The Evolution of Vietnamese Foreign Policy in the Doi Moi Era

The Evolution of Vietnamese Foreign Policy in the Doi Moi Era Alexander L. Vuving (February 2021) To be published as Chapter 17 in Borje Ljunggren and Dwight H. Perkins, eds., Vietnam: Navigating a Rapidly Changing Economy, Society, and Political Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022) 1 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. A Neo-Stalinist State in Reform, 1986 – 1989 3. A Two-Headed Grand Strategy, 1990-2003 4. A Rent-Seeking State in Disguise, 2003-2014 5. A Rent-Seeking State on Correction Course, 2014-Present 6. In Lieu of a Conclusion: Challenges Ahead and Potentials for Change Tables 1. Major Turning Points in Vietnamese Foreign Policy, 1980-2020 2. Timeline of Vietnam’s Strategic and Comprehensive Partnerships and Hierarchy of Bilateral Relationships in Vietnam’s International Cooperation 3. The Next Turning Point in Vietnamese Foreign Policy 2 Abstract Tracing the evolution of Vietnamese foreign policy since the 1980s, this chapter identifies four major turning points in its trajectory. Each turning point was triggered by an event or series of events that profoundly altered the international environment of Vietnam’s quest for identity, resources, and security. These events exerted enormous impact not only on the conditions under which the country operates but also on Vietnamese views of the world and the key actors in their international environment. When Vietnam’s ruling elites responded to these changes, they set in motion corresponding changes in Vietnamese domestic and foreign policy. The foreign policy periods bracketed by the turning points thus roughly corresponded with phases in the evolution of the Vietnamese state. This paper will tease out the complex relationships between the international environment, the nature of the Vietnamese state, and Vietnamese foreign policy, and shed light on the worldviews and motives behind Vietnam’s foreign policy. The key challenge to current Vietnamese foreign policy, which was also its main shortcoming in the last three decades, is that Vietnam’s policymakers often view the world through the prism of a bygone era. The last section of the paper will briefly scan the horizon for the next turning point in Vietnamese foreign policy. 3 Introduction In the four decades after the end of World War II, the history of Vietnam is one mainly of war. In 1986, anticipating a prolonged era of peace, the country’s leaders instituted profound changes in domestic and foreign policy, commonly called “đổi mới” (reform or renovation), which prioritized economic development and a peaceful international environment. This reform course and its persistence in Vietnamese politics have given rise to the popular narrative that Vietnam is “in transition”—from state-command to market-driven economy and from totalitarianism to democracy. However, the linear progress suggested by this narrative is misleading at best. Changes in the international circumstances and domestic politics have shaped Vietnam’s strategic trajectory in the doi moi era as a zig-zag course with several directions. Tracing the evolution of Vietnamese foreign policy since the 1980s, this chapter identifies four major turning points of this evolution in the last four decades (See Table 1 for a summary). As Vietnam’s foreign policy lies in the interface between Vietnamese and world politics, its evolution reflects the changes in both environments. The turning points in Vietnamese foreign policy were triggered by events in the international arena that fundamentally altered the environment of Vietnam’s quests for resources, security, and identity. When Vietnam’s ruling elites responded to these changes, they set in motion corresponding changes in Vietnamese domestic and foreign policy. The foreign policy periods bracketed by the turning points thus roughly corresponded with phases in the evolution of the Vietnamese state. This paper will tease out the complex relationships between the international environment, the nature of the Vietnamese state, and Vietnamese foreign policy, and shed light on the worldviews and motives behind Vietnam’s foreign policy. Throughout the doi moi era, Vietnamese politics evolved from a neo-Stalinist state to a rent-seeking state that retains many Leninist practices and institutions. The following four sections will each examine a phase in the evolution of Vietnamese politics since the mid- 4 1980s. In lieu of a conclusion, the last section briefly addresses the key challenge and potentials for change lying ahead for Vietnamese foreign policy. Table 1. Major Turning Points in Vietnamese Foreign Policy, 1980-2020 Year International cause Domestic effect Foreign policy guidelines and national security strategy 1986 Deep crisis and large-scale Rise of Resolution No. 13 of reform in the Soviet bloc, with modernizers the Politburo, May Gorbachev’s perestroika, 1988 glasnost, and new thinking 1989 Collapse of Communist regimes Dominance of Resolutions of the in Eastern Europe anti-Westerners; Third Plenum of the Rise of rent- Seventh Central seekers Committee, June 1992 2003 U.S. unipolar power, vividly Prevalence of Resolution of the displayed by the U.S. invasion of rent-seekers Eighth Plenum of the Iraq Ninth Central Committee, July 2003 2014 China’s aggressive Rise of expansionism, graphically shown moderates; Fall by the installation of a giant oil of anti- rig, the HYSY-981, within Westerners Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone 5 A Neo-Stalinist State in Reform, 1986 – 1989 The mid-1980s witnessed the greatest turning point in the history of Vietnam since the country’s reunification in 1975. A prolonged economic crisis and near-famines that started in the late 1970s, coupled with two concurrent wars of attrition—military conflicts with China along the northern border and a counter-insurgency war in Cambodia—and the diplomatic isolation resulting from the military intervention in Cambodia, forced the ruling elite to reform. After trying different directions of economic reform since 1984, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) announced a comprehensive reform program at its 6th Congress in December 1986 and, in the spirit of “renovate or die” (đổi mới hay là chết), declared “renovation” as a major cause (sự nghiệp lớn) of the Party. This partial but large break with the past was accelerated by the death of Party chief Le Duan, who wanted to preserve the main elements of the old economic model, and the election of Truong Chinh, who was convinced that a new model was necessary, to replace Duan in July 1986.1 Vietnam’s socio-economic crisis was part of a systemic governance and economic impasse that haunted the Communist countries. Responding to this predicament, newly elected Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced a radical reform program, commonly known as perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness, transparency), announced at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1986. As the Soviet Union was Vietnam’s great power patron whose economic and military aid accounted for a large part of Vietnam’s government budget, these large-scale changes exerted a strong pressure for reform in Vietnam. At the same time, the Gorbachevian new thinking (новое мышление, novoe myshlenie) provided reform-minded Vietnamese with new ideas, concepts, and arguments to see and understand the world in a new light. This turning point is the greatest in Vietnamese foreign policy since 1975 because it introduced a new worldview whose competition with 1 Huy Đức, Bên thắng cuộc [The Winning Side], Vol. I: Giải phóng [Liberation] (Los Angeles: OsinBook, 2012), pp. 285-390. 6 the old orthodoxy would shape the grand strategy of Communist Vietnam in the following decades.2 The old worldview through which Vietnamese leaders made sense of the world originated from the Stalinist and neo-Stalinist worldviews of the Soviet Union. Adopting the Stalinist worldview, Vietnam’s Communist leaders divided the world into “two camps”—a socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union and a capitalist camp led by the United States—and explained international outcomes as the results of “four contradictions”—between the socialist and the capitalist systems, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between oppressed peoples and colonialism, and among imperialist countries themselves. In the early 1970s, a third, neo-Stalinist, key tenet, was added, which saw global progress as driven by “three revolutionary currents” represented by the socialist bloc, the communist and working-class movement in the capitalist countries, and the national liberation movement. While the Soviet variant stressed the leading role of the Soviet Union in the socialist system and the revolutionary currents, the Vietnamese variant emphasized Vietnam’s role as the “spearhead” (mũi nhọn) of the world’s national liberation movement, an element that was absent in the original Soviet variant. Similarly, when Vietnamese Communists embraced the Stalinist worldview in the 1940s, they assigned their country the role of an “outpost” (tiền đồn) of socialism against imperialism in Southeast Asia.3 Although no less coherent, the new worldview was less developed than the old worldview. Its elements were scattered in the writings and speeches of reform-minded intellectuals and politicians, most notably Nguyen Co Thach (Foreign Minister, 1980- 1991; Vice Premier, 1987-1991), Vo Van Kiet (Vice Premier, 1982-1991; Prime 2 Alexander L. Vuving, “The Two-Headed Grand Strategy: Vietnamese Foreign Policy since Doi Moi,” paper presented at the conference “Vietnam

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