Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 2018. xix, 294 pp. (Tables, graphs.) US$29.90, paper. ISBN 978-981-4818-14-8.
Mainstream perspectives of Vietnam’s foreign policy vis-à-vis China and academic analyses have diverged in recent years. The standard media narrative suggests that Vietnam courts US support to check or hedge against China. One implication of this view is that Vietnamese conflicts with the US and the French were aberrations from the longer-standing historical threat from China, which now drives Vietnam’s foreign policy.
Challenging this perspective, scholars such as Keith Taylor (A History of the Vietnamese, Cambridge University Press, 2013) and David Kang (American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge University Press, 2017) contend that Vietnam has historically been far more concerned with internal divisions than with its northern neighbour. Taylor cites as evidence Vietnam’s relatively pacific relations with China, while Kang suggests that Vietnam does not engage in classic balancing maneuvers such as increasing military spending.
Within this context, Le Hong Hiep and Anton Tsvetov’s edited volume Vietnam’s Foreign Policy Under Doi Moi provides a timely account of Vietnam’s foreign policy since the Doi moi economic reforms of 1986. The book provides a general overview of Vietnam repairing its relations with the West and China followed by a detailed description of important bilateral relationships, including with China and the US. The book concludes with a discussion of specific issues including the South China Sea and economic integration.
In light of the competing narratives regarding Vietnam’s relationship vis-à-vis China, what stands out in this book is how nearly all of the authors consider managing the relationship with China as central to all of Vietnam’s other bilateral and multilateral relationships. While the book certainly includes other interesting details and background information, which I will discuss below, a theme that connects the chapters is how Vietnam hopes to check China without provoking it.
Phuong Nguyen’s nice summary of the US-Vietnam relationship, which focuses on the challenges to diplomatic normalization, mentions how Chinese actions in the South China Sea have led to “a common strategic interest” (62), but that Vietnam is careful not to get too close in order to avoid angering China. Similarly, Thuy T. Do and Julia Luong Dinh’s chapter on Japan argues that “Vietnam also wishes to strengthen its strategic ties with Japan to improve its posture in the South China Sea,” but that it does not want to “firm up its securities [sic] ties … too quickly at the expense of its relationship with China” (112).
The clear subtext is that the need to stand firm against China without triggering retaliation is the most important dynamic underlying Vietnamese foreign policy making. Although the desire to improve diplomatic relations in order to facilitate development is also discussed, the China dynamic clearly takes centre stage. At points, the focus may seem excessive. Indeed, the entire chapter on Vietnam’s relationship with ASEAN argues that Vietnam did not join ASEAN in order to challenge China over the South China Sea, while providing few details on why Vietnam did join the organization. Also missing is an analysis of Vietnam’s relations with its other ASEAN neighbours outside of Cambodia and Laos.
However, although the focus on China may seem excessive at points, the fact that many of the authors are tied to the Vietnamese foreign policy community suggests that the debates reflect similar discussions occurring within the Vietnamese government. It might also provide some context for the competing perspectives on how to view Vietnam’s historical and current relationship with China. On one hand, it provides a counterpoint to the Kang and Taylor perspective, which downplays the animosity and suspicion between the two sides. If the China threat is simply a narrative pushed by the party or the media, and the Vietnamese foreign policy establishment is not genuinely engaged in anti-China balancing, why is it such an important component for how these authors view Vietnam’s bilateral relations?
At the same time, it does provide some support for the Kang and Taylor critiques, given that the chapters portray Vietnam as keen to avoid conflict. Echoing the tributary relationships of the past, the Vietnamese leadership does take Chinese considerations into account with regards to its relationships with Japan, the US, and other partners.
However, this leads to one of the important drawbacks of this book, which is its ambiguity with regards to these important debates on Vietnamese foreign policy. Given that the book does not engage these or other international relations debates, the details can appear dry, inconsequential, and inconclusive. Indeed, the book makes few arguments, leaving it to the reader to imbue the details provided with significance. This carries through even to the details not related to Vietnam’s relationship with China. Indeed, some of the prose describing the improving nature of bilateral ties seems as if it could be plucked from the pages of the Communist Party mouthpiece Nhan Dan (People’s Daily).
With that said, this volume does provide valuable nuggets of information that can be mined to lend support to competing narratives regarding Vietnam’s past, present, and future orientation towards the outside world. The authors’ deep experience and access to Vietnamese sources, particularly diplomatic messages between Hanoi and its foreign policy establishment, provide authoritative and factually rich accounts that must be wrestled with in any future research on Vietnam’s orientation vis-à-vis China and the rest of the world. For that reason, anyone engaging the debate as to Vietnam’s orientation vis-à-vis China or the viability of a Sino-centric East Asia order should read this book.
Paul Schuler
University of Arizona, Tucson, USA