Vietnam is considered one of the few countries that have successfully maintained a balance between the competition for influence between the US and China in Southeast Asia. This success stems from upgrading relations with the US to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” and agreeing to build a “Community of Shared Future” with China in 2023. Regional scholars often explain this success using keywords such as “multilateralization and diversification” in foreign policy, the art of “bamboo diplomacy,” or the policy-making capacity of its leadership. These factors are true, but incomplete. A less-noticed but crucial element contributing to Vietnam’s resilience is the Vietnamese language.
Indeed, language might seem to have little connection to geopolitical competition. However, in the context of the escalating US-China rivalry extending to media and social perceptions, language has become a policy testing ground. Consequently, Vietnamese has inadvertently become a strong shield helping Vietnam mitigate the impact of great power competition and protect its sovereign space.
Vietnamese creates an information “filter.”
Unlike the Philippines or Singapore, where English allows US policy messages, leadership speeches, and media campaigns to reach the public almost directly, Vietnam’s information environment operates on a different logic. Similarly, in Chinese-speaking communities like Singapore or Taiwan, linguistic similarities facilitate the rapid spread and wider influence of discourse originating from China.
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In the case of Vietnam, the Vietnamese language inadvertently acts as a “filter” for information competition between major powers. As the primary language used within the national territory, Vietnamese means that the majority of the population accesses international issues through the Vietnamese-language press and content platforms, rather than directly from foreign sources. This means that messages from the US or China are unlikely to reach the public directly but must go through a process of translation, information filtering, and interpretation by domestic media outlets.
This mechanism is also a process of shaping discourse. For example, at the US-China summit in May 2026 or the APEC sideline meeting in late 2025, American media focused on disagreements related to the Taiwan Strait or technological competition. Meanwhile, Chinese media emphasized the argument that the US is pursuing a policy of containment and pressure. In contrast to this opposing viewpoint, Vietnamese media chose a different approach. Based on information from the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and many other media outlets such as Tuoi Tre Newspaper, Thanh Nien Newspaper, and VnExpress, the trend in reporting has been to omit confrontational or mutually aggressive statements between the US and China. Instead, these newspapers emphasized content such as maintaining dialogue, managing disagreements, and avoiding escalating competition into conflict.
This approach to information dissemination reflects Vietnam’s priority in maintaining a stable external environment. By preventing domestic public opinion from being swept up in confrontational rhetoric between the two superpowers, the media system contributes to reinforcing awareness and painting a picture that the US-China competition, while intense, is being managed through dialogue and diplomatic mechanisms.
“Vietnamizing” the discourses of the United States and China.
One point to note in the US-China rivalry is that both sides want other countries to accept their definitions of regional order. For example, the US promotes the term “rules-based international order,” while China promotes the concept of a “Community of Shared Destiny.” If a country chooses to directly use this concept in a joint statement, the likelihood of being drawn into the competition is greater. Vietnam avoids this by maintaining the “Vietnamization” of political concepts using the Vietnamese language.
This is evident in how Vietnam handles the concept of a “rules-based international order.” While this term is commonly used in many U.S. policies and by many Western partners, Vietnamese official documents choose to avoid using it directly. In the 2023 Joint Statement on the Vietnam-U.S. Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the Vietnamese government chose to emphasize the principles of the UN Charter and international law in general. It shifted the focus from a concept often viewed by China as being linked to geopolitical competition to a widely recognized legal framework. As a result, Vietnam continues to protect its core interests while avoiding being perceived as taking sides in the competition between great powers.
Vietnam also did not fully accept the original meaning of China’s “Community of Shared Destiny” discourse. In the 2023 and 2025 Vietnam-China Joint Statements, the two sides only agreed to build a “Vietnam-China Community of Shared Future with Strategic Significance” as a way of expressing it within the framework of bilateral relations, rather than accepting the full political content of the concept that China pursues at the global level. At the same time, in subsequent official statements and documents, Vietnam consistently affirmed the principles of independence, self-reliance, multilateralism, diversification of foreign relations, and non-participation in military alliances. This reinterpretation of these concepts creates a characteristic of Vietnamese foreign policy: not rejecting initiatives from major powers but also not allowing those initiatives to become the frame of reference for its own policies.
Regarding diplomatic discourse
Furthermore, a prominent characteristic of Vietnam’s foreign policy is its ability to maintain consistency in its discourse. This is quite evident in the statements of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding turbulent events. Whether concerning the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, or regional conflicts, official statements are typically structured in a familiar way: first, a statement stating “Vietnam is deeply concerned…” (Việt Nam quan ngại sâu sắc), followed by affirmations such as “calling on all parties to exercise restraint” (kêu các bên kiềm chế), “not to complicate the situation” (không làm phức tạp tình hình), “respecting international law” (tôn trọng luật pháp quốc tế), and “resolving disputes peacefully” (giải quyết tranh chấp bằng biện pháp hòa bình). This structure has been repeated for many years and applied consistently, regardless of whether the parties involved are the United States, China, or other countries. This demonstrates Vietnam’s preference for upholding principles rather than using confrontational language with a specific entity.
At the strategic level, Vietnam has also developed a unique conceptual system to shape its approach to the international environment. This can be seen in the Party Congress documents—the highest policy documents outlining Vietnam’s foreign policy. From the 11th, 12th, and 12th Congresses of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2011, 2016, and 2022, new terms have been continuously added, such as “independence and self-reliance” (độc lập, tự chủ); “multilateralization and diversification” (đa phương hóa, đa dạng hóa); “national interests” (lợi ích quốc gia – dân tộc); “not choosing sides” (không chọn bên); “being a friend, a reliable partner, and a responsible member of the international community” (là bạn, là đối tác tin cậy và là thành viên có trách nhiệm của cộng đồng quốc tế); and “bamboo diplomacy” (ngoại giao cây tre). These are both political slogans and the language that defines how Vietnam interprets its national interests, defines its position, and consistently conveys its foreign policy message.
That is also why Hanoi can simultaneously emphasize its relationship with the US based on shared interests while affirming its priority of developing friendly relations with China, without creating a contradiction in its foreign policy message.
However, this advantage will not last forever.
However, the value of the Vietnamese language in the face of competition between the two superpowers is not immutable. The rapid development of artificial intelligence, translation technology, and content creation platforms is eroding it. This does not mean that Vietnamese will lose its strategic role, but the advantages it offers will increasingly diminish. As translation costs approach zero and language barriers decrease, the decisive factor will no longer be the ability to “filter” information from outside, but rather the capacity to shape, verify, and guide information in Vietnamese. In other words, the challenge for the Vietnamese language is shifting to how to more effectively censor information.
