The U.S. presidential election is now just days away. So far, the two major candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, have not elaborated in detail their visions for the Indo-Pacific. Still, there is a good chance that if Harris is elected, she would uphold her predecessor Joe Biden’s avowed deep engagement with the region. If Trump wins a second term, he is likely to resort to a more transactional and nativist style of management vis-à-vis the Indo-Pacific states under his “America First” slogan. As one of the U.S. Indo-Pacific partners with a growing role in its Indo-Pacific policy, Vietnam will be watching the election closely.
Still, different from other U.S. allies and partners, Vietnam doesn’t have to worry about the outcome of the election. This is because Vietnam enjoys a strong U.S. bipartisan support thanks to its geopolitical position as China’s neighbor. Both Trump and Harris, in various meetings with Vietnamese leaders, have affirmed the U.S. support for a strong and prosperous Vietnam with an implicit understanding that Vietnam can balance against China. However, Vietnam’s ability to adopt a care-free approach to the election is not solely due to the U.S. bipartisan consensus on its importance. Vietnam’s omnidirectional foreign policy has avoided putting all of its eggs into one basket, which insulates it from major domestic developments of its key diplomatic partners before they even happen.
This is a lesson that Vietnam learned from having based its entire foreign policy on the alliance with the Soviet Union after 1978, which left it exposed to Soviet leadership changes. During the tenure of Leonid Brezhnev, Hanoi and Moscow enjoyed an amicable relationship, which slowly neutralized the Chinese influence and later evolved into an anti-China and anti-Khmer Rouge alliance. Hanoi, confident of Brezhnev’s backing, stood firm in the face of Chinese threats against its intervention in Cambodia. After the Chinese invasion, Vietnam and China held a series of talks from April to December 1979 to settle bilateral problems. The talks went nowhere since Hanoi only wanted to talk about the border tension and did not want to discuss its invasion of Cambodia, the latter of which Beijing saw as important to resolving the deterioration in Vietnam-China ties. During the early 1980s, Vietnam doubled down on its alliance with Moscow to deter and prepare for a second Chinese invasion. China and Vietnam fought several border skirmishes throughout the 1980s.
Vietnam’s anti-China foreign policy slowly came apart after the Mikhail Gorbachev came into power in 1985. Gorbachev’s 1986 Vladivostok initiative, which called for a normalization of Sino-Soviet ties, allowed China to put pressure on the Soviet support for Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia and Soviet deterrence against a second Chinese invasion of Vietnam thanks to its troops’ deployment along the Sino-Soviet border.
Gorbachev’s decision to downgrade Soviet ties with Vietnam in service of Sino-Soviet normalization put Vietnam’s security at risk, as seen via the lack of Soviet response to the Chinese attack on Vietnam-controlled Johnson South Reef in March 1988 and the general decline in Soviet economic and military aid. Hanoi loathed Gorbachev so much that it supported the failed August coup by hardline communists against him.
However, there was little Hanoi could do to turn the tide. It withdrew from Cambodia, agreed to let the Khmer Rouge participate in a post-occupation Cambodian government, and normalized ties with China on Chinese terms in 1991. Vietnam thus conceptualized an omnidirectional and neutral foreign policy in the 1990s after it grasped the danger of leadership changes in an allied country. Hanoi has not changed the fundamentals of its foreign policy since.
Importantly, even if the electoral outcome is not to Hanoi’s preference, its omnidirectional foreign policy is resilient enough for it to not have to make major changes in its own foreign policy to adjust to any electoral surprises. Tufts University Professor Daniel W. Drezner once said, “trying to alter a state’s foreign policy trajectory is like trying to make an aircraft carrier do a U-turn: it happens slowly at best.” Vietnam cannot afford changing the fundamentals of its foreign policy every time an electoral surprise happens, just like it did between the 1980s and the 1990s. (Recall that the Soviet Union had three leadership changes from 1982 to 1985). Hanoi’s flexible “bamboo diplomacy” makes quick adjustments possible and less costly thanks to its non-confrontational and non-ideological nature. Besides maintaining good relations with as many countries as it can, Hanoi does not interfere in the domestic politics of its partners and publicly pledges to work with any administrations chosen by that country’s political processes.
How Vietnam handled the 2016 U.S. presidential election surprise demonstrated this pragmatism and flexibility. Although Hanoi had privately hoped for Hillary Clinton’s victory, it was quick to reach out to Trump early in his term to minimize the fallout of his decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, of which Vietnam was a member. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in the Oval Office in May 2017, when the two leaders met to discuss trade and defense issues. A few days before Phuc’s visit, the United States transferred its first cutter, the USCGC Morgenthau (WHEC-722), to the Vietnamese Coast Guard. Vietnam was keen to host Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and leveraged the occasion to highlight the achievements of U.S.-Vietnam normalization. Despite Trump’s accusations of Vietnam being a currency manipulator, Vietnam was able to engage in dialogue with U.S. authorities to avoid tariffs.
Once Biden defeated Trump in 2020, it was not difficult for Vietnam to work with the new administration thanks to previous interactions under the Obama administration. The Biden administration specifically named Vietnam as a key Indo-Pacific partner. The outcome is that U.S.-Vietnam relations have been improving regardless of which party occupies the White House and that both Trump and Biden supported Vietnam’s omnidirectional foreign policy. U.S. bilateral consensus on its ties with Vietnam was hence not solely a U.S. initiative. Vietnam’s omnidirectional foreign policy, especially its U.S. policy, will be more important in the years ahead as U.S. domestic polarization intensifies.
However, Vietnam’s omnidirectional foreign policy is not totally foolproof. Much of Vietnam’s leeway depends on its stable relationship with China and its privilege of not having to pick a side. If a future U.S. president hardens the U.S. China policy to an extent that makes China feel insecure in its sphere of influence, Vietnam will feel the pressure to limit diplomatic outreach to the United States within an extent acceptable to China for fear of a Chinese misunderstanding of Vietnamese intention. This is not a deference but an assurance to avoid unnecessary Chinese punishment and to keep its partnership network intact in case Vietnam-China ties deteriorate beyond repair.
China is after all the starting point of Vietnam’s contemporary foreign policy approach. In the days leading up to the U.S. election, Vietnam became a partner country of BRICS. Newly elected President Luong Cuong welcomed his first foreign guest, Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia, in a bid to enhance military-to-military ties. Remarkably, both men were veterans of the 1979 China-Vietnam border war. So long as Vietnam-China ties remain stable, Vietnam does not need to worry about the outcome of the U.S. election.
Vietnam’s emphasis on continuity in foreign policy means not only that there will not be continuity amid its own leadership changes, but also that it will remain impervious to leadership changes in countries that Vietnam counts as major partners. The bamboo’s “strong roots, stout trunk, and flexible branches” allows Hanoi to weather changes in international and domestic politics better than a rigid leaning-to-one-side foreign policy. Whether Trump or Harris is elected, Hanoi will stick to what it has been doing – being a friend to many and an enemy to none.