Thayer Consultancy Background Brief:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

China-Vietnam Relations: Who
Is Atop the Pecking Order?

December 19, 2023

We request your assessment of Vietnam’s elevation of relations with China during

President/General Secretary Xi Jinping’s visit to Hanoi last week.
Q1. Reports state that Vietnam elevated its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
(CSP) with China to one that seeks to promote “a community with a shared future of
strategic significance (common destiny)”. Does this give China an “advantage” over
Vietnam’s other CSP partners?
ANSWER: It is my assessment that China elevated Vietnam to the top tier of its foreign
policy hierarchy not the other way around. Over a decade ago Vietnam designated
China as its first “comprehensive strategic cooperative partner,” a designation a cut
above the other comprehensive strategic partners.
If we take a close look at the wording of the Vietnam-China joint statement on
“community with a shared future that carries strategic significance” it merely notes
that Vietnam “welcomes a viewpoint” and “is willing to participate in specific
cooperation projects within the framework of the global development initiative in line
with Vietnam’s capacity, conditions and demand.”
Q2. Some quarters have also suggested that Vietnam initially resisted adding this
phrase. Is there any truth to this suggestion and, if so, why did Vietnam eventually
include the phrase?
ANSWER: There are credible reports Xi Jinping raised this initiative during his visit to
Hanoi in 2017. There is also credible media reporting that the final wording of the 2023
joint statement was delayed until consensus was reached on this point. Vietnam gave
only a general commitment to the “common community” and Xi’s Global
Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilisation Initiative.
Q3. Vietnam now has six CSP partners - Russia, China, India, South Kore, Japan and the
US. Is it possible for Hanoi to keep an even keel with all six partners? And is there any
sense that Vietnam has “devalued” its highest level of partnership?
ANSWER: Vietnam has not devalued its highest level of partnership. Rather it removed
long-standing rigidities in its 2003 policy of “cooperation and struggle” that privileged
China, Russia and India over the United States, Japan and South Korea.
 2

Australia is likely to become the seventh comprehensive strategic partner in March

2024. This suits Vietnam’s policy of “multilateralisation and diversification” of
relations.
Q4. How would you characterise Sino-Vietnam relations?
ANSWER: Vietnam’s acknowledgement of Xi’s “community with a shared future that
carries strategic significance” can be characterized as making a virtue out of necessity.
Vietnam must maintain manageable good relations with China because of their
geographical proximity and economic interdependence. The joint statement is not a
commitment to a new alignment with China so much as a catalogue of cooperative
activities that have been underway for several years or are being planned topped by
diplomatic window dressing. The future will be charted with care, and the devil will be
in the detail.

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “China-Vietnam Relations: Who Is Atop the

Pecking Order?,” Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, December 19, 2023. All
background briefs are posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer.. To remove yourself
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Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and
other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially
registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.