As a rule, the U.S. secretary of state does not attend the funeral of the general secretary of a Communist party.
Yet that is exactly what Washington’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, had planned to do for the last rites of Nguyen Phu Trong, the longtime leader of Vietnam, who died in office on July 19, 2024, aged 80. Ultimately, Blinken couldn’t make it to the funeral, but he did visit Hanoi a day later.
There, he paid his respects to the Vietnamese government and to the
family of Trong, whose 13-year rule saw the country make enormous
strides, including a drastic decline in the nation’s poverty rate – from
14% of the population in 2010 to 4% in 2022.
The passing of leaders provides an opportunity to draw a balance of
their performance in office, to examine how the country did in that
period, and what the way forward looks like. In that regard, Trong can
be proud of his record – Vietnam has made much economic and social
progress and looks set to continue along that route. Moreover, the
legacy of Trong’s set of foreign policy principles – known as “bamboo diplomacy” – serves as a model for smaller states as they navigate the complexities of shifting geopolitics and growing tensions between the U.S. and China.
Vietnam’s success story
Vietnam was already on an upward trajectory when Trong came to power
in 2011 as the most powerful figure in the country’s ruling Communist
Party.
After decades of stagnation and abject poverty, the opening up of Vietnam’s economy under the “Doi Moi” – or renovation – reforms of 1986 led to what the World Bank refers to as a “development success story.”
The reforms helped Vietnam transition from being one of the poorest countries in the world to a middle-income nation over a 40-year period.
Vietnamese mourners line the streets waiting for the procession carrying the coffin of Nguyen Phu Trong.
Linh Pham/Getty Images
Under Trong’s watch, the country of close to 100 million people has seen average annual growth of 5.8% – one of the highest in Asia and the world.
And despite its “sandwich” position in the current great power
competition, Vietnam under Trong managed to maintain good relations with
Beijing, Moscow and Washington. Indeed, Vietnam has emerged as a key player in Asia.
To the surprise of many international observers, it joined the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership
– the only socialist country to do so – and has been, since 2018, a
member of the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. In 2020, Vietnam joined the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the biggest trade agreement anywhere in the world.
Trong’s agenda
Yet Trong’s achievements weren’t foregrounded in some of the reports
of his death. International coverage of the occasion was prone to fall
back on the cliches that Western media too often bestows upon developing
country leaders.
“Hardliner” and “Marxist-Leninist ideologue” were the terms used to describe him in rather one-dimensional reports.
To his credit, Blinken described Trong as “a visionary leader” in his tribute.
Other U.S. politicians haven’t always looked upon Trong in such a
positive light. During Trong’s historic visit to the White House in
2015, the Obama administration was slammed by Democratic and Republican lawmakers
for accommodating the figurehead of “an authoritarian one-party system”
responsible for a “deplorable human rights situation” in Vietnam.
Yet, while Vietnam is far from being a democracy – the one-party
state does not allow much room for dissent, and there are, according to
some estimates, around 160 political prisoners – that is only part of the story.
Focusing on civil and political liberties to the exclusion of almost
everything else, including socioeconomic development, misses much of
what is happening in the Global South.
Even Trong‘s anti-corruption “blazing furnace”
campaign – which reached deep into the highest levels of the party and
state, leading to the disciplining of thousands, including two former
presidents and seven members of the Politburo of the Communist Party –
was dismissed by some in the West as a power grab or an antibusiness witch hunt.
A different approach
In my view, Trong was a remarkable man with an enviable record. In
contrast to other Vietnamese officials, he was modest and unassuming,
lived in ordinary, government-provided housing, drove an old, battered
Toyota Crown and was steeped in the mores of Vietnam’s collective
leadership traditions.
Trong trained as a historian, having done postgraduate studies in
Moscow – a background that helped shape his vision of what Vietnam
needed to do in the new century.
Aware that in the past Vietnam had repeatedly won wars against formidable foes – the French in 1954, the Americans in 1975 and the Chinese in 1979 – only to lose the ensuing peace because of taking uncompromising positions, he tried a different approach.
Nguyen Phu Trong raises a toast with then Vice President Joe Biden in 2015.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
On the economic front, this meant opening Vietnam up for business,
making a pitch for foreign investment and doubling down on the promotion
of local manufacturing and of the export sector. Trong was especially
successful in attracting U.S. companies eager to diminish their
dependence on their operations in China, and to rely on “friend-shoring”
– that is, investment that goes to countries seen as friendly.
Amazingly, he was able to do the same with China.
This careful cultivation of ties with both Washington and Beijing was the root of “bamboo diplomacy,” the foreign policy strategy that Trong will be best remembered for.
The strategy – which Trong outlined in 2016
in a speech which noted that, like bamboo itself, a successful foreign
policy needed “strong roots, stout trunk and flexible branches” – was
triggered by the growing tensions between China and the United States.
What is bamboo diplomacy?
At heart, bamboo diplomacy is about refusing to take sides in the politics of great power competition. It is guided by the “Three Noes” policy,
as outlined in a book Trong published in 2023: no military alignment or
alliance with any power, no military bases on Vietnamese soil, and no
reliance upon another country to counter a third party.
In practice, bamboo diplomacy entails a policy of hedging,
diversifying foreign partners and of ambiguity. It keeps a country’s
options open in shifting geopolitical environments in which today’s friend may become tomorrow’s foe.
And it works. It is a measure of the success of this policy that in the space of just a few months, Presidents Joe Biden, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin all visited Vietnam – something no other country can claim.
Bamboo diplomacy is especially apposite for smaller nations having to
contend with great power competition. And it has parallels with the doctrine of active nonalignment
that has taken hold in parts of Latin America and elsewhere in the past
few years. The strategy stresses the role of agency and initiative in
dealing with uncertainty and a complex environment, as opposed to the
more defensive posture that characterized the nonalignment of yesteryear.
Trong’s last few years played out against the backdrop of an
especially turbulent period in world affairs, marked by escalating
tensions between great powers, a devastating pandemic and two major wars
– one in Ukraine and one in the Gaza Strip. But throughout, Vietnam
managed to thrive and prosper.
It has done so for a variety of reasons. But there is no doubt that
Nguyen Phu Trong’s leadership and his deft deployment of bamboo
diplomacy played a key role in Vietnam’s success.