalry, Vietnam is again placed on the tightrope between the two superpowers. Some observers believe that the upgrade is a “decisive step for Vietnam into the US orbit” (Palma et al., 2023). However, this upgrade will not include any alliance options. The bloody lessons of the past must still have a deep imprint in the minds of Vietnamese policymakers that Vietnam should stay neutral amid great power strategic rivalry. As for the United States, since the two sides have achieved the current high level of political trust, the United States must clearly know that Vietnam's key points are the four no's, including no alliance and no siding with one country to act against another. The two countries have certainly reached a consensus on cooperation, no matter in what field, without going against the core principles of the Vietnamese side.
Vietnam will probably not have any groundbreaking changes in its stance because it is cautious about China’s reaction (Abuza, 2023; K. G. Nguyen, 2023). Vietnam's economy is heavily dependent on China - China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner, and a significant portion of Vietnam’s imported goods come from China. In 2021, Vietnam imported US$109,851 million in capital goods from China, accounting for 33.21% of Vietnam’s total imports (World Bank, 2021). Although Vietnam has made efforts to reduce its economic dependence on China since the South China Sea dispute in 2014, Vietnam's current position is still vulnerable if supplies from China are disrupted (B. T. Tran, 2021).
Furthermore, Vietnam is entangled in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, so if Vietnam explicitly changes any stance on national defense, China can accuse Vietnam of breaking the principle of four no’s to go with the US opposing China in the South China Sea. Thus, a military backlash may also occur, possibly at sea, like how China retaliated against Vietnam in the border war in 1979. The Ukraine war has shown how meaningless international law is in stopping great powers' will to attack. Vietnam is constrained in an unchangeable asymmetric relationship with China, so the best option is to consistently maintain its firm stance of not taking sides: on the one hand, continuing to keep deference to Beijing, and on the other hand, enmeshing with other major powers, not just the United States, to maintain independence and self-reliance (Vuving, 2006; Womack, 2006, p. 236) A veteran Vietnamese diplomat metaphorically describes Vietnam's strategy to deal with major powers as "the more interdependent ties we can cultivate, the easier we can maintain our independence and self-reliance, like an ivory bamboo that will easily fall by standing alone but grow firmly in clumps" (Vu, 2013).
It is reasonable to say that Vietnam's upgraded ties with the US will allow it to escape from China's orbit, but that does not mean that Vietnam will join the US's side against China or be swept into the US's orbit. Vietnam avoids choosing sides because of its geopolitical factors, and instead, Hanoi keeps identical distances from both superpowers and attempts to take advantage of benefits from both sides. Once Vietnam falls to either side, its geostrategic significance will vanish, and that would provoke hatred from the opposing power (V. T. Nguyen, 2017).
References
Vũ, Khoan. “Việt Trung: Sóng gió chẳng có lợi cho ai!” VietNamNet News, 2013. https://vietnamnet.vn/viet-trung-song-gio-chang-co-loi-cho-ai-154492.html.
Womack, B. (2006). China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry. Cambridge University Press.