Commentary: Vietnam is courting North Korea – and still winning Western friends

BOSTON, Massachusetts: The pandemic rudely interrupted plans, but Vietnam is finally getting around to reciprocating the 2019 visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the country. Vietnam’s To Lam, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, will travel to North Korea from Thursday (Oct 9), participating in celebrations to mark the 80th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

This is the first time since 2007 that Vietnam’s top communist party chief has travelled to North Korea. Although many policymakers in the West see North Korea as a rogue state due to its nuclear programme and, most recently, its participation in the Russia-Ukraine war, Hanoi considers Pyongyang a vital partner in its multilateral foreign policy. This approach was reflected when Hanoi understood the benefit of being a venue for the second Trump-Kim summit, the occasion of the North Korean leader’s 2019 trip.

This is not to suggest Hanoi’s endorsement of North Korea’s nuclear pursuit or its anti-West foreign policy. North Korea has close relations with Vietnam’s two important partners, China and Russia (China’s Premier Li Qiang and Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev will also be attending the anniversary event in Pyongyang).

Vietnam instead puts the utmost emphasis on maintaining regional stability for economic development and has engaged both sides of the geopolitical fault line to foster dialogue. 

In the span of nine months between September 2023 and June 2024, Vietnam welcomed the top leaders of the United States, China and Russia. China’s President Xi Jinping went to Vietnam again in April this year. A month later, Japan’s Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru visited. In August, Lam travelled to South Korea, where he pledged support for President Lee Jae-myung’s efforts to revive inter-Korean talks.

PUNCHING ABOVE ITS WEIGHT

The Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index 2024 noted that Hanoi punched above its weight when it comes to diplomatic influence. North Korea values its relations with Hanoi, so much so that Lam was still invited to the Workers’ Party anniversary event despite having just visited South Korea to ink a US$250 million arms deal with Seoul. 

Vietnam will also host a US$1.5 billion investment plan from the Trump organisation and local partners to build golf courses and hotels, a connection seen as significant amid talk of the possibility of another Trump-Kim summit in one of Trump’s properties.

So long as Pyongyang continues shunning talks with Seoul, Hanoi may even assume the type of shuttle diplomacy role played by South Korea’s former president Moon Jae-in between North Korea and the United States in any diplomatic process. When North Korea designated the South as the “principal enemy” in October last year, Vietnam urged restraint and dialogue between the two Koreas.

North Korea resumed post-COVID-19 pandemic high-level exchanges with Vietnam in 2024. In March 2024, Pyongyang sent a Workers’ Party international department delegation to Vietnam and Laos (Laotian President Thongloun Sisoulith will also be visiting North Korea for the anniversary). In September and October last year, North Korea hosted two meetings with Vietnam’s deputy ministers from the National Defence and Foreign ministries.

Besides raising its international profile, Vietnam would benefit from a US-North Korea deal that lifted international sanctions on Pyongyang. Vietnam-North Korea economic exchanges presently centre on agriculture, sports, and tourism, which do not violate international sanctions. Vietnam also sought to repatriate North Korean overseas labourers even when it was improving ties with Pyongyang. Bilateral trade, however, is less than US$20 million per year, so has considerable opportunity to grow should circumstances change.

VIETNAM'S ROLE IN A POLARISED WORLD

Vietnamese businesses want to expand their footprint in North Korea, and such investment would be essential to boosting trade. Vietnam’s experience with managing the private sector and state-owned enterprises would also be helpful in the North Korean context.

Military cooperation is another area of potential. Vietnamese and North Korean armed forces have prioritised ideological and language training and avoided discussing military technology exchanges due to sanctions. Vietnam recently established a new artillery and missile command and it wants to extend the range of its Scud-B missiles. Vietnam’s military stands to gain substantially from North Korea’s experience with modernising its Soviet weapons stockpile if sanctions are lifted.

Lam’s North Korea visit is telling of how Vietnam sees a role for itself in a more polarised world. Vietnam has voiced its willingness to host other summits of global importance, such as another between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. 

For a middle power like Vietnam, asserting its agency by military power alone will not be enough. An elevated international profile based on a multilateral foreign policy will go a long way.

Khang Vu is a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at Boston College. This commentary first appeared on Lowy Institute’s blog, The Interpreter.