As of September 2024, Vietnam (officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) maintains diplomatic relations with 191 UN member states, as well as with the State of Palestine and Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.[1]
Since the end of the Vietnam War and the unification of Vietnam, Vietnam's foreign policy has reflected a tension between two choices: "to reject the Western-led world order and oppose Western influence, or to accept the Western-led world order and adapt Western influence."[2] Over time, Vietnam has become more engaged in the international community.[2] Vietnam has shifted from a fierce opponent of the United States to a discreet ally of the United States.[2] Vietnam has for decades consistently sought to deny Chinese regional dominance.[2]
+ Period 1945-1946: After the surrender of Japan, Both British and Chinese Kuomintang armies came into Vietnam territory to take the Japanese imperial army out of Indochina. The government of Democratic Republic of Vietnam decided to have the peace agreement with Chiang Kai-shek of Kuomintang that stationed in the north Vietnam to let them pay attention to fight the French in the south. After that, Vietnam signed the peace treaty with France in 6/3/1946. + Period 1947-1954: Vietnam started to expand their foreign relation with the other countries in the world. In January, 1950, the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union were the first two countries to recognize the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.[3] Later, alliances were formed with Cambodia and Laos to make anti-French campaigns, building the friendship with the anti-colonial countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia and India.
In 1964, Zhou Enlai, worried about the escalation of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, made an informal agreement with the North. The agreement stipulated that if U.S. and South Vietnamese forces invaded North Vietnam, the Chinese would respond by loaning pilots to the North. During the invasion, Mao Zedong failed to send as many trained pilots as he promised. As a result, the North became more reliant on the Soviet Union for its defense.[3]
President Vladimir Putin attending a traditional get-together of Vietnamese graduates of Soviet and Russian universities and colleges, March 2001
By 1975, tension began to grow as Beijing increasingly viewed Vietnam as a potential Soviet instrument to encircle China. Meanwhile, Beijing's increasing support for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge sparked Vietnamese suspicions of China's motives.
Vietnamese-Chinese relations deteriorated significantly after Hanoi instituted a ban in March 1978 on private trade, a move that particularly affected the Sino-Vietnamese sector of the population. Following Vietnam's December 1978 invasion of Cambodia, China launched a retaliatory invasion of Vietnam's northern border region. Faced with severance of Chinese aid and strained international relations, Vietnam established even closer ties with the Soviet Union and its allies in the Comecon member states. Throughout the 1980s, Vietnam received nearly US$3billion a year in economic and military aid from the Soviet Union and conducted most of its trade with the U.S.S.R. and Comecon countries. Soviet and Eastern bloc economic aid, however, ceased after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Đổi mới reforms
Vietnam didn't begin to emerge from international isolation until it withdrew its troops from Cambodia in 1989. Within months of the 1991 Paris Agreements, Vietnam established diplomatic and economic relations with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states and also with most countries of Western Europe and Asia's Far East. China re-established full diplomatic ties with Vietnam in 1991. The two nations concluded a land border demarcation agreement in 1999. In 1995, the US and Vietnam re-established diplomatic ties.[4]United States–Vietnam relations improved in August 1995, when both nations upgraded their liaison offices opened during January 1995 to embassy status, with the United States later opening a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City, and Vietnam opening a consulate in San Francisco.[4]
Full diplomatic relations were restored with New Zealand who opened its embassy in Hanoi in 1995, while Vietnam established an embassy in Wellington in 2003. Pakistan reopened its embassy in Hanoi in October 2000. Vietnam also reopened its embassy in Islamabad in December 2005 and trade office in Karachi in November 2005.
In the past decade, Vietnam has recognized the importance of growing global economic interdependence and has made concerted efforts to adjust its foreign relations to reflect the evolving international economic and political situation in Southeast Asia. The country has begun to integrate itself into the regional and global economy by joining international organizations. Vietnam has stepped up its efforts to attract foreign capital from the West and regularize relations with the world financial system. In the 1990s, following the lifting of the US veto on multilateral loans to the country, Vietnam became a member of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Asian Development Bank. The country has expanded trade with its East Asian neighbors as well as with countries in Western Europe and North America. Of particular significance was Vietnam's acceptance into ASEAN in July 1995. Vietnam joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) in November 1998 and also hosted the ASEAN summit the following month. In 2005, Vietnam attended the inaugural East Asia Summit. Vietnam became a member of the World Trade Organization in November 2006.
In 2011 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, at the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, released an official statement about Vietnam's foreign policy and a section of the statement stated: "Vietnam is a friend and reliable partner of all countries in the international community, actively taking part in international and regional cooperation processes. Deepen, stabilize and sustain established international relations. Develop relations with countries and territories in the world, as well as international organizations, while showing: respect for each other's independence; sovereignty and territorial integrity; non-interference in each other's international affairs; non-use or threat of force; settlement of disagreements and disputes by means of peaceful negotiations; mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit."[6]
While Vietnam has remained relatively conflict-free since its Cambodia days, tensions have arisen in the past between Vietnam and its neighbors, especially in the case of China since both nations assert claims to the Spratly and Paracel Islands - the two archipelagos in a potentially oil-rich area of the South China Sea. Conflicting claims have produced over the years small scale armed altercations in the area. In 1988, more than 70 Vietnamese troops were killed during a confrontation with Chinese forces, when China occupied several islands under Vietnamese control in the Spratly Islands. China's assertion of control over the Spratly Islands and the entire South China Sea has elicited concern from Vietnam and its Southeast Asia neighbors. The territorial border between the two countries is being definitively mapped pursuant to a Land Border Agreement signed in December 1999, and an Agreement on Borders in the Gulf of Tonkin signed in December 2000. Vietnam and Russia declared a strategic partnership in March 2001 during the first visit ever to Hanoi of a Russian head of state, largely as an attempt to counterbalance China's growing profile in Southeast Asia.
Disputes – international:maritime boundary with Cambodia not defined; involved in a complex dispute over the Spratly -Paracel Islands with the People's Republic of China (PRC), Malaysia, Philippines, and possibly Brunei; maritime boundary with Thailand resolved in August 1997; maritime boundary dispute with the PRC in the Gulf of Tonkin resolved in 2000; Paracel Islands occupied by the PRC since 1974; offshore islands and sections of boundary with Cambodia are in dispute; agreement on land border with the People's Republic of China was signed in December 1999.
Illicit drugs: minor producer of opium poppy with 21 km2 cultivated in 1999, capable of producing 11 metric tons of opium; probably minor transit point for Southeast Asian heroin destined for the US and Europe; growing opium/heroin addiction; possible small-scale heroin production.
Diplomatic relations
List of countries which Vietnam maintains diplomatic relations with:
Vietnam has an embassy in Caracas and Venezuela an embassy in Hanoi. Though bilateral trade was $11.7million in 2007[29] relations show "great potential".[30] Over the past ten years, the two countries have witnessed new developments in various fields, including politics, economics, culture and society, particularly in the oil and gas industry.[31]
Vietnamese President Nguyễn Minh Triết arrived in Caracas on 18 November for a two-day official visit on an invitation from Hugo Chávez.[32] Triet hailed Vietnam's friendship with Venezuela as he sought to focus on tying up oil and gas deals, including a joint development fund. He said that "We (Vietnamese) are grateful for the support and solidarity that they (Venezuelans) have offered us until now." Triết said.
Since Hugo Chávez's visit to Vietnam in 2006, his government stepped up bilateral relations with the country, which also included a visit by the Communist Party general secretary, Nông Đức Mạnh in 2007. Petróleos de Venezuela and Petrovietnam also announced a number of joint projects since the 2006 visit, including Petrovietnam's was given a concession in the Orinoco basin and an agreement to transport Venezuelan oil to Vietnam, where the two would together build an oil refinery that Vietnam lacks. On the 2006 visit, Chávez praised Vietnam's revolutionary history as he attacked the United States for its "imperialist" crimes in the Vietnam War. On the 2008 visit Triết returned similar comments as he lauded a group of Venezuelans who captured a US soldier during the Vietnam war in an unsuccessful bid to prevent the execution of a Vietnamese revolutionary.[29] The two leaders also signed a deal for a $200million joint fund and 15 cooperation projects.[33]
In March 2008 an agreement was signed to cooperate in tourism between Vietnam and Venezuela. President Nguyễn Minh Triết received the PDVSA's vice president Asdrubal Chavez and stated that oil and gas cooperation would become a typical example of their multi-faceted cooperation.[34] In 2009 the Venezuelan government approved $46.5million for an agricultural development project with Vietnam.[35]
Since the 1990s, relations between these nations have been improving. Both countries are members of multilateral regional organizations ASEAN and the Mekong–Ganga Cooperation. Both have opened and developed cross-border trade and sought to relax visa regulations to that end.[40] Both governments have set official targets of increasing bilateral trade by 27% to US$2.3billion by 2010 and to $6.5billion by 2015.[40][41] Vietnam exported US$1.2billion worth of goods to Cambodia in 2007. While Cambodia is only the 16th largest importer of Vietnamese goods, Vietnam is Cambodia's third-largest export market.[40]
Cambodia has an embassy in Hanoi and a consulate-general in Ho Chi Minh City.
After both sides resumed trade links in 1991, growth in bilateral trade has increased from US$32million in 1991 to almost $7.2billion by 2004.[42] Both governments have set the target of increasing trade volume to US$10billion by 2010.[42] Vietnam's exports to China include crude oil, coal, coffee and food, while China exports pharmaceuticals, machinery, petroleum, fertilizers and automobile parts to Vietnam. China has become Vietnam's second-largest trading partner and the largest source of imports.[42][43] Both nations are working to establish an "economic corridor" from China's Yunnan to Vietnam's northern provinces and cities, and similar economic zones in the Gulf of Tonkin and connecting the Nanning of Guangxi province, Lang Son province, Hanoi, Haiphong and Quang Ninh province of Vietnam.[42] Air and sea transport as well as railway have been opened between the two countries, so have the 7 pairs of national-level ports in the frontier provinces and regions of the two countries.[43] Both sides have also launched joint ventures such as the Thai Nguyen Steel Complex, which produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of steel products.[42]
China has an embassy in Hanoi and a consulates-general in Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam and Indonesia are both members of (ASEAN), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia visited Vietnam in June 2003. At this time the two countries signed a "Declaration on the Framework of Friendly and Comprehensive Cooperation Entering the 21st Century".
In May 2005 President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia visited Vietnam. In the December of the same year festivities were organized in the respective capital cities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.[49] Due to the ongoing South China Sea disputes, both Vietnam and Indonesia has supported a restraint in militarizing the issue. China claims the EEZ of the Natuna Island of Indonesia, while it also claims most of the South China Sea including the Vietnam-claimed Paracel and Spratly islands.
Lord Nguyễn Hoàng started to send national letter to Tokugawa Ieyasu to invite Japanese merchant to come to Hội An in 1605
Prince Cường Để exiled in Japan in 1905
Việt Nam Duy Tân Hội (Vietnam Modernization Association) created in 1904 by Phan Bội Châu, The Vietnamese nationalist who wished to bring his people to Japan to study through Đông Du Movement
Both nation established relation on 21 September 1973
Following 23 October 1991 Final Act of the International Paris Conference on Cambodia among the Cambodian parties, Indonesia (as co-chair with France), and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Japan promptly established diplomatic relations and ended economic restrictions with Cambodia and Vietnam. In November 1992, Tokyo offered Vietnam US$370million in aid. Japan also took a leading role in peacekeeping activities in Cambodia. Japan's Akashi Yasushi, UN Undersecretary General for Disarmament, was head of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia, and Japan pledged US$3million and even sent approximately 2,000 personnel, including members of the SDF, to participate directly in maintaining the peace. Despite the loss of a Japanese peacekeeper killed in an ambush, the force remained in Cambodia until the Cambodians were able to elect and install a government.
Japan is the single biggest country donor to Vietnam. It has pledged US$890million in aid for the country this year, or 6.5 percent higher than the 2006 level of $US 835.6million.[52]
Although Vietnam's historical record of leadership in the revolution and its military power and proximity will not cease to exist, Laos struck out ahead of Vietnam with its New Economic Mechanism to introduce market mechanisms into its economy. In so doing, Laos has opened the door to rapprochement with Thailand and China at some expense to its special dependence on Vietnam. Laos might have reached the same point of normalization in following Vietnam's economic and diplomatic change, but by moving ahead resolutely and responding to Thai and Chinese gestures, Laos has broadened its range of donors, trading partners, and investors independent of Vietnam's attempts to accomplish the same goal. Thus, Vietnam remains in the shadows as a mentor and emergency ally, and the tutelage of Laos has shifted dramatically to development banks and international entrepreneurs.[53]
Laos has an embassy in Hanoi and a consulates-general in Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.
The countries signed a Friendship and Cooperation Treaty in 1961, renewed it in 1979, and signed a new one in 1995.[54] On 13 January 2003, the countries signed an 8-point cooperative document committing to cooperation between the two governments and their legislative bodies, replacing an earlier document signed in 1998.[55]
There have been 13 sessions of the Vietnam-Mongolia inter-governmental committee on cooperation in trade, economics and sci-tech, with the next to be held in Ulaanbaatar in 2010.[56] On 25 May 2004 in Ulaanbaatar, the countries signed agreements on railway transport and scientific and technological cooperation.[57] Other agreements have covered areas such as plant protection and quarantine regulations, customs, health and education.[56]
Both had some meetings when both of them sent envoys to pay tribute to China Empire.
North Korea recognised Communist ally North Vietnam on 31 January 1950
In July 1957, President Ho Chi Minh visited North Korea
North Korean leader Kim Il-sung visited North Vietnam in November–December 1958 and November 1964.
In February 1961, the two governments concluded an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation.
President Kim Il Sung sent some fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi while Hanoi was bombed by The US air forces.
From 1950 to 1960s, students from North Vietnam began studying in North Korea as early as the 1960s.
Relations later declined due to investment and trade disputes in the 1990s and 2000s and emerging relationship between South Korea and Vietnam[58]
Pakistan opened its embassy in Hanoi in 1973. However, due to economic reasons, Pakistan closed the embassy in 1980. Vietnam also opened its embassy in Islamabad in 1978 and had to close it down in 1984 due to its own economic difficulty. Bilateral relations between Pakistan and Vietnam in recent years have considerably improved. Both countries' leaders expressed their willingness to strengthen their existing relations, not only in the political sphere but also in other areas such as trade and economics, and exchange more visits from one to another's country, including both high-ranking and working visits. Pakistan reopened its embassy in Hanoi in October 2000. Vietnam also reopened its embassy in Islamabad in December 2005 and trade office in Karachi in November 2005.
Ever since the end of the Cold War relations between the Philippines and Vietnam has warmed rapidly. Today the Philippines and Vietnam are economic allies and have a free trade deal with each other. Both nations are a part of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). The Philippines and Vietnam have conducted joint military exercises together in the South China Sea and are trying to find ways to turn the Spratly Islands from an area of conflict to an area of cooperation. Vietnam is also sometimes called the only communist military ally of the Philippines. The Philippines and Vietnam are also monitoring China's expansion into the South China Sea making sure that China is no threat to either Philippine or Vietnamese islands in the South China Sea. The Philippines also imports a large amount of writing material, clothes and other products from Vietnam. In May 2009, The Philippines has inked an agreement with Vietnam to cooperate in the fight against crimes and ensuring social order. In January 2010, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Vietnam bourse "for mutual collaboration and communication of information and experience" to facilitate the development and efficient operations of both securities markets. In 2012, Vietnam sent two military assets for a good will visit to the Philippines. Both Vietnam and the Philippines have the same stand on the South China Sea disputes, patronizing multilateral talks and international court rulings to solve the issue, tactics which China has avoided. In 2016, the Philippines strengthened its stand on the dispute through a court ruling in an international court not associated with UN and poised to create stronger relations with Vietnam for strategic defense and economic cooperation.
In 2006, the Bulgarian Government agreed to a healthcare cooperation plan with Vietnam. The two-year plan includes cooperation in many areas, mainly in public healthcare, inpatient and outpatient help, food security, medical education.[72]
In 2015 both countries are celebrating 500 years of relations, remembering 1515 when the Portuguese traveler Duarte Coelho, reached Cochinchina, Champa and Tonkin[78] starting a long period of trading relations with the Portuguese established in Macau and in Malacca.
Portugal is accredited to Vietnam from its embassy in Bangkok, Thailand and has honorary consulates both in Hanoi (31 Pho Duc Chinh, Truc Bach Ward, Ba Dinh District, Ha noi) and in Ho Chi Minh City (66/11 Pham Ngoc Thach, Q3, Ho Chi Minh)[79]
Vietnam is accredited to Portugal from its embassy in Paris, France.
↑ Mesa-Lago, Carmelo (2025). Comparing Socialist Approaches: Economics and Social Security in Cuba, China, and Vietnam. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN9780822948476.
↑ "Viet Nam Foreign Policy". Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Press and Information Department – Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 11 May 2012. Archived from the original on 18 January 2009. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
↑ "Republic of Burundi". Socialist Republic of Viet Nam Government Portal. Archived from the original on 25 June 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
↑ Economy and Trade of Vietnam, 1986-1990. Socialist Republic of Vietnam, General Statistical Office. 1991. p.13. Diplomatic relation established date ... Burundi 16-4-1973
1 2 "Asia". Government of Vietnam. April 2010. Retrieved 29 April 2023.
Dang, Xuan Tanh (August 2011), "AEC, ECFA and Vietnam–Taiwan Economic Relations"(PDF), Taiwan–Vietnam Economic Cooperation: Moving Towards the 2015 Vision of ASEAN Economic Integration, archived from the original(PDF) on 24 December 2013, retrieved 4 December 2012
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Further reading
Amer, Ramses. "Border conflicts between Cambodia and Vietnam." IBRU Boundary and Security Bulletin 5.2 (1997): 80-97 online.
Asselin, Pierre. Vietnam's American War: A History. (Cambridge University Press, 2018) online review
Brown, Frederick Z. "Rapprochement Between Vietnam and the United States." Contemporary Southeast Asia (2010): 317-342 online.
Cuong, Nguyen Xuan, and Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa. "Achievements and Problems in Vietnam: China Relations from 1991 to the Present." China Report 54.3 (2018): 306-324. online
Gin, Christopher M. "How China Wins: A Case Study of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War" (Army Command And General Staff College Fort Leavenworth KS, 2015) onlineArchived 25 March 2020 at the Wayback Machine .
Goscha, Christopher E. (2009). "Choosing between the Two Vietnams: 1950 and Southeast Asian Shifts in the International System". In Goscha, Christopher E.; Ostermann, Christian E. (eds.). Connecting Histories: Decolonization and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, 1945–1962. Woodrow Wilson Center Press & Stanford University Press. pp.207–237. ISBN9780804769433.
Ha, Lam Thanh, and Nguyen Duc Phuc. "The US-China Trade War: Impact on Vietnam." (2019). onlineArchived 14 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine
Hiep, Nguyen Quang. "Vietnam-China trade relations and the effects of the US-China trade war." Business and Economic Research 9.4 (2019): 1-11.
Hood, Steven J. Dragons Entangled: Indochina and the China-Vietnam War (ME Sharpe, 1993).
Leighton, Marian Kirsch. "Perspectives on the Vietnam-Cambodia border conflict." Asian Survey 18.5 (1978): 448–457. online
Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen, eds. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. (2002) vol 6.
Morris, Stephen J. Why Vietnam invaded Cambodia: Political culture and the causes of war (Stanford University Press, 1999).
Path, Kosal. "The Duality of Vietnam’s Deference and Resistance to China." Diplomacy & Statecraft 29.3 (2018): 499–521. online
Thanh, Luong Ngoc. "Vietnam's Foreign Policy in the post-Cold War Era: Ideology and Reality." (PhD dissertation Hiroshima University 2013) online.
Thayer, Carlyle A. "Vietnam in 2013: Domestic contestation and foreign policy success." Southeast Asian Affairs (2014): 355-372 online.
Tran, Thi Bich, and Yoichiro Sato. "Vietnam's Post‐Cold War Hedging Strategy: A Changing Mix of Realist and Liberal Ingredients." Asian Politics & Policy 10.1 (2018): 73-99 online.
Vuving, Alexander L. "Strategy and evolution of Vietnam's China policy: a changing mixture of pathways." Asian Survey 46.6 (2006): 805-824 onlineArchived 10 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine
Westad, Odd Arne, and Sophie Quinn-Judge, eds. The third Indochina war: conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79 (Routledge, 2006).
Womack, Brantly. "Asymmetry and systemic misperception: China, Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1970s." Journal of Strategic Studies 26.2 (2003): 92-119 online.
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