Hours after delivering the keynote at Asia’s premier safety discussion board, Vietnam’s high chief, Communist Occasion of Vietnam Basic Secretary To Lam, said in an interview that Vietnam “doesn’t strategy [its] relations with main powers by the prism of safety.” For 13 years on the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD), Hanoi has constructed its regional standing on a nontraditional safety agenda that has steadily widened. That agenda started with Nguyen Tan Dung’s 2013 keynote on the SLD and reached its fullest expression in To Lam’s 2026 tackle.
Balancing between the US and China has saved Vietnam protected, nevertheless it has provided little say over the area’s course. Hanoi’s emphasis on nontraditional safety supplies fertile floor to assist form regional preparations with out touching both nice powers’ crimson traces.
On Might 31, 2013, then-Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung turned the primary Vietnamese chief to ship a keynote on the Shangri-La Dialogue. His speech got here lower than a yr after ASEAN had failed, for the primary time in its historical past, to concern a joint communiqué. The July 2012 Phnom Penh assembly had deadlocked over language on the South China Sea.
In his keynote, Nguyen Tan Dung launched “lòng tin chiến lược” (strategic belief), a Vietnamese diplomatic idea for a way Asia-Pacific states ought to handle their safety relationships. He returned to the idea throughout the speech, tying it to nice energy duty and ASEAN’s centrality. He additionally used it to border nontraditional challenges resembling local weather change, pandemics, and water safety.
For the following decade, the Vietnamese voice on the dialogue got here from the Ministry of Nationwide Protection. A succession of protection ministers saved Nguyen Tan Dung’s “strategic belief” framework whereas widening the nontraditional safety agenda.
The 2014 plenary was the clearest illustration of Vietnam’s emphasis on nontraditional safety. Then-Minister of Protection Phung Quang Thanh spoke on Might 31, 2014, weeks after China towed the Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig into waters Vietnam claimed. Though the title of his speech – “Managing strategic tensions” – named the second, Thanh really spoke about transnational crime and maritime security cooperation. Within the midst of a sovereignty disaster, Hanoi selected to speak within the language of cooperation.
By 2025, Minister of Protection and Deputy Prime Minister Phan Van Giang’s plenary confirmed how broad the nontraditional safety agenda had grown. Once more citing strategic belief, he ran by a listing that included pure disasters, pandemics, local weather change, water safety, meals safety, terrorism, drug-related crime, and human trafficking.
To Lam opened the twenty third Shangri-La Dialogue on the night of Might 29, 2026, changing into the second Vietnamese chief after Nguyen Tan Dung to ship a keynote. The 2026 keynote returned to strategic belief and gave it extra weight.
Lam framed regional instability because the product of three foundational crises occurring directly: a disaster of the worldwide order, a disaster of the event mannequin, and a disaster of strategic belief. He positioned the idea Dung had launched on the middle of the prognosis. In his account, strategic belief was the work of managing variations inside rules-based frameworks in order that nice energy competitors stays bounded and predictable.
Lam spoke of the necessity to form “an Asia-Pacific that’s peaceable, steady, resilient and able to mitigating dangers early and from afar.” The precise dangers he talked about included expertise and protection trade norms, AI governance, undersea cable and significant infrastructure resilience, info surroundings cooperation, human safety and societal resilience, and preventive diplomacy capability. His use of “kiến tạo” (proactive building) additionally confirmed the ambition of a rustic that has determined it could actually assist design regional preparations.
One characteristic set 2026 other than 2013. Dung had named the U.S. and China immediately, as the 2 powers with the best duty for the area’s future. In distinction, Lam in 2026 referenced “companions with main affect in and outdoors the area” and “main powers” generally. He condemned coercion and unilateral strikes to create new information on the bottom, and warned towards turning commerce and expertise into devices of stress.
Vietnam’s funding within the nontraditional safety agenda is a response to the regional contest. Competitors between the US and China has narrowed the room obtainable to small and center states throughout the Asia-Pacific. Balancing between the 2, the long-standing flexibility Hanoi calls “bamboo diplomacy” secures Vietnam’s survival but leaves restricted room to form outcomes. Thus, the nontraditional safety agenda is the area the place a state of Vietnam’s weight can attempt to set phrases on the bottom of its selecting.
The agenda opens room for cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and the European Union in areas the place Vietnam faces functionality gaps, together with AI governance, undersea cable safety, cyber norms, and significant infrastructure resilience. These are areas the place arduous‑safety alignment wouldn’t be doable for Vietnam, given its must handle relations with China. It additionally spares Vietnam from taking sides within the China-U.S. contest, which retains its flexibility with each intact.
None of this implies Vietnam has gone comfortable on the arduous questions. Lam restated Vietnam’s South China Sea place with out hedging, and made clear that hotter relations with China and the protection of sovereignty run collectively. In that sense, the nontraditional safety agenda is the bottom Vietnam selected to face on as a result of defending sovereignty, by itself, wins little standing.
Lam’s comment that Vietnam doesn’t view its nice energy relations by the prism of safety was a alternative. The prism he put aside is the one which would depart Hanoi balancing between Washington and Beijing with out finish. A center state has restricted capability to dictate the area’s safety outcomes. What it could actually do is press its framework onto the regional dialog and hope it sticks, and that’s the work Hanoi has spent 13 years on.
Lam’s keynote was an indication of how far that work has come.
