Bamboo Diplomacy: How Vietnam Balances Between the US and China Without Choosing Sides

As the rivalry between the United States and China sharpens into the defining geopolitical contest of the era, few countries sit closer to the fault line than Vietnam. A new study published in the journal Global Public Policy and Governance argues that Vietnam has managed this precarious position through a carefully calibrated hedging strategy, one that preserves its strategic autonomy while extracting benefits from both superpowers. The research, conducted by Nguyen Tang Nghi and Nguyen Cam Tu of Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, examines how Hanoi navigates great power competition across economic, diplomatic, and security domains, and warns that the strategy’s shelf life may be limited.

The study adopts a qualitative approach that combines document analysis with a case study method, conceptualizing Vietnam as a representative middle power. Middle powers occupy an awkward middle ground in international politics: too large and capable to simply bandwagon with a stronger state, yet too small to shape the international system on their own. For such states, hedging offers an alternative to the binary choices of balancing against one power or aligning with another. Instead of committing, a hedging state keeps its options open, spreading its dependencies so that no single great power can dictate its foreign policy.

What makes Vietnam’s version of hedging distinctive is its ideological framing. The country’s leadership has articulated the approach through the metaphor of bamboo diplomacy, first systematically laid out by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Conference on Foreign Affairs in December 2021. Trong described a distinctive school of foreign affairs rooted in the image of the Vietnamese bamboo, characterized by firm roots, a solid trunk, and flexible branches. The metaphor captures the technical logic of the strategy: principles remain fixed while tactics bend with circumstances. The bamboo sways in the storm but does not break, and it does not uproot itself to escape the wind.

The security dimension of this doctrine is codified in Vietnam’s 2019 National Defence White Paper, which commits the country to what analysts describe as a set of explicit refusals. Vietnam will not join military alliances, will not align with one country against another, will not allow foreign states to establish military bases on its territory or use Vietnamese soil for military activities against other nations, and will not use force or threaten its use in international relations. This stands in deliberate contrast to, for example, NATO members bound by Article 5, which treats an attack on one ally as an attack on all and obligates collective response. Hanoi’s four noes are designed precisely to avoid such binding entanglements that would collapse its maneuvering space into a single bloc.

Economically, the hedging strategy manifests as simultaneous deepening of ties with both rivals. Vietnam and China have recorded unprecedented expansion in bilateral trade, with China remaining deeply embedded in Vietnamese supply chains as a source of inputs and machinery. At the same time, the United States has become one of Vietnam’s most important export markets and a growing source of multi-sectoral investment trending toward higher value chains. The study notes that this dual dependence functions almost as a form of mutual deterrence: each superpower has substantial economic stakes in Vietnam, giving both reasons to compete for Hanoi’s goodwill rather than coerce it. Researchers have described this dynamic as economic mutual assured dependence, a strategic tool that middle powers can wield against far larger rivals.

The return of President Donald Trump and the America First agenda has injected new stress into this equilibrium. The study documents how Washington’s tariff decisions have directly tested Vietnamese resilience, prompting high-level engagement from Hanoi, including discussions between General Secretary To Lam and President Trump aimed at reducing import tariffs, with Vietnam signaling readiness to negotiate tariff levels down to zero percent. The authors frame these episodes as evidence that hedging is not passive. It requires constant active management, as Vietnamese officials pursue economic and trade policy dialogues with the United States while simultaneously cultivating stable foundations for relations with China.

The diplomatic record of 2025 and early 2026 illustrates the balancing act in fine grain. Vietnam has consistently described the United States as a leading strategic partner, upgrading the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest tier in its diplomatic hierarchy. Yet in the same period, Vietnam conducted its first joint army drill with China, an episode analysts at the Carnegie Endowment interpreted as a signal that Hanoi remains neither comrade nor ally to either power. The study reads these seemingly contradictory moves as coherent within the hedging framework: each gesture toward one power is counterweighted by a gesture toward the other, preventing either from claiming exclusive influence.

The analytical core of the paper lies in its assessment of conditions. The authors find that hedging has enabled Vietnam to maintain strategic maneuvering space and derive short to medium term benefits from engagement with both Washington and Beijing. But they emphasize that the strategy is conditional rather than permanent. Hedging can be sustained only so long as strategic polarization between the United States and China does not cross the threshold that compels states to align explicitly. In other words, hedging works while the great powers compete but do not demand commitments. Its inherent limitations, the study argues, are likely to become increasingly pronounced as competition escalates, echoing earlier scholarship warning of the structural dangers of a Thucydides trap dynamic between an established and a rising power.

The research also situates Vietnam within a broader global pattern. Companion studies in the same journal examine how Europe pursues strategic autonomy in response to Trumpism and how Trump-era policies are reshaping China’s global strategies, suggesting a worldwide reassessment of how states dependent on American security guarantees and Chinese economic integration should position themselves. For Southeast Asian states watching Vietnam’s experience, the findings carry practical weight: hedging is viable and rewarding, but it is a strategy for an intermediate phase of rivalry, not a permanent shield.

Funded by Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, the study ultimately offers a sober assessment rather than a celebration. Vietnam’s bamboo diplomacy has proven remarkably effective at keeping options open in a polarizing world, allowing a middle power to talk trade with Washington one week and drill with the People’s Liberation Army the next. But the authors’ central conclusion is that flexibility has structural limits. If the US-China contest intensifies to the point where both capitals demand that smaller states choose, the bamboo may bend as far as it can, and Vietnam, like other middle powers, will face the unenviable arithmetic of alignment.

Subject of Research: Vietnam's hedging strategy toward US-China great power competition

Article Title: Vietnam’s hedging strategies amid intensified US-China competition

Article References: Nghi, N. T., & Tu, N. C. (2026). Vietnam’s hedging strategies amid intensified US-China competition. Global Public Policy and Governance, 6(1), 82-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43508-026-00141-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43508-026-00141-3

Keywords: Vietnam, hedging strategy, US-China competition, bamboo diplomacy, middle power, strategic autonomy, Trump tariffs, South China Sea, foreign policy, Southeast Asia, comprehensive strategic partnership, economic dependence