Forging strategic partnership in the Indo–Pacific region: Vietnam’s diplomatic direction

ABSTRACT Vietnam used to be isolated from the international community but has now become the Southeast Asian country with the most strategic partnerships with other Indo-Pacific countries. In Vietnam, over the past decade, ‘strategic partnership’ has also become a popular concept in the country’s foreign policy and media. However, the current literature does not yet include significant study on Vietnam’s new foreign policy practice. This article attempts to fill the gap by examining Vietnam’s use of ‘strategic partnership’, how Vietnam defines the term and how its partnerships operate in practice. By examining case studies of three strategic partnerships between Vietnam and India, Japan, and the Philippines, this article argues that the way Vietnam views strategic partnership shares quite a few common features with existing studies’ definitions. It also concludes that the country has rapidly forged strategic partnerships in the Indo-Pacific more than any other Southeast Asian country because of both external factors and internal demands. Despite limitations, SP is a valuable political and diplomatic tool for Vietnam.