Summary
Vietnam’s new foreign policy approach, which some analysts have labelled ‘more friends, fewer enemies’, reflects its precarious position as a bird on the wire caught between China and the United States.
 
In the past few months, Vietnamese officials have held a number of high-level meetings with leaders of both states. At the end of July, President Truong Tan Sang travelled to Washington to discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership with President Barack Obama, highlighting the improved relations between the former foes under America’s increasingly Asia-focused strategy. A little over a month later, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and reiterated the Vietnamese Party and State’s long-lasting and consistent policy of consolidating and strengthening neighbourliness and cooperation with China.
 
This whirlwind diplomacy is evidence of Vietnam’s desire to maintain stable and normalised economic and military relations with both China and the US, something that is especially important given its past history of conflict with each state, and their importance to Vietnam’s aim of integration into the global economy.
 
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