COMMENTARY
(Foreign Policy) RAND Corporation 
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 15, 2023
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS
May 12, 2023
During a ceremony held in Washington to commemorate the Lunar New Year in 2011, then–Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States Le Cong Phung surprised the audience by announcing that the two countries would raise their ties to the level of “strategic partnership.” Phrases describing partnerships can be nebulous, of course. But from what we know about Vietnamese diplomacy, Hanoi’s definition of strategic partnership is not just boilerplate, but signifies concrete, mutual, long-term strategic interests.
Vietnamese officials, however, never followed up on Phung’s newsworthy announcement. Instead, Washington and Hanoi announced a comprehensive partnership in 2013—a relationship that implies a less-serious geopolitical alignment for Vietnam. The United States has been left wondering why.
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