China and Vietnam are engineering closer relations

A remarkable conclave took place in Hanoi on 16 March. China’s foreign affairs, defence and public security ministers met their Vietnamese counterparts in a strategic dialogue. The ministerial mechanism is new in the China–Vietnam relationship, though a sub-ministerial form was trialled in 2024.

This and wider economic plans advanced at the meeting suggest a trajectory towards closer Vietnam–China integration.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the mechanism aimed to promote ‘the role of key agencies in advancing Vietnam–China relations.’ In January this year, the Vietnamese Communist Party elevated foreign affairs to the status of a ‘key and regular’ mission of the party-state, explaining the presence of the foreign and defence ministers. The participation of the public security ministers reflected a joint recognition of the importance of such functions in maintaining one-party rule in their respective societies.

The conclave was held alongside the 17th meeting of the Vietnam–China Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation. The Chinese ministers were also met by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who was anxious to underline China as ‘a consistent priority’ for Vietnam. Chinh had a long list of areas in which he hoped that greater ministerial cooperation might improve relations, including trade, investment, science and technology, railway connectivity, locality-to-locality ties, and maintaining peace and stability at sea.

Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son, who co-chaired the Steering Committee meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, urged early completion of three railway projects linking the two countries, provision of preferential loans to Vietnam, and technology transfer and workforce training in the railway sector. He also proposed additional Vietnamese trade promotion offices in China to help open further markets for Vietnamese agricultural and aquatic products. Increased energy supply from China was also broached, as were cross-border economic cooperation zones and increased Chinese investment into Vietnam.

In the same week, China’s defence minister, Dong Jun, travelled to the Vietnamese border province of Quang Ninh and held further talks with Vietnam’s defence minister, General Phan Van Giang, in the 10th Vietnam–China Border Defence Friendship Exchange. Chinese and Vietnamese forces also engaged in joint activities in Guangxi, while their naval forces carried out a joint naval patrol and training exercise in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Both sides are pursuing stepped-up engagement. That trend could bind Vietnam more tightly to China’s economy, deepening both dependence and vulnerability. Vietnam’s geography and political system make some reliance on China hard to avoid, despite Hanoi’s repeated emphasis on strategic autonomy. But its longstanding preference is likely to remain hedging, not submission.

For Australia, the key implication is that supporting Vietnam’s diversification is part of a broader effort to strengthen Southeast Asian resilience and reduce the risks of excessive strategic concentration around China.

As China sought greater influence in Vietnam, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the country in 2023 and 2025. Both visits resulted in expanded areas of collaboration and engagement, with the 2025 tour seeing 45 cooperation agreements signed, including on supply chains, AI, joint maritime patrols and railway development.

The Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam, aspiring to a Xi-style joint party secretary–president role, made China his first foreign visit after assuming the paramount party post in August 2024. He has since promoted his ‘comprehensive foreign affairs at a new height’ idea, which aims to create a favourable international environment for national development. This led to the institution of this month’s ministerial mechanism with China and Lam’s visit to Washington in February. There he signed on to President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, with the likely aims of ensuring the US market for Vietnam’s exports and continuing to benefit from supply-chain shifts.

Vietnam’s relations with the United States have developed swiftly following the initiation of their comprehensive strategic partnership in September 2023, again with enthusiasm from both sides. They collaborate on trade, security and diplomatic issues. Intense engagement with US markets and technologies is highly desirable for the development of Vietnam’s economy, and Lam is clearly trying to use diplomacy to shape the international environment in ways conducive to the country’s domestic interests.

Vietnam has long stressed its flexible, resilient and independent ‘bamboo diplomacy’, while its 14th Congress, held in January, highlighted navigating great-power rivalry as the core task of Vietnamese diplomacy. The country has certainly tried to balance economic and security partnerships during intensifying competition, recently signing comprehensive strategic partnerships with New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Britain, bringing the number of such partners to 14.

But Lam’s 2024 visit to China and subsequent visits to Russia and North Korea in 2025 – the latter taking place soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin had been there – suggest that we may be seeing closer Vietnam–China alignment under the current party head.

By Geoff Wade – The Australian Strategic Policy Institute – March 31 , 2026