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Uneasy embrace: Vietnam’s responses to the

U.S. Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy amid
U.S.–China rivalry

Nguyen Cong Tung

To cite this article: Nguyen Cong Tung (2022) Uneasy embrace: Vietnam’s responses to the U.S.
Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy amid U.S.–China rivalry, The Pacific Review, 35:5, 884-914,
DOI: 10.1080/09512748.2021.1894223

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THE PACIFIC REVIEW
2022, VOL. 35, NO. 5, 884–914
https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2021.1894223

Uneasy embrace: Vietnam’s responses to the U.S.

Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy amid
U.S.–China rivalry
Nguyen Cong Tung
Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan

ABSTRACT
Like many other small and middle powers, Vietnam is facing a strategic
dilemma in the face of the U.S.-China rivalry. With the introduction of a vision
for Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), the US seeks to strengthen ties with its
allies and partners in the region to preserve rules-based international order
and to counter China’s rise. Being positioned as the U.S. burgeoning like-
minded partner in the regional security architecture, how Vietnam responds
to the FOIP strategy, hence, merits consideration. This article argues that
Vietnam has responded positively toward the FOIP strategy due to the high
compatibility between some key tenets of this strategy and its national inter-
ests. However, rather than joining and supporting FOIP in a full-fledged way,
Vietnam has chosen to work selectively in some issues with the US. More spe-
cifically, while Vietnam proactively embraces the economic dimension in
FOIP, it still remains cautious about the security domain. The rationale behind
Vietnam’s hesitation to lend full support to this strategy is partially driven by
China factor. In this article, China is addressed as a “brake,” which can exert
influence on the speed and scope of cooperation that Vietnam is willing to
move forward with the US under FOIP strategy.

KEYWORDS Brake; China factor; Indo-Pacific strategy; U.S.-China rivalry; Vietnam

Introduction
In August 2016, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first outlined Japan’s
vision for Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) at the Tokyo International
Conference on African Development. Later, in November 2017, the United
States (U.S.) President Donald Trump took the FOIP concept and referred to
it in his remarks at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in
Da Nang, Vietnam. Since then, the concept has gradually gained currency

CONTACT Nguyen Cong Tung [email protected] Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies,
National Chengchi University, 8th floor, General Building of Colleges (North), No. 64, Sec. 2, Zhinan
Rd., Wenshan District, 11605 Taipei, Taiwan.
ß 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 885

in the U.S. strategic discourse, and became the Trump administration’s key
Asia policy. The emergence of the term “Indo-Pacific” represents a crucial
shift in the U.S. strategic thinking, i.e., from the previous Asia-Pacific narra-
tive to the current Indo-Pacific one, in which a rising power – India is
included. The rationale behind this transformation is driven by both geo-
economic and geopolitical considerations. But, the importance of the latter
seems to outweigh the former given the current U.S.-China geostrategic
competition and the widespread fears from China’s rise. As Scott (2018)
noted, a key feature of the U.S. FOIP strategy is to take advantage of India,
a rising power to constrain another rising power – China.
It is worth noting that, many principles enshrined in the FOIP strategy,
such as: free, fair, and reciprocal trade, open investment, good governance,
and freedom of navigation and overflight, etc. are closely associated with
the established liberal and rules-based international order that has long
existed since the end of the World War II. At the same time, some principles
seem to target China, for example: U.S. call for open investment reminds
one of China-funded infrastructure projects under its Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), while freedom of navigation and overflight is indicative of
China’s growing assertiveness in the East China Sea (ECS) and South China
Sea (SCS).
In comparison with the Obama administration’s rebalancing strategy, the
anti-China rhetoric in FOIP is much more pronounced. Relevant reports on
FOIP strategy released by different U.S. departments have repeatedly
warned regional nations about China’s ambition of replacing the current
liberal and rules-based international order with its repressive one ( U.S.
DoD, 2019; U.S. DoS, 2019 ); at the same time, called on closer cooperation
and engagement between the US, its allies and partners to preserve this
order, and to secure their collective interests. The revival of the
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) between the US, Japan, India, and
Australia in 2017, acts as a strategic maneuver for Washington to imple-
ment FOIP strategy. In addition, the US is also seeking to develop relations
with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), among which
Vietnam is regarded as America’s important like-minded partner. For
Vietnam, the launch of FOIP strategy has brought about remarkable
changes to its foreign policy environment and regional security architec-
ture. That said, due to more pronounced anti-China rhetoric of FOIP strat-
egy, Vietnam is facing a strategic dilemma regarding how to respond
reasonably to both the U.S. FOIP strategy and China’s rise.
In this context, this paper aims to examine how Vietnam has responded
to the U.S. FOIP strategy, and how China factor has affected and shaped
Vietnam’s responses and actions. This study argues that given almost all
components of the FOIP strategy are compatible with the country’s national
886 N. C. TUNG

interests, particularly the rules-based international order embedded in FOIP,

Vietnam has shown a rather favourable attitude toward this strategy.
Evidence can be found from Vietnam’s little reluctance to adopt the term
“Indo-Pacific” in its diplomatic discourses or official reports. Plus, in meet-
ings with the U.S. diplomats, Vietnamese officials asserted that Vietnam and
other ASEAN countries would continue supporting and coordinating with
the US in maintaining peace, security, stability, cooperation, and rules-
based order in the region and the world (Tran, 2020). However, Vietnam’s
participation in the FOIP has so far primarily focused on economic dimen-
sion. For the security dimension, Hanoi avoids siding entirely with the US.
Rather, it only seeks cooperation in some selective issues which fit well
with its national interests, for example: enhancing maritime capacity in the
SCS. The rationale behind Vietnam’s seemingly ambivalent attitude towards
this strategy can be partially attributed to China factor. Specifically, Beijing
acts as both a “push” and a “pull,” influencing Hanoi’s willingness to move
forward with Washington under the FOIP framework.
The rest of this paper is structured in three parts. First, I summarise some
current debates on the foreign policies and strategies adopted by small
and middle powers when they are caught between great powers. In the
second section, I first briefly introduce the concept and components of the
FOIP strategy, as well as the role that Vietnam plays in it. From this founda-
tion, I collect Vietnam’s official statements, Vietnamese experts’ perspec-
tives on FOIP to analyse and clearly define Vietnam’s stance towards this
strategy. Lastly, this paper attempts to provide some possible explanations
for Vietnam’s ambivalent responses to the FOIP strategy.

Foreign policies of middle powers amid U.S.-China rivalry

China’s rise and growing U.S-China rivalry
The geostrategic competition between the US and China has become con-
spicuous these years in almost every realm, including: politics, economy,
security, etc. Although it is unlikely that an all-out war will break out
between the US and China, many still concerned about some possible small
conflicts or proxy wars outside the territories of these two giants in the
future. Goldstein (2013) argued that U.S.-China rivalry can easily escalate
into open military conflict when both tend to resort to using force to pro-
tect their vital interests. The possibility of conflict is especially higher as the
red lines of vital interests between the US and China are vague, which are
not so clearly defined as those in the former U.S.-Soviet relations (Goldstein,
2013, pp. 58–59).
The extant literature suggests several causes behind the current U.S.-
China rivalry. The first cause is associated with change in the balance of
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 887

power between the US and China. Even though there are still huge discrep-
ancies amongst scholars in terms of America’s declinism and whether or
not China will surpass the US in the near future, it is undeniable that the
relative capability between the US and China is being narrowed (Liff &
Ikenberry, 2014). In a “power spectrum” sketched by Brooks and Wohlforth,
China is categorised as an “emerging potential superpower,” which is solely
placed under the superpower (the US), but is ranked above any other great
powers. China has possessed enough economic capacity to be able to bid
for the superpower status but still has not had sufficient technological cap-
acity to do so (Brooks & Wohlforth, 2016, p. 43). The power transition theory
even believes that as China’s national power enables it to overtake the US,
the risk of a major war will likely to happen (Rauch, 2017).
The dramatic increase in material capabilities has allowed Beijing to
strengthen its military. According to a report released by Rand Corporation
in 2020, China can leverage its economic power to weaken U.S. military
influence (Rand, 2020). Admittedly, China’s military capacities make the US
find it much harder to deploy all military options as it used to do in the
1990s. That means the US must factor in possible counter-reactions of
China. Besides, America’s ability to pursue its own interests in the world
affairs is being incredibly constrained by Chinese rising power. Simply
speaking, the US now has to compete with China in SCS, Africa, Latin
America, etc. where the interests of two countries converge (Shifrinson &
Beckley, 2013).
In addition, China also attempts to use its economic power to exert influ-
ence over other countries and pursue coercive foreign policy. Over the last
20 years, China has become the first or second largest trade partner of
almost all Asian countries. Heavy trade dependence on China causes
regional states to have little choice but to accommodate with some of
China’s political and economic interests, such as: Taiwan and Tibet issues,
China’s status as a market economy (Kastner, 2016). With the introduction
of BRI, China has more frequently manipulated both incentive and coercive
economic tools to alter other states’ behaviours, such as controlling exports
and imports, discouraging Chinese tourists to particular countries, disfa-
vouring foreign companies in its soil (Jung, Lee, & Lee, 2021, p. 3).
The second cause behind the U.S.-China strategic competition is origi-
nated from an ideological clash between two different world visions, and/
or between democracy and authoritarianism. Since Xi Jiping took office in
2013, Chinese foreign policy has shifted from Deng Xiaoping’s “hide and
bide the time” (taoguang yanghui) strategy to “striving for achievement”
(fenfa youwei) approach, with a focus on fostering greater regional integra-
tion and dependence on China, and turning China’s neighboring areas into
a “community of common destiny” (mingyun gongtongti). Within this new
888 N. C. TUNG

framework, China has come up with several initiatives and deployed its eco-
nomic statecraft to obtain a variety of strategic goals. On international
stages, China seeks to boost its confident agenda by highlighting the alter-
nativeness of “China Model,” which might indirectly challenge “Washington
Consensus” (Stromseth, 2019). As such, in its official reports, Washington
has attempted to draw a clear distinction between “free” and “repressive”
visions of world order in the Indo-Pacific region ( The Trump White House,
2017; U.S. DoD, 2018 ).
Given the change in balance of power as well as deepening ideological
differences, the US has hardened its stance toward China in recent years.
During the Trump administration, taking a stronger stance towards China
has gradually gained bipartisan support (Shambaugh, 2018). The 2017
National Security Strategy (NSS) and the 2018 National Defense Strategy
(NDS) both regarded China as the U.S. strategic competitor, who seeks to
replace the US in the Indo-Pacific region ( The Trump White House, 2017, p.
25; U.S. DoD, 2018, pp. 1–2 ). The report United States Strategic Approach to
the People’s Republic of China released by the White House in May 2020,
even indicated the failure of the “old paradigm of blind engagement with
China,” and appealed to the US to adopt a competitive strategy (The Trump
White House, 2020). Shortly afterwards, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo declared in a speech on July 23, 2020 that 50 years of engagement
with China had failed; thus, he called for an end to this “blind engagement.”
(Pompeo, 2020b).
To this end, the US has adopted a variety of measures targeting China.
In late 2017, the Trump administration introduced a vision for Free and
Open Indo-Pacific, which replaced the previous Asia-Pacific strategy and
became a key term for official U.S. discourse. In the wake of 2018, President
Trump launched a trade war towards China by imposing higher tariffs on
imported Chinese goods in an attempt to force China to remedy its unfair
trade practices, including: forced technology transfer, limited market access,
intellectual property theft, and subsidies to state-owned enterprises.
Against this backdrop, the current U.S.-China relations seem to have passed
the point of no return.

The erosion of hedging ability of middle powers

The US-China rivalry has produced mixed impacts on the US and China in
particular and other in-between countries in general. Washington assumes
that China’s rise could be threatening to its hub-and-spoke maritime system
while Beijing regards the strengthening of security ties between
Washington and its allies is designed to contain China. As a result, the con-
frontation between these two giants has gradually created a geopolitical
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 889

fault line cut across East Asian region (Wu, 2017, pp. 202–204). On this fault
line, both the US and China are finding ways to either pressure or induce
the regional states to their side or to participate in their initiatives. With the
advent of FOIP strategy, Washington attempts to form a US-led balancing
coalition in the region to counter Beijing’s rise. The idea of an “Asian
NATO,” which includes four Quad countries and several of China’s neigh-
bours, is growing in popularity (Quinn, 2020).
Insights from the conventional international theory suggest that under
the asymmetric structure, the strategies toward major powers that are most
frequently adopted by small and middle powers are either balancing or
bandwagoning (Kang, 2009). As the capability of a lesser state gets stron-
ger, it will be more likely to adopt balancing strategy, and vice versa.
However, along with the rise of China, a majority of regional states have
not adopted either “pure balancing” or “pure bandwagoning” as balance-
of-power logic predicted. Instead, small states, particularly the Southeast
Asian countries, have actually adopted a strategy in between balancing and
bandwagoning, called “hedging” (Kuik, 2008).
The term hedging is defined as under the situation of high uncertainties
and high stakes, a small state adopts multiple policy options and maintains
cooperative relationship with different major powers to reduce risks in the
international system (Kuik, 2008). Lim and Cooper (2015) indicated that
hedging is an ambiguity-generating strategy, which small states signal the
extent of their shared security with great powers. In sum, small states
attempt to develop good relations with all major powers, but they just can-
not go too close or too distant with any of them (Kuik, 2008, p. 164). For
Vietnam, the country does this via its multidirectional and multilateralisa-
tion foreign policy (Thayer, 2017).
Generally, the hedging concept has been used to explain small and mid-
dle powers’ foreign policies toward China since the end of the Cold War.
However, the explanatory power of this concept itself is now being chal-
lenged, both in theory and in practice. Theoretically, the hedging literature
has primarily focused on a dyad of nations, but little has been done in the
case when small and middle powers are caught between two great powers,
or in trilateral relations (Wu, 2017, p. 199). Practically, given the strained
relations between Washington and Beijing, the policy options of small
states have been significantly constrained. As a result, whether the hedging
strategy can sustain or how it will evolve is worth investigating. In Kuik’s
argument, states are able to hedge when there exist some conditions,
including: (1) the absence of an immediate threat; (2) the absence of any
ideological fault-lines that divide states into opposing camps; and (3) the
absence of an all-out great powers rivalry that force states to take sides
(Kuik, 2008, p. 165). However, the third condition seems to have no longer
890 N. C. TUNG

been kept intact in the context of escalating competition and rivalry

between Washington and Beijing for influence in the region.
In particular, while the US views the Southeast Asian region as a critical
springboard to counter China’s rise, China considers this area as a testing
ground or a pilot area for it to practice as a major power in the world
(Stromseth, 2019). Because of overlapping objectives, both tend to compete
intensely for influence there. In the view of regional countries, both the US
and China are equally important and influential to them. While the former
has more diplomatic and military influence, the latter possesses more eco-
nomic influence in the region (Rand, 2020). Accordingly, small and middle
powers attempt to have constructive relations with both of them, and still
prefer to respond in an equivocal manner toward the initiatives proposed
by both the US and China to simultaneously reap benefits from these two
major powers.
Nevertheless, neither Washington nor Beijing is doing this without the
expectation of receiving something in return. They are thus leveraging their
own security and economic influence to force in-between states to pick
side. In some multilateral meetings, both the U.S. and Chinese delegations
even sought to convince other nations to side with their country
(Stromseth, 2019, pp. 2–3). Another example is, in the 5 G race with China,
the US has pressured other countries to ban Chinese technology giant
Huawei from their 5 G telecoms network (Helm, 2020). More importantly,
the recent hardening rhetoric of the U.S. official thinking toward China trig-
gers great pressure on the U.S. allies and partners to distance themselves
from China. Against this backdrop, regional states today are facing unprece-
dented side-taking pressure. In other words, the ability to hedge of these
states has been eroded greatly.

From ambivalent to proactive: Vietnam’s responses to

FOIP strategy
Indo-Pacific strategy and Vietnam’s role
Since 2017, the Indo-Pacific concept has gradually been elaborated and
complemented by different U.S. officials and relevant departments. In the
2017 NSS Report, the Indo-Pacific was defined to stretch “from the west
coast of India to the western shores of the US” (The Trump White House,
2017, pp. 45–46). In April 2018, Alex Wong, Deputy Assistant Secretary in
the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau at the U.S. State Department in a
speech first upgraded Indo-Pacific vision to Indo-Pacific strategy. In Wong’s
explanation, the most important components of FOIP strategy are essen-
tially “free” and “open.” The key attributes of the qualifier “free” consist of
free from coercion and good governance (fundamental rights, transparency,
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 891

and anti-corruption), while the term “open” entails open sea lines of com-
munication and airways, open logistics (infrastructure), open investment,
and open trade (Wong, 2018).
The U.S. Department of Defense and Department of State’s reports on
FOIP were consecutively released on June and November 2019, which pro-
vided more details on the framework, dimensions, implementation and pro-
gress of the strategy. The Department of Defense’s Indo-Pacific Strategy
Report, released in June 2019 at the time of the Shangri-La Dialogue in
Singapore, listed four common principles that all countries in the region
should uphold, including: respect for sovereignty and independence of all
nations; peaceful resolution of disputes; free, fair, and reciprocal trade
based on open investment, transparent agreements, and connectivity, and
adherence to international rules and norms, including those of freedom of
navigation and overflight (U.S. DoS, 2019, p. 6).
Many specific policies and measures have been taken to advance FOIP
strategy. For security dimension, first of all, the US, together with Japan,
India, and Australia restarted an informal strategic dialogue – the Quad in
November 2017. In a recent meeting in October 2020 in Japan, these four
countries even discussed the possibility of institutionalising the Quad
(Times of India, 2020). Notably, Quad plays an important role in FOIP since
the US attaches much importance to the security cooperation between the
US and its allies in preserving the rules-based order. With this regard, Quad
and FOIP have often been linked together (Tan, 2020, p. 133). Second, on
31 May 2018, the U.S. Department of Defense decided to rename the U.S.
Pacific Command (PACOM) to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (IPCOM) to attach
greater importance to India in particular and Indian Ocean in general.
Under the framework of FOIP, the IPCOM’s U.S. Pacific Fleet has increased
the Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), which are carried out
within 12-miles of China’s artificial islands in the SCS. According to the offi-
cial data released by the U.S. Pacific Fleet, compared to no operations in
2014, the US carried out two FONOPs in 2015, three in 2016, six in 2017,
five in 2018, and nine in 2019 (Power, 2020). In the same vein, the biparti-
san Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), which was inked on 31 December
2018, also reiterated that the US and allies should cooperate to confront
common challenges (U.S. Congress ARIA, 2018, Sec. 102, p. 4). Section 213
recommended further joint maritime and Freedom of Navigation exercises
in the ECS and SCS (U.S. Congress ARIA, 2018, Sec. 213, p. 16).
Initially, FOIP was designed first and foremost as a security initiative, so
there was an obvious shortage of economic content in the early stage.
However, the US has mapped out some soft plans and policies to comple-
ment the hard-power security domain. Among those, a focus on infrastruc-
ture development assistance has drawn the attention of regional states that
892 N. C. TUNG

have huge infrastructure needs. At the first Indo-Pacific Business Forum

held in Washington in July 2018, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
declared that the US would spend US$113.5 for new economic initiatives
that support digital economy, energy security, and sustainable infrastruc-
ture development (Pompeo, 2018). Notably, the Better Utilization of
Investments Leading to Development Act (BUILD Act), which was signed
into law in October 2018, paved the way for establishing a new infrastruc-
ture financing company called the U.S. International Development Finance
Corporation (USDFC). The newly-formed USDFC was consolidated by the
Development Credit Authority (DCA) of the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
(OPIC) (USAID., 2018). More importantly, its development finance capacity
was raised up to US$60 billion, more than doubling OPIC’s current $29 bil-
lion funding capacity (Runde & Bandura, 2018). Additionally, at the second
Indo-Pacific Business Forum held in Thailand in November 2019, the US
launched a proposal called Blue Dot Network, with the view of promoting
and certifying quality infrastructure investment projects in the Indo-Pacific
region. To this end, the USDFC signed a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) with the development finance agencies of Japan and Australia,
including Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and Department
of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), respectively to ensure that the certified
projects abide by the quality infrastructure principles as set out in the G20
Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment (U.S. DoS, 2020).
In recent strategic reports, Vietnam is positioned as a burgeoning like-
minded partner that the US is prioritising to strengthen relationship with in
the Indo-Pacific region ( U.S. DoD, 2019; U.S. DoS, 2019 ). The 2017 NSS
report mentioned that the US would strengthen partnerships with
Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and helped these countries to
become cooperative maritime partners (The Trump White House, 2017, p.
47). The 2018 NDS also reiterated the U.S. military cooperation with regional
countries, including Vietnam (U.S. DoD, 2018). During the early formation of
FOIP, Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ visit to Vietnam in January 2018
was even depicted as an Indo-Pacific visit; and it was also during this visit
that Vietnam was referred to as a U.S. like-minded partner (Ferdinando,
2018). The importance of Vietnam in the FOIP strategy has grown as shown
in the Indo-Pacific reports released by the U.S. Department of Defense and
Department of State in June and November 2019. The Indo-Pacific Strategy
Report, released in June 2019, stated that the US is prioritising strengthen-
ing relations with Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. For Vietnam, the Report
read, the Department of Defense is building a strategic partnership with
Vietnam on the basis of common interests and principles, which include
freedom of navigation, respect for a rules-based order in accordance with
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 893

international law, and recognition of national sovereignty (U.S. DoD, 2019,

pp. 36–37).
Vietnam’s growing role in FOIP strategy can be attributed to the coun-
try’s strong stance towards China, its intrinsically enduring endorsement for
the US-led international order, and its close relations with the Quad mem-
bers. First of all, due to the legacy of war with China as well as maritime
conflicts in the SCS, Vietnam has never stopped suspecting China’s inten-
tions and ambitions. As Kurlantzick (2018) noted, among all Southeast
Asian countries, Vietnam has the least illusions about the rise of China. The
country is also the most willing to adopt a hardening China policy to pre-
vent Chinese dominance in the SCS and in the region. Second, along with
the rise of China, there is growing convergence of interests between
Vietnam and the US to maintain an open, rules-based international order.
China’s coercive assertion and ignorance of the international law in the SCS
have driven Vietnam to have every reason to be more supportive of the US
and its allies in maintaining the regional balance-of-power status quo (Le,
2020, p. 20). Moreover, given Vietnam’s close security ties with all four
Quad members, it has already been regarded as a discreet partner of the
Quad (Kurlantzick, 2018, p. 8). All of these factors make Vietnam stand out
as an increasingly important partner for the US in the region.
Both the US and Vietnam can benefit from cooperation under the FOIP
framework. The US supposes that Vietnam’s support for FOIP could
strengthen the legitimacy of FOIP in the region; and in the event of a
regional conflict, Vietnam can provide its Southeast Asia’s largest military
power and well-trained troops, and provide access to its strategic deep-
water port – Cam Ranh Bay to the US (Jordan, Stern, & Lohman, 2012, p. 1;
Kurlantzick, 2018, pp. 6–7). In the same vein, Vietnam can also benefit
greatly from an upgraded relationship with the US, in which the country
can leverage this to bargain with China in the SCS by linking some con-
cepts in FOIP with its efforts to multilateralise the SCS dispute issues
(Kurlantzick, 2018, p. 6).
In fact, since the second term of Obama administration, the U.S.-Vietnam
relations have gained critical momentum, particularly in the military cooper-
ation. Specifically speaking, the US carrier strike group USS Carl Vinson and
USS Theodore Roosevelt made two port visits to Da Nang, Vietnam in
March 2018 and March 2020, respectively. The US is also assisting Vietnam
to improve its defense capabilities by providing Vietnam military equip-
ment, training and technical assistance (U.S. DoD, 2019, pp. 36–37). During
the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam donated millions of face masks and med-
ical equipment to the US, and facilitated the shipment of DuPont protective
suits to the US (Reuters, 2020). U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel
Kritenbrink even hailed Vietnam as “a friend in need is a friend indeed” and
894 N. C. TUNG

“trusted partner” of the US (Tuan Duyen, 2020). The next section will discuss
Vietnam’s responses to FOIP strategy in practice.

Vietnam’s responses: cautious in security dimension while proactive

in economic domain
Vietnam was among the earliest Southeast Asian countries to publicly
“welcome” the vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. However, there
seems to be a dividing line between Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MOFA) and defense officials regarding how Vietnam should respond to
FOIP. While Vietnam MOFA has shown little reluctance in adopting the
word “Indo-Pacific” in its official diplomatic discourses or reports, defense
officials prefer a “wait and see” approach.
Immediately after choosing Vietnam to announce the vision for FOIP in
an APEC meeting in November 2017, the U.S. President Trump made a state
visit to Vietnam at the invitation of the late President of Vietnam Tran Dai
Quang. In the joint statement released after the meeting, the word “Indo-
Pacific region” was mentioned two times. It stated that the US and Vietnam
welcomed initiatives that aim to preserve peace and stability and to
advance cooperation and development in the Indo-Pacific region (Vietnam
Embassy, 2017). During the visit to India in March 2018, Tran Dai Quang
reiterated the importance of preserving a peaceful and prosperous Indo-
Pacific region. Quang also discussed the need to uphold international law,
freedom of navigation and overflight, sustainable development, free, fair
and open trade and investment system with the Indian counterpart
(VGN., 2018).
Vietnam MOFA seems to hold a rather favourable view toward the con-
tents of FOIP strategy. When being asked about Vietnam’s stance towards
FOIP in August 2018, Vietnam MOFA’s spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang
hinted Vietnam’s support for FOIP by saying that “Vietnam welcomes initia-
tives and efforts to connect the region, which contribute to this goal (con-
necting the region).” But Hang added that participating in this initiative
(FOIP) must ensure Vietnam’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integ-
rity and national interests (Bao Quoc te, 2018). Contrary to MOFA,
Vietnamese defense officials adopted a more cautious approach as
Vietnam’s Minister of Defense, General Ngo Xuan Lich did not mention a
word about FOIP during the 17th Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore in June
2018 despite the overwhelming discussions of FOIP during the conference
(Le, 2018, p. 5). Overall, Vietnamese defense leaders’ rather muted response
to FOIP during the early stage can be understandable since little was
known about how the US would operationalise this strategy at that time.
Given the uncertainty in the U.S. commitment, like most countries in the
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 895

region, the strategy Vietnam adopted back then was to “wait and see”
(Jung et al., 2021; Tan, 2020).
However, as the framework of FOIP gets more concrete, Vietnam has
sent clearer and more positive signals to the US, especially after the U.S.
Department of Defense released the Indo-Pacific Strategy Report in June
2019. In August 2019, Vietnam ambassador to India, Pham Sanh Chau told
to Indian officials in a banquet that Vietnam “supports” the free and open
Indo-Pacific strategy. He urged Vietnam and India should preserve the
rules-based order, including freedom of navigation and overflight as regu-
lated in the 1982 UNCLOS (Pham, 2019). More notably, the Vietnam Defense
White Paper released in November 2019 read that, “as long as it is in line
with Vietnam’s capabilities and interests, Vietnam is willing to participate in
security and defense cooperation mechanisms … including security and
defense mechanisms in the Indo-Pacific region.” (Vietnam MoND, 2019, p.
28). That the Indo-Pacific was written in such an official defense document
illustrates that Vietnam has been more open in lending support to
this strategy.
As mentioned above, FOIP strategy first evolved as a security initiative,
afterwards the economic dimension was added up to soften down the
security component, making the FOIP gradually become a “dual-purpose”
strategy. Given this, Vietnam’s responses and involvement into FOIP can be
divided into how the country has reacted to these two dimensions.
On security dimension, some tenets of FOIP such as respect for sover-
eignty and independence; freedom of navigation and overflight; free from
coercion, etc. are highly compatible with Vietnam’s security policy and
interests. Thus, it is expected that Vietnam would wholly embrace FOIP’s
security domain (Kurlantzick, 2018, pp. 4–6). However, in reality, Vietnam
still keeps rather low-key attitude to the security cooperation under the
framework of FOIP. Vietnam has been consistent with “Three Noes” defense
policy, i.e., “no alliances with foreign powers, no foreign military bases on
Vietnamese soil, no allying with one country to counter another” during the
past few years. In the 2019 Defense White Book, another principle, i.e., “not
using force or threatening to use force in international relations” was added
to form the “Four Noes” policy (Vietnam MoND, 2019). There is little doubt
that this defense policy has, to some extent, hindered Vietnam from speed-
ing up security ties with the US. Vietnam thus tends to adopt a “pick and
choose” strategy, i.e., primarily strengthening maritime cooperation with
the US to balance against China’s pressure in the SCS.
Given the lingering territorial disputes in the SCS and the country’s
asymmetric power in comparison with China, Vietnam has focused on
strengthening its maritime capacity during the last few years. Thus,
Vietnam is highly receptive of the U.S. military assistance, which can
896 N. C. TUNG

enhance its maritime power. Since the second term of President Obama
until the launch and implementation of FOIP strategy, the US has provided
Vietnam with Scan Eagle Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, T-6 trainer aircraft, a
former U.S. Coast Guard high-endurance cutter, and small patrol boats and
their associated training and maintenance facilities (U.S. DoD, 2019, pp.
36–37). It is not hard to see that most of these defense facilities and equip-
ment are related to the enhancement of maritime capacity of Vietnam.
Many Vietnamese strategists and policy makers believe that only the US
has both the necessary power and political will to contain China’s strategic
ambitions, especially in the SCS (Le, 2020, p. 8). Thus, by echoing freedom
of navigation, freedom of overflight, and the rule of law on the sea,
Vietnam is assumed to take advantage of the FOIP to counter Chinese
threats in the SCS (Jung et al., 2021, p. 8).
In the name of FOIP, the US has increased its freedom of navigation
operations (FONOPs) missions within 12-miles of China’s artificial islands in
the SCS. The FONOPs are considered to be able to strengthen Vietnam’s
and other claimants’ sovereignty claims in the contested waters, and to pre-
vent China from seizing Vietnam’s occupied features in the SCS (Choong,
2019, p. 421). Accordingly, though Vietnamese authorities have not made
official statement on the U.S. FONOPs, it tends to endorse these operations.
The state media and newspapers are currently allowed to report extensively
on the U.S. ships’ activities in the SCS.
On 13 July 2020, the White House released a report regarding the U.S.
position on maritime claims in the SCS, which indicated Beijing’s claims to
most of the SCS are completely unlawful, and Washington would stand
with Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting their sovereign rights
to offshore resources within their exclusive economic zones (Pompeo,
2020a). According to a Hanoi-based strategist, this represents a crucial shift
in the U.S. policy toward SCS, and a victory for Vietnam.1 In response to the
U.S. statement the following day, Vietnam MOFA noted that, “Vietnam wel-
comes countries’ positions on the East Sea (Vietnam’s term for the SCS)
issues which are consistent with the international law and shares the view,
as stated in the statement issued on the occasion of the 36th ASEAN
Summit that the 1982 UNCLOS acts as the legal framework to regulate all
activities in the seas and oceans.” (Vietnam MOFA, 2020b). Despite not dir-
ectly mentioning the US by name, Hanoi’s response is obviously to endorse
the U.S. position. Next, according to a report by Vietnamese media,
Vietnam’s ambassador to the US, Ha Kim Ngoc in a meeting with U.S.
House of Representative, Joaquin Castro in Washington on 19 July 2020
even “highly appreciated” the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and
House Foreign Affairs Committee for having issued a statement affirming
the White House’s above statement that China’s claims in the SCS are
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 897

unlawful (Phuong Vu, 2020). This denotes a clear manifestation that

Vietnam is highly supportive of the US’s decision to clarify its position on
the SCS.
As China took provocative actions in the SCS such as conducting military
drills, continuing militarisation of man-made islands, ramming Vietnam’s
fishing boats, etc., Vietnam became more proactive in lending support to
the US. In the ASEAN-U.S. meeting at the sideline of the 53rd ASEAN
Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM-53) and Related Meetings in September
10, 2020, Vietnam Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh even highly
appraised the “constructive and responsive contributions” that the US has
made to ASEAN’s efforts to maintaining the peace, stability and develop-
ments in the SCS (Bloomberg, 2020).
However, contrary to the open and high-profile appraisal of the U.S.
involvement in the SCS under FOIP, Vietnam tends to downplay the import-
ance and salience of other defense and security cooperation under FOIP. In
other words, Vietnam tends to operate cautiously in other security cooper-
ation domains with the US. Evidence can be found from Vietnam’s reluc-
tance to procure weapons from the US after the long-standing embargo on
lethal weapon sales to Vietnam was fully lifted in May 2016. Not until
August 2018 did Vietnam first sign a $US94.7 million military contract with
the US (Vietnam MOFA, 2018). The reason behind Vietnam’s reluctance
could be because of compatibility and interoperability problem between
the U.S. weapons and Vietnamese existing weapon system, of which many
items were purchased from Russia (Grossman, 2018, p 129).
Furthermore, Vietnam is still reluctant to conduct formal joint exercises
with the US despite having actively engaged in the US-proposed Naval
Engagement Activity (NEA) since 2010. To date, the U.S.-Vietnam NEA has
not exceeded the scope of non-combatant exercises and low-level
exchanges (U.S. Pacific Fleet, 2017). In mid-October 2018, Vietnam even uni-
laterally cancelled 15 defense engagement activities with the US which had
been scheduled for 2019 involving army, navy and air force exchanges (Le,
2020, p. 15). After the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group made a historic
visit to Da Nang, Vietnam in 2018, the US expected to make a second simi-
lar port call to Vietnam in the following year (Reuters, 2019). Yet, Vietnam
rejected this requirement; and it was not until March 2020 that the second
port call was realised. Another example is, in May 2020, Vietnam was
invited to the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), but ultimately did not attend in
August 2020 (Olson, 2020).
This paper argues that China was an important reason behind Vietnam’s
above-mentioned decisions. While Vietnam recognises significant benefits
from strengthening security ties with the US, it does not want China to per-
ceive that Hanoi is picking side in the U.S.-China competition. Thus,
898 N. C. TUNG

Vietnam tends to slow down the pace of cooperation with the US when it
assumes some Vietnam-U.S. defense engagement activities might offend or
provoke China. To ease the concerns of China, Hanoi often dispatches
envoys to Beijing before some major Vietnam-U.S. defense activities take
place. A well-informed Vietnamese diplomat revealed that several months
prior to the USS Carl Vinson’s visit, Vietnamese diplomats had been sent to
Beijing to work with their Chinese counterparts. During the port visit, some
Vietnamese high-level officials even turned down the invitation to embark
on the U.S. ship for fear of “being hated” by China.2
Some attribute Vietnam’s decisions to other factors, such as U.S. sanc-
tions on countries buying arms from Russia and Covid-19 pandemic.
Although these factors might seem important too, they are not that con-
vincing. First, Vietnam’s cancellation of defense engagement activities with
the US might not be driven by the factor “U.S. sanctions on countries buy-
ing arms from Russia.” The reason is, before Vietnam made this decision in
mid-October 2018, it had been exempt from Countering America’s
Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) in July 2018. That means
Vietnam could continue buying Russian military equipment without any
U.S. sanctions (Defense World, 2018). Second, Covid-19 dynamic is not a
totally persuasive reason behind Vietnam’s no-show at RIMPAC 2020. If it
had been for the pandemic, then Vietnam should have also denied joining
the Army Games 2020 Military Sports and Army Technical Forum Army held
from August 23 to September 5, 2020 in Russia. Rather, Vietnam still dis-
patched a delegation to participate in 11 competitions of these military
events, which China also joined (Lao Dong, 2020). All of the above exam-
ples illustrate that Vietnam is still adopting a rather cautious approach to
the security dimension in the FOIP strategy; instead the country has chosen
to work selectively with the US in the SCS issue based on its immediate
national interests.
Compared with the security dimension, Vietnam has somehow shown
more willingness to work with the US on the economic domain. The US has
been Vietnam’s top trading partner since the two countries normalised dip-
lomatic relations in 1995. The bilateral trade dramatically increased from
US$450 million in 1995 to US$90.79 billion in 2020 (Vietnam Customs,
2021). However, the growth in bilateral trade also gives rise to many prob-
lems, including: the lingering trade imbalance and the U.S. accusation of
Vietnam’s manipulating currency to facilitate its exports to the US. These
two issues became more prominent during the Trump administration since
President Trump sought to repair the unfair trade practices with
other countries.
The US’s trade deficit with Vietnam was US$63.37 billion in 2020, and
the US has repeatedly warned Vietnam to take measures to cut the
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 899

imbalance. In an interview with Fox News Channel in 2019, President Trump

even said that Vietnam was “almost the single worst abuser of everybody.”
(Boudreau & Mai, 2019). Given the sizeable trade surplus with the US,
Vietnam was labelled as a currency manipulator by the U.S. Treasury on
December 16, 2020. Apart from refuting this claim, Vietnam has shown
goodwill and pledged to take initiatives to coordinate with the US. Through
phone talks with the U.S. counterparts, Vietnamese leaders promised to
reduce the trade surplus by importing more goods from the US. At the
same time, Vietnam has also been insistent that its currency policy is merely
for the sake of inflation control and macro economy stabilisation, not to
create competitive advantage in international trade (Phuong Anh, 2021).
In addition to showing cooperative attitude to some problems in the
bilateral trade, Vietnam has expressed hope to attract more investment and
development finance from the US for its increasing infrastructure demands.
By attracting investment from the U.S. investors, Vietnam expects to further
join the US-led supply chain. In the Vietnam-U.S. Trade Forum held on
November 18, 2020, the message was delivered to the US by Vietnam
Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai. Hai stated that, with
regard to strengths in technology, finance, and managerial experience,
American investors are always welcome in Vietnam, particularly in some
high value-added fields, helping to elevate Vietnam’s position in the global
supply chain (Tu Uyen, 2020).
In reality, many China-based companies in the US-led supply chain have
started moving parts of their manufacturing to Vietnam. Thus, Vietnam is
emerging as a cost-competitive alternative to enterprises which plan to
implement China plus one strategy, especially Japanese, Korean and
Taiwanese companies. Broadly speaking, Vietnam is now playing an increas-
ingly important role in the U.S. decoupling strategy from China in the long
run. At a news conference in Washington in April 2020, the U.S. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo said that the US was discussing restructuring global
supply chains with Indo-Pacific friends, including India, Australia, Japan,
Vietnam, South Korea and New Zealand (Louis, 2020). The importance of
Vietnam in the restructuring supply chains in FOIP strategy seems to be
critically high as the country was addressed as the U.S. Indo-Pacific friend.
In responding to the invitation, Vietnam MOFA revealed in a press confer-
ence that Vietnam already worked with the US, Japan, India, Australia,
South Korea and New Zealand to discuss the reopening and economic
recovery in the post-pandemic period (Vietnam MOFA, 2020a).
Providing development finance for infrastructure projects in the Indo-
Pacific region is among the main contents of economic dimension in the
FOIP strategy. In a meeting with Vietnam’s ambassador to the US, Ha Kim
Ngoc in Washington in June 2020, Chief Executive Officer of the U.S.
900 N. C. TUNG

International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC), Adam Boehler

said that the US identified Vietnam as one of U.S. priority partners in the
regional projects, including the production of strategic products in the U.S.
supply chain (Viet Anh, 2020). For Vietnam, it has been well aware of this
and has proactively expressed expectation to receive the U.S. financing for
its projects. In a meeting with Adam Boehler in Hanoi in October 2020, the
Head of the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Economic Commission
Nguyen Van Binh directly conveyed Vietnam’s message to the U.S. repre-
sentative by saying Vietnam wants to become the US’s credible and trusted
partner, expecting USDFC and U.S. Eximbank to play a more active role in
boosting trade and investment activities between the two countries
(TTXVN, 2020).
At the sidelines of the 2020 Indo-Pacific Business Forum (IPBF) in Hanoi
at the end of October 2020, Vietnam and the US inked on seven investment
and cooperation agreements worth billions of U.S. dollars in terms of
energy, power transmission, processing and agriculture, etc. Most notably,
energy cooperation projects account for the majority given Vietnam’s high
demand for energy for its development while the US is seeking to increase
its investment in energy sector in Asia. Among those, three U.S. enterprises:
Bechtel Corporation, General Electric and McDermott signed an agreement
to provide equipment and services worth more than US$3 billion for a
liquefied natural gas (LNG)-to-power project in Vietnam’s southern Bac Lieu
province. This is the first foreign private sector-owned-and-led energy pro-
ject, which was ratified in Vietnam’s national power development master
plan (Duong Ngoc, 2020). It is therefore regarded as a flagship model in
Vietnam-U.S. economic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

Discussion
The above analysis suggests that Vietnam’s overall responses and attitude
toward FOIP strategy are positive as almost all tenets of this strategy are
highly compatible with the country’s national interests. However, Vietnam’s
support for FOIP is still kept at a rather selective manner. Differences can
be found in the ways Vietnam responded to and participated in the security
and economic dimension of this strategy.
With regards to security, Vietnam has been proactively pushing cooper-
ation with the US in terms of maritime capacity enhancement, which is
ultimately beneficial to defend its sovereignty and constrain China’s influ-
ence in the SCS. But as to other security or defense domains, Vietnam still
prefers a step-by-step approach, and somewhat deliberately keeps the
security relationship with the US at a low profile. Economically, Vietnam
acts as a burgeoning role in the U.S. efforts to restructure global supply
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 901

chains and decouple from China. As a result, Vietnam attempts to take

advantage of the current investment transfer trends to promote its national
economic development, to realise the industrial upgrading, and ultimately
to engage more deeply into the US-led supply chains. Given this, Vietnam
has shown little reluctance to embrace the economic elements of FOIP
strategy as the above empirical examples illustrate.
The rationale behind Vietnam’s seemingly dual response pattern can be
attributed to factors from Vietnam, the US, and China. From the Vietnamese
perspective, as stated above, Vietnam’s consistent “Three Noes” defense pol-
icy, or the upgraded “Four Noes” policy has apparently set clear constraints
on its cooperation with the US under the FOIP. For example, with the limi-
tations in the second “No” (no foreign military bases on Vietnamese soil),
Vietnam has not opened the possibility for the U.S. carrier strike group to
make annual port visit to the strategic Cam Ranh Bay despite considerable
improvement in Vietnam-U.S. relations. In other words, Vietnam tends to
keep the partnership with the US at a low-key manner for fear of being
labelled as seeking an alignment with the US.
Vietnam expects to send a message that cooperating with the US is just a
way to demonstrate its autonomy to make friends in international relations,
which is a part of its multidirectional and multilateralisation foreign policy
(Thayer, 2017). Bilaterally, Vietnam has signed a variety of comprehensive part-
nerships, strategic partnerships, and comprehensive strategic partnerships with
other countries. By doing this, Vietnam not only seeks to boost trade and
investment with some particular countries, but also gains added layers of
security benefits. For example, Vietnam has sought to bolster security cooper-
ation with Japan, India, and Australia in recent years. Specifically, Vietnam hosts
an annual defense dialogue with India and Australia. On a three-day visit to
Vietnam in October 2020, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga also
declared to bolster defense and security ties with Vietnam by signing an agree-
ment for Japan to transfer military equipment and technology to Vietnam (Vu
Han, 2020). Multilaterally, Vietnam is playing a growing role in many regional
and international platforms. It was elected as a non-permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council for the second time for 2020–2021; served as
the ASEAN Chair for the third time in 2020. Also, Vietnam is a key player in
numerous Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). To date, it has inked 15 different
bilateral and multilateral FTAs, including two mega agreements:
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
(CPTPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) (Vietnam
WTO, 2021). These are fundamental mechanisms by which Vietnam pursue its
multi-pronged approach to diplomacy.
Furthermore, from its experiences of dealings with the Soviet Union and
China in the past, Vietnam has also been wary of being sold out by larger
902 N. C. TUNG

powers. What concerns Vietnam now is moving closer to the US is likely to

get trapped into the chessboard of big-power politics. Many Vietnamese
leaders keep the belief that, for the American, interests in the U.S.-China
relations are much greater than those in the U.S.-Vietnam relations; conse-
quently, once Washington realises rapprochement with Beijing, Hanoi’s
interests will be sacrificed;3 and it is unlikely that Washington will assist
Vietnam in case of an armed conflict with China over SCS (Le, 2020, p. 15).
As a result, Hanoi’s strategic thinkers have not really reached a consensus
on how Vietnam should participate in the FOIP. As a result, Vietnamese offi-
cials have somehow sent mixed signals towards the US, such as Vietnamese
ambassadors to the US and India directly voiced support for the strategy
while domestically Vietnamese official statements on FOIP tend to withhold
any mention of the US by name.
Vietnam’s cautious and selective strategy toward FOIP is also attributed
to the U.S. factor. The political systems of the two countries are so different
that it causes a faction of Vietnamese leaders to believe that the US has ill
intentions and plans to spur the process of peaceful evolution in Vietnam,
and to ultimately subvert the Communist Party of Vietnam (Nguyen
Phuong, 2018, p. 63). That the US often criticises Vietnam on human rights
record, freedom of religion, etc. has deepened Vietnamese leaders’ suspi-
cion of the U.S. intentions (Le, 2020, pp. 12–13). Moreover, the US often
links trade with human rights in its dealings with Vietnam also triggers
great suspicion from Vietnam (Nguyen Phuong, 2018, p. 63). That said,
Vietnamese leaders are afraid that the US can leverage its strengthening
ties with Vietnam in security and economic to pressure Vietnam to make
some changes to its system.
Moreover, President Trump’s America First Policy, which led to U.S. with-
drawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in early 2017, did cause an
erosion of trust between Vietnam and the US. Initially, decision to join TPP
was controversial among reformist and conservative elements of the
Vietnamese government, especially regarding the regulation to legalise
independent labour unions (Nguyen Phuong, 2018, p. 64). Ultimately,
Vietnamese leaders were determined to join this pact. However, Trump’s
decision to withdraw the US from TPP bitterly disappointed Hanoi and
deepened its suspicion of the U.S. motives. As the former Vietnam’s ambas-
sador to the US, Pham Quang Vinh said in an interview on 23 May 2020
that, Trump preferred bilateralism to multilateralism, and what still made
Vietnam feel regretful was the US’s withdrawal from TPP in the end
(Pham, 2020).
Along with the improvement in the bilateral relations these years, the
Trump administration indeed deliberately downplayed the human rights
issue in its relations with Vietnam, and ensured that the US respects
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 903

Vietnam’s political system (Le, 2018, p. 4); yet, members of the U.S.
Congress still put pressure on the U.S. government to sanction Vietnam for
its poor human rights record. Moreover, one of the components of the
FOIP strategy, good governance, especially the respect for fundamental
rights, might be cautiously interpreted by Vietnam. Furthermore, official
concerns about Vietnam’s human rights record were also mentioned in the
ARIA of 2018. To be specific, Section 401 raises concerns over the rule of
law and civil liberties in some “not free” countries, including Vietnam (U.S.
Congress ARIA, 2018, p. 22). ARIA serves as an important legal framework
within the FOIP, but that it straightforwardly listed Vietnam as “not free”
might inevitably cause some unease among Vietnamese leaders. In other
words, good governance or respect for human rights in the FOIP is still a
hindrance for Vietnam to wholly embrace this strategy.
The above mentioned factors all contribute to Vietnam’s hesitation in
lending full support to FOIP. Besides, this paper asserts that China factor
also plays a significant role in shaping and constraining Vietnam’s choices,
and how far Vietnam might move forward with FOIP. Simply put, as a well-
informed Vietnamese diplomat’s observation, China factor acts as a “brake”
in Vietnam’s foreign policy making.4 While the country’s foreign policy is
totally made in Hanoi, Vietnam has to frequently consider Beijing’s possible
reactions. The same logic can be adaptable to Vietnam’s policy and engage-
ment with the U.S. FOIP strategy.
China’s acting as a brake here can be understood in two ways. First and
foremost, both Vietnam and China are socialist states. Even though their
relations are complicated and entangled, China still matters more to
Vietnam than any other countries. A faction of Vietnamese Communist
Party cadres still attaches much importance to Marxism-Leninism ideology
in developing relationship with countries. Given its ideological proximity
with that of China, Vietnam tends to prioritise long-term relations with
China. Interestingly enough, every time Vietnamese leaders are going to
visit a major power, they will pay a visit to China first to show deference to
its northern neighbour (Huang, 2017).
Vietnam and China have traditionally established the so-called inter-
party channel besides state-to-state level, in which high-ranking officials
from Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) can exchange ideas and dialogues regularly. This particular channel
particularly works when there is a conflict between Vietnam and China.
Hanoi often promptly dispatches envoys to Beijing to negotiate and cool
down the disputes. Beijing, at the same time, is also believed to exert pres-
sure on Vietnam via this channel. For example, in a conference in 2019,
Major General Le Van Cuong, former Director of the Institute of Strategic
Studies, Vietnam Ministry of Public Security disclosed that after the
904 N. C. TUNG

Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the SCS Arbitration released a judg-

ment in favour of claims by the Philippines in 2016, China sent some offi-
cials to Vietnam to request Vietnam to implement the so-called “five noes,”
including: no voicing support for tribunal judgment, no bringing the issue
to ASEAN, no mentioning the issue in multilateral settings, not allowed to
raise this matter in China-Vietnam negotiations, and not allowed to sue
China (Nguyen Duc, 2019).
Logically, China also resorts to this inter-party channel to affect
Vietnam’s policy toward the US in general and FOIP strategy in particular.
For example, during the 25th anniversary of Vietnam-US diplomatic rela-
tions, Hu Xijin, a well-known editor of the China’s Global Times, posted a
short commentary entitled, “Telling some big truths to Vietnamese” on his
Weibo account. In this article, Hu directly warned Vietnam not to get fooled
by the U.S. goodwill since the US is merely utilising Vietnam to wedge into
Sino-Vietnam relations. Hu ended by saying both China and Vietnam are
socialist countries, and it is hard for Vietnam’s political system to survive
without China’s political stability (Hu, 2020). Despite not being officially
mentioned by Chinese leaders, what Hu mentioned is intrinsically a reflec-
tion of Chinese thinking in dealings with Vietnam. China often gives warn-
ings toward Vietnam in its relationship with the US through different
official and unofficial ways. Plus, given the conspicuous anti-China rhetoric
embedded in FOIP strategy, Vietnam has to consider cautiously when it
decides to push forward any activities with the US to avoid being mis-
takenly interpreted as aligning with the US against China.
Drawing from the above discussion, the first functions that the Chinese
brake plays are to pull Vietnam out of leaning too closer to the US, and to
keep it under China’s orbit. Essentially, the first connotation of the brake is
closely associated with Vietnam-China ideological affinity. However, the
brake also has a second function, i.e., pushing Vietnam toward the US. Like
almost all sovereign states, national interests are put on the top priority in
Vietnam’s relations with other countries. As CPV is the only legal party in
Vietnam, national interests are often intertwined with the party’s interests.
Protecting national interests can guarantee the legitimacy and survival of
CPV. The national interests here can be simply classified into security and
economic interests. Considerations for these two dimensions of interests
can therefore affect Vietnam’s perceptions and preferences in relations with
China and the US, as well as the FOIP strategy.
In terms of security, while Vietnam regards its territory in the SCS as
national interests, there exist overlapping claims between Vietnam, China
and other countries. Among those, China is perceived by Vietnamese strate-
gists as the most assertive claimant, which can pose great threats to
Vietnam’s claimed features. Touching SCS disputes with China, Vietnamese
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 905

leaders, including General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong,

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, etc. have recently declared that preserv-
ing the national interests is always the top priority of Party and State
(Quang Phong, 2019). This signals that when there is a conflict between
ideology and national interests, the latter prevails.
Against this backdrop, Vietnam has taken both internal balancing and
external balancing measures to protect its national interests in the face of
China’s pressure and threats. In many Vietnamese strategic thinkers, the US
is the only country to have the power and willing to contain China’s stra-
tegic ambitions (Le, 2020, p. 8). The former Vietnam’s ambassador to the
US, Le Van Bang contended that only the US could effectively help Vietnam
protect sovereignty while China always seizes the opportunity to encroach
upon Vietnam’s territorial integrity (Le, 2016). Given this, Vietnam has
sought to relax its self-restrained defense policy by signalling the livelihood
of cooperating with other countries in the event of conflict in SCS.
Specifically, besides “Four Noes” principle, “One Depend” was inserted into
the 2019 Defense White Paper. It reads “depending on circumstances and
specific conditions, Vietnam will consider developing necessary, appropriate
defense and military relations with other countries on the basis of respect-
ing each other’s independence, sovereignty territorial unity and integrity as
well as fundamental principles of international law, cooperation for mutual
benefits and common interests of the region and international community”
(Vietnam MoND, 2019, p. 25). This clearly offers Vietnam a great deal of
flexibility in its defense policy that was not there before. In other words,
with this newly-added principle, Vietnam can bolster security ties with any
country if its sovereignty and independence are threatened.
For the above reasons, this article argues that when China takes some
over-expected actions detrimental to Vietnam’s national interests in the
SCS, Vietnam tends to show high willingness of cooperation and move
closer to the US under FOIP. But as Vietnam realises that its interests are
still guaranteed, or the strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing
gets more intensified, Hanoi tends to tone down the intimate relationship
with Washington to avoid offending Beijing and being labelled as an anti-
China state.
With regards to economic dimension, the China factor also produces
some particular effects on Vietnam’s decision to engage with the FOIP strat-
egy. China has continuously been Vietnam’s largest trading partner for 16
consecutive years from 2004 to 2020, accounting for 20  25% of Vietnam’s
foreign trade. Data from the Vietnam Customs Statistics shows that in 2020,
Vietnam-China’s total trade turnover reached US$133.06 billion, in which
Vietnam exported US$48.87 billion worth of goods to China and imported
US$84.19 billion from China (Vietnam Customs, 2021). In trade relationship
906 N. C. TUNG

with China, Vietnam lies at an unfavourable position as its trade deficit with
China keeps rising year over year. A large number of raw materials, machin-
ery and equipment and its parts needed for labour-intensive manufacturing
in Vietnam are heavily dependent on Chinese market. This phenomenon is
widely perceived as detrimental for Vietnam’s development and national
security in the long run. Accordingly, Vietnamese policy makers have
sought to mitigate this ever-growing reliance by urging Vietnamese enter-
prises to diversify their import sources from other countries to disperse the
risks from excessive reliance on a single market (Vu, 2020).
During the last few years, investment from China to Vietnam has been
dramatically increasing with the implementation of BRI. Plus, in the con-
text of U.S.-China trade war, there has witnessed a surge in the amount
of Chinese investment to Vietnam since the early 2018. Specifically, in
2018, China invested US$2.5 billion to Vietnam, with an increase of 19%
compared to 2017; to 2019, the number dramatically rose to US$4.1 bil-
lion, 64% higher than 2018 (FIA Vietnam, 2020). Nevertheless, Chinese
investment in Vietnam is often negatively viewed by most Vietnamese
people as “low-quality, outdated and environment-polluted technology,
detrimental to Vietnam’s development and national security, etc.” This
poor reputation is largely driven by some notorious China-backed proj-
ects in Vietnam such as Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line in Hanoi (Nguyen
Tuyen, 2018).
In a report submitted to Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in
August 2018, Vietnam Ministry of Planning and Investment specified several
projects using China’s loans, equipment and executed by Chinese contrac-
tors as “slow progress, poor quality and cost overruns” (Nguyen Tuyen,
2018). This was the first time an official government ministry publicly indi-
cated the problems and drawbacks of Chinese investment projects in
Vietnam. Besides, Vietnamese scholars and experts also expressed their con-
cerns regarding the debt trap in China-funded projects in a BRI conference
in Hanoi in 2017 (Phuong Vu, 2017).
Accordingly, Vietnam believes that cementing economic relations with
the US is beneficial for its sustainable economic development, and can act
as a counterweight to China eventually. As such, it is rather reasonable for
Vietnam to embrace the economic elements within the FOIP strategy
through importing more goods from the US, and welcoming the US-backed
projects as stated above. More imports from the US can not only narrow
the trade imbalance between Vietnam and the US, but also diversify trade
partners, hence gradually reduce dependence on China. Vietnam’s pro-
active engagement with the USDFC, a signatory development finance insti-
tution under FOIP strategy also reflects that the country expects to receive
more favourable, high-quality loans from the US for its growing demand for
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 907

infrastructure projects, instead of Chinese loans, which not only are less
favourable but also have too many tied conditions.

Conclusion
The US often portrays the ongoing U.S.-China rivalry as a competition
between free and repressive visions of the future international order. In the
face of such intensifying great-power competition, in-between states are
facing a dilemma as shown in a Vietnamese saying, “when buffalo and ox
fight, it is the fly that suffers.” The US and China either induce or pressure
lesser powers to take a decisive turn towards one side at the expense of
the other, and this has deteriorated the hedging ability of these states.
However, it is widely argued that regional states still attempt to avoid being
entangled in the U.S.-China competition by sticking to their non-alignment
strategy and seeking regional multilateral cooperation.
In this scenario, since the launch of FOIP strategy in 2017, most
Southeast Asian countries have adopted a “wait and see” or “pick and
choose” strategy. Understandably, due to their extensive economic links
with China, most regional states do not want to commit themselves to an
anti-China bloc led by the US. To date, except for Indonesia and Vietnam,
few Southeast Asians have publicly illustrated their views on the FOIP.
Vietnam was amongst the earliest countries in Asia to publicly “welcome”
the U.S. Indo-Pacific concept. Hanoi has even shown little reluctance to use
the term “Indo-Pacific” in its diplomatic discourses and official reports. Plus,
as the content and relevance of the FOIP strategy become clearer, Vietnam
is subsequently more willing to lend support to and get involved into
this strategy.
This article asserts that despite differences in ideology and political sys-
tem, Vietnam is a burgeoning security and economic partner of the US in
the region. Moreover, there is a growing convergence of interests between
the two countries in upholding the rules-based international order amid
China’s rise and its assertiveness in the SCS. Plus, since most elements of
the FOIP strategy are compatible with Vietnam’s national interests, the
country intrinsically endorses this strategy, albeit in a rather low-key man-
ner. However, there are some subtle differences in Vietnam’s responses to
the security and economic dimensions of FOIP. Simply put, Vietnam still
holds a cautious and step-by-step approach toward the security cooper-
ation, while it is rather proactive in economic domain. In other words,
rather than taking side entirely with the US, Vietnam seeks cooperation in
some selective issues which fit well with its national interests.
The reasons behind Vietnam’s cautious and selective attitude can be
attributed to several factors, including constraints in Vietnam’s defense
908 N. C. TUNG

policy, the interplay of ideology and national interests in its foreign policy
making, the U.S. frequent pressure on Vietnam’s human rights issue, and
China factor. In this article, I argue that China factor plays a critical role in
shaping and constraining Vietnam’s responses to the FOIP strategy. The
China factor acts as a “brake,” influencing the speed and scope of cooper-
ation that Vietnam is willing to move forward with the US under FOIP strat-
egy. Since Vietnam and China are socialist states, the CCP matters a lot to
CPV’s interests and political stability. For Vietnam, maintaining good rela-
tions with China is still a priority in its foreign policy. Yet, due to the SCS
disputes and its vulnerabilities in the face of China’s rise, Vietnam has lever-
aged its strengthened partnership with the US to improve its bargaining
position vis-
a-vis China.
Under the Biden Administration, it is still unclear how FOIP will evolve.
Yet, one can be sure that the US will continue strengthening ties with its
allies and partners, in which further consolidating relations with Vietnam
will be prioritised. For Vietnam, it is unlikely that the country will fully side
with the US or lend full support to FOIP, especially after the conservative
faction in the CPV won in the 13th National Congress held in January 2021.
Instead, Hanoi will seek to strike a balance between Washington and
Beijing. To be specific, while Hanoi keeps actively engaging with the US on
economic dimension and voicing support for the US-led rules-based inter-
national order, it will also strengthen party-to-party ties with CPC to find a
mutually-acceptable accommodation in the SCS. As such, Beijing can pos-
sibly continue to influence the pace and scope of further security cooper-
ation between Hanoi and Washington via such inter-party exchanges
with Hanoi.

Notes
1. Corresponding interview with a Hanoi-based Vietnamese diplomat, July 20, 2020.
2. Interview conducted with a former Vietnamese diplomat, Taipei, December 1, 2018.
3. Interview conducted with a former Vietnamese diplomat, Taipei, November 20, 2019.
4. Interview conducted with a former Vietnamese diplomat, Taipei, November 20, 2019.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor
Nguyen Cong Tung is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Institute of East Asian
Studies, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. He is also a Research
Associate at Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic
Research, Taipei, Taiwan.
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 909

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