In mid-April, Vietnam’s top leader Tô Lâm will visit China;this meeting is going to signal a change that goes well beyond normal administrative reshuffling in the theater of Vietnamese politics. Then, on April 7, the National Assembly’s unanimous election of Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm as State President did not just fill a vacancy: it effectively dismantled the “four pillars” system — the model of collective leadership that has governed Vietnam since the end of the Cold War. By consolidating party and state power in one set of hands, Hanoi is heading toward a governance architecture like that of Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic of China.
However, this is only one side of the power consolidation. Meanwhile, a deepening of defense ties with Beijing indicates that Vietnam’s famous “bamboo diplomacy” — its ability to bend with the wind while staying firmly planted in neutrality — is being put to the test by a new, less flexible geopolitical environment.
The Collapse of Four Pillars
For decades, Vietnam’s political stability had depended on a deliberate distribution of power between these four pillars mentioned above. The “Four Pillars” in Vietnam refer to the top-tier, collective leadership structure comprising the General Secretary of the Communist Party, State President, Prime Minister, and National Assembly Chairperson. The main purpose of this system is to enforce consensus-based governance to prevent emergence of the strongman and dictatorial rule, although recent shifts have seen increased power concentration within the hand of General Secretary.
Tô Lâm’s promotion has effectively put an end to this traditional system. Tô Lâm, an official from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), is the chief implementer of his predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong’s “blazing furnace”- an anti-corruption crackdown campaign in Vietnam initiated by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and now driven by current leader Lâm. This campaign, despite being well-received by fed-up public, was also used by the security state as a means of absorbing the entire political system into its fold.
This 69-year-old leader wields the strongest mandate of any Vietnamese politician since the early Doi Moi era of the 1980s, following his re-election as general secretary in January 2026 and his subsequent unanimous election as president.
Ambition vs. Reality: The 10 percent Hurdle
The rationale behind the merger can be seen as the absolute necessity for efficiency in the government system. As Lâm has noted, he has placed all his hopes on achieving a 10 percent annual GDP growth rate, which he aims to maintain over the next five years. The idea behind the project involves transforming the current labour-intensive, export-oriented economy into a technologically advanced one.
Nevertheless, the implementation preconditions are anything but cooperative. According to the first-quarter statistics of 2026, the economy grew by 7.83 percent, which is quite an impressive achievement, yet considerably lower than the planned 9.1 percent growth rate agreed upon during the January congress.
The main reason for such low performance can be attributed to the energy crisis that occurred as a result of the war in the Middle East (Iran). Almost all Southeast Asian countries are dependent on the Middle East’s oil. As the largest importer of oil and a pivotal link in China-plus-one production chains, Vietnam finds itself particularly vulnerable to the situation. Inflation rates increased to 4.65 percent in March due to high fuel prices, while on the other hand, increased transportation and electricity costs eat away all the margin of manufacturing gains.
The Beijing Alignment
The Vietnam’s economic struggles paved the way for a second, even more dangerous change. Like that, on April 6, Vietnam’s Defense Minister, General Phan Van Giang, visited Chinese Ambassador He Wei in Hanoi to commend the deepening of practical defense ties. This comes after the successful conclusion of the first “3 + 3” Strategic Dialogue held in March. This forum, a ministerial-level meeting on foreign affairs, defense, and public security, was a groundbreaking move for both nations, marking the first time that Vietnam has engaged in institutionalized security cooperation with any other country beyond what is required by the US to maintain its favour.
Additionally, Chinese companies are now leading in the number of new projects as they shift production to Vietnam to bypass Western tariffs. In 2025, Chinese investment grew nearly 80 percent in Asia, almost 34.36 billion USD in ASEAN, making it the second-largest investor.
However, the irony is difficult to ignore. Despite being Vietnam’s biggest competitor in the South China Sea and an arch-rival in history, Beijing now appears to be indispensable for Vietnam’s very existence as energy prices climb and demand from the West slows down.
The Risk of a “Comfortable” Direction
The operational logic remains consistent with Vietnam’s long-standing hedging strategy: extract maximum leverage from strategic ambiguity. However, the nature of that ambiguity is changing.
In the past, Vietnam’s ambiguity favoured the West; it was the “not-China” destination for capital seeking to escape the geopolitical risks of the People’s Republic of China. Now, a government with concentrated executive authority, ambitious growth targets it is currently missing, and an explicit security alignment with Beijing complicates that narrative.
For Washington, moreover, the situation is a “silent” crisis. Vietnam is not becoming a Chinese proxy, but it is moving toward a governance style and a security posture that makes it a less reliable partner on anyone in the Indo-Pacific. Interestingly, the risk is that the “bamboo” is no longer bending toward the West, but toward a new regional order where the lines between Hanoi and Beijing are becoming blurred.
As Tô Lâm begins his dual-hatted five-year term – officially confirmed as Party General Secretary in January 2026 and as President in April 2026, he faces a delicate balancing act. He must deliver on his promises of hyper-growth to maintain internal legitimacy while navigating a world where “strategic ambiguity” may no longer be a viable defense against the gravitational pull of the North. For the international community, the question is no longer whether Vietnam will reform, but which side of the geopolitical fence it will call home when the “four pillars” are gone forever.
