RUSSIA Bamboo diplomacy: Hanoi welcomes Putin while trying not to break

The Russian president met with To Lam, who emerged victorious from the chain of purges of the “anti-corruption campaign.” With him he signed a series of agreements in “traditional” sectors. Vietnam views Russia and the United States (which protested the visit) as equal rivals, but holds China in much higher regard. According to experts, Hanoi will avoid taking risks in foreign policy.

Hanoi () – Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Vietnam for a two-day visit, after having stopped in North Korea. He was received by President To Lam, who has been in office for less than two months, and will meet with the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, who in practice is the main leader of the country since he is also head of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission.

The Russian president arrives at a time of great transformation for Vietnam: a anti-corruption campaign which has displaced the main officials who were at the head of the communist country and has made To Lam emerge as one of the main references, to the point that he could be elected the next general secretary during the Party Congress scheduled for 2026.

Friendly relations between Moscow and Hanoi Dating back to the 1950s, when the Soviet Union declared its support for North Vietnam. Nguyen Phu Trong himself, like many other senior members of the Communist Party, studied in Russia. In recent years, Vietnam (like other countries that maintain historical relations with Moscow) has refrained from condemning the invasion of Ukraine and, despite a certain anti-China approach to the United States and the West, it continues to be Russia’s main trading partner in Southeast Asia. But bilateral trade was $3.63 billion in 2023 and $1.96 billion in the first five months of 2024. Insignificant figures when compared to the $171 billion traded with China and the $111 billion with the United States. .

Hanoi still uses Russian-made military equipment, but after the war broke out in Ukraine it stopped large purchases and began diversifying markets. The most important collaboration is with the russian oil companies for exploration in the South China Sea, where Vietnam, like other countries in the region, frequently clashes with Beijing’s (unfounded) claims over maritime zones. Hanoi, ignoring US criticism (a few days ago Washington declared that “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression”), probably wants assurances that ties between Russia and China will not harm Vietnam. .

After signing a series of agreements in sectors considered “traditional”, such as energetic, The Russian president declared that both countries share an interest in “developing a reliable security architecture” in the Asia-Pacific region, based on the non-use of force and the peaceful resolution of disputes, without room for “political blocs.” -closed military”.

According to The experts Vietnam views Russia and the United States as equal rivals, but has a special regard for China, toward which Vietnamese leaders act with equal parts deference and distrust. US President Joe Biden also traveled to Vietnam last year at the invitation of the head of the Communist Party and was received at the airport by the head of the Party’s Foreign Relations Commission, as was Putin. On the other hand, Chinese President Xi Jinping had received an invitation from the head of state and also from the Secretary General, and in December he was received by the Prime Minister himself.

This type of approach is defined as “bamboo diplomacy”, an expression coined in 2021 by Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to describe the national foreign policy that, although maintaining firm roots in communism, aims to dialogue with countries that have conflictive relations with each other. .

The commentators consider that the decision to maintain this attitude, added to the recent changes in leadership within the Party – where bureaucrats feel incentivized to do less so as not to expose themselves to being eliminated, instead of facing new challenges – is unlikely to produce significant changes in the economic or foreign policy level. In fact, after the departure of the Russian president expected to travel to Hanoi Daniel Kritenbrink, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific. Hanoi knows very well that if it leans too much in any direction, it risks breaking.