Sitting in silence or standing in protests: endogenous dynamics behind Vietnam foreign policy and the 2014 oil rig crisis

Abstract

China’s military rise and increased assertiveness in the South China Sea are thought to have incentivised smaller claimant states to balance against growing threats. Cited as a prime example of this development was the 2014 Sino-Vietnam oil rig crisis, in which Beijing’s provocation compelled Hanoi to adopt a tougher stance and reach out to other powers for leverage. From a broadly realist vantage, China’s provocation is seen as manifesting an exogenous shock to the balance of power, prompting Vietnam’s foreign policy adaptation. However, this view is lacking to the extent that it overrates how security incentives are self-evident without being shaped by domestic contestation. To redress these oversights, this article offers an agent-centred historical institutionalist account of the 2014 oil rig crisis, stressing the role of gradual endogenous developments in instigating foreign policy change. I argue that for Hanoi to endorse a strong position against Beijing during the 2014 oil rig crisis, the country’s foreign policy institution needed to go through a decade-long process of incremental transformation, advocated by the increasingly influential nationalist revisionist camp within the Party. Findings from this article demonstrate the need to engage with deeper socio-political contexts of small states to better understand developments in one of Asia’s most dangerous flashpoints.

Keywords:

• South China Sea disputes
• 2014 China-Vietnam oil rig crisis
• Haiyang Shiyou 981
• agent-centred historical institutionalism
• Vietnam's foreign policy
• China-Vietnam relations

Introduction

Scholarly analyses of South China Sea (SCS) disputes over the past decade have been primarily framed with respect to concerns for China’s increasing military power and the subsequent efforts of regional states to balance against this growing threat (Dillon, 2011; Regilme, 2018; Yahuda, 2013). Sino-Vietnam relations are specifically studied through this same prism. In 2014, China unilaterally deployed a one-billion-dollar oil rig accompanied by armed naval ships and coast guard vessels to drill for hydrocarbons near the disputed Paracel Islands within Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Against this provocation, Vietnam offered a strong response. After an intense standoff at sea that lasted for 75 days, a diplomatic feud that sparked international concern, and waves of public protests, China withdrew the rig one month earlier than planned, claiming it had completed its mission (Zhou, 2016, p. 886). In the aftermath of the crisis, Vietnam lessened its fear of antagonising Beijing to strengthen security cooperation with China’s rivals, as seen most clearly in the rapprochement of US-Vietnam relations later that year.

The event mentioned is known as the 2014 China-Vietnam oil crisis, or the Haiyang Shiyou 981 (HYSY-981) standoff (named for China’s oil rig) and is widely considered to be a major turning point, marking both a rise in tensions in the SCS and a subsequent change to Vietnamese foreign policy and alignment tendency (Le, 2016; T. T. Nguyen & Vu, 2018; Taylor, 2018, p. 107; A. Vuving, 2021). Most existing research, drawing on structural realist insights, deemed that the crisis has sent a clear message to Vietnamese leaders about the growing stature of Chinese forces as well as China’s increased willingness to put those forces in use. In other words, it signified a shift in the balance of power and the balance of threat, incentivising Vietnam to align with China’s adversaries to shield itself from Chinese ambition. However, in relying on the notion of an exogenous shock, such explanations are limited to the extent that they fail to account for why Hanoi did not retaliate as strongly during past incidents, considering China’s ‘bullying’ is not new phenomenon. This narrative also paints a rather simplistic view of policy change as happening overnight in the wake of a crisis. Most importantly, in highlighting structural causes of policy change, prominent accounts reduce agents’ capability to strategic adaptation and obscure how endogenous dynamics could contribute to reform.

These limitations call for a need to re-examine the issue via a new lens. My research addresses the question of what explains the Vietnamese government’s move towards an assertive stance during the 2014 China-Vietnam oil rig crisis. To tackle this question in a manner that accounts for endogenous influences, I adopt an agent-centred historical institutionalist approach that emphasise active agency within institutional environment constituted by past choices. My framework builds on James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen’s model of gradual institutional change rooted in agential contestations to interrogate the evolution of Vietnam’s foreign policy institution. Stephen Bell’s insights on agents’ capabilities to transform its institutional environment is also incorporated for an analysis of how Vietnam’s strong response in 2014 was materialised.

Applying the framework, the article argues that Vietnam’s move to a strong stance against China in the SCS disputes during and after the 2014 oil rig crisis resulted from incremental efforts by the then-powerful nationalist revisionist camp within the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). Vietnamese foreign policy vis-à-vis China, to a large extent, reflected the struggles between two major factions within the VCP: the ideological conservatives who favour a close-knit relationship with Communist China and the nationalist revisionists who are suspicious of China’s territorial ambition and prefer strengthening relations with other major powers to counter China’s influence. Since re-establishing diplomatic relations with China in 1991, the conservatives had put in place and continuously supported a conciliatory approach in dealing with clashes of interests with the PRC. I argue that the weakening of conservative forces in the early 2000s and the subsequent rise of the nationalist faction, most decisively in the early 2010s, gradually transformed the Party’s tradition of appeasement to a more vocal and active approach aiming at countering China’s assertiveness.

This research contributes to the study of crises in the SCS specifically and regional security more generally in several important ways. Firstly, it addresses a ‘great power partisanship’ in the literature, which is heavily skewed toward decoding China’s intentions. As this will be elaborated in the literature review, such a bias exists not only because China is regarded as the most important player in the conflict but also because structural realist frameworks tend to see small countries’ responses as natural consequences of external pressures that are neither puzzling nor worth examining. Secondly, in demonstrating how Vietnam, a supposedly ‘passive’ actor in the crisis, actively contributes to shaping its dynamics, the research motivates and provides a model framework for research to engage with deeper socio-political contexts of small countries to better understand developments in one of Asia’s most dangerous flashpoints. Reflecting these contributions, this research draws upon various Vietnamese and English primary and secondary sources, including key policy papers and resolutions, government reports, news articles by government-controlled and independent outlets, memoirs of retired officials, WikiLeaks documents, and scholarly writing on the topic.

Influence of structural realism in the extant literature and a case for a new approach

Neorealist insights heavily influence the SCS crisis literature (Chen, 2016, p. 189). The approach stresses the constrictive effect that structure of the international system, characterised by anarchy and the distribution of capabilities, have on states’ behaviours. While anarchy is a constant characteristic that motivates states to struggle for relative power to survive, the distribution of material capabilities varies over time and often provokes strategic change (Waltz, 1979). Applied to this case, change to Vietnam’s foreign policy and alignment tendency in 2014 needs to be understood in the broader context of shifts in the global balance of power, specifically China’s economic and military rise at the end of the 2000s.

From this perspective, China’s rise is an important structural change that incentivised Hanoi to enhance cooperation with China’s adversaries to protect itself from domination by a predatory power. Stephen Walt’s (1985) ‘balance of threat’ theory helps to explain further why the crisis played a major role in triggering Vietnam’s strategic turn. According to Walt (1985), alignment tendencies of countries are not determined by power alone but by their perception of threats. During the oil rig crisis, China’s provocation in the SCS informed the Vietnamese leadership of Beijing’s offensive capabilities and intentions. This, combined with aggregated strength and geographical proximity, has made China an even more credible threat than Vietnam’s former enemy in the capitalist world, prompting them to balance against China regardless of the hefty price on bilateral relations. In other words, Vietnam’s foreign policy shift in 2014 is a result of structural change (in the balance of power and balance of threat) triggered by an exogenous shock (the oil rig standoff).

Although not often explicitly stated, most literature endorses this explanation (Le, 2016; T. T. Nguyen & Vu, 2018; Thayer, 2016; Thiele, 2017; A. Vuving, 2021). Vietnam’s strong response in this instance is, thereby, considered as a natural and immediate consequence of exogenous pressures. From this vantage, the real puzzle lies not in the characteristics of Vietnam’s response, but in the external environment that causes it. Therefore, it is no surprise that most researchers are more interested in decoding China’s offensive move (Long, 2016; Panda, 2014; Ramadhani, 2019; Thayer, 2014b; Tsering, 2017; A. L. Vuving, 2014; Zhou, 2016). While there is no denying that these literatures make principal contribution to the understanding of the crisis, approaching the issue from the same theoretical angle have made extant analysis heavily imbalanced and share similar shortcomings. Most critically, in relying solely on exogenous shocks as a vehicle to explain policy change, they overrate the extent to which security incentives are self-evident and can be interpreted outside the context of domestic contestation. Changes induced by structural factors presented in these assessments are also heavily idealised in a sense that crisis can abruptly and effectively ends past policy order and immediately gives rise to new ones.

This calls for a need to re-examine Vietnam’s changed policy via a different lens that explore the domestic environment in which changes were yielded, not to substitute structural explanations but rather to fill the gap and enrich existing narrative of the crisis and Vietnam foreign policy. Many approaches offer mechanism for studying endogenous dynamics. Huang Chiung-Chiu’s (2020) recent study uses role theory to explain how Vietnam’s China policy can be assertive at times while accommodating at others by pointing to contestation between ‘elites and masses regarding role selection.’ Neoclassical realism, in incorporating systemic incentives with domestic determinants, could also provide an endogenous assessment of Vietnam’s crisis response by evaluating factors such as elite consensus, regime vulnerability, social cohesion and others (Ripsman et al., 2016; Schweller, 2004). These approaches have their merits, however, hold a generally atemporal view of political agents, who are deemed capable of making rational decisions unconstraint by history and prior choices. In this research, I advance an agent-centred historical institutionalist approach, which not only allows for an investigation into domestic politics but situates that politics in a pre-existing institutional environment constituted by past policy. The following section will further explain key concepts of agent-centred historical institutionalism and specify how the approach can help guide the investigation of empirics and answer the research question.

The analytical framework: agent-centred historical institutionalism

Historical institutionalism is a method of studying institutions that emphasise how historical legacies of institutions can influence groups and individuals’ behaviour (Fioretos, Falleti, & Sheingate, 2016). In simpler terms, prior choices have effects on later choices, be it constraining or enabling. Timing and sequencing, thereby, matter in historical institutionalist analysis. Within this tradition are two different types of approaches. The first strand views institutional legacies as sticky and self-reinforcing, explaining why institutions tend to stay the same (Pierson, 2000). Powerful as a tool to investigate continuity, this strand of the theory is similarly lacking in its aptitude to explicate change like other structural approaches. More suitable for this research is perhaps the second strand, known as agent-centred historical institutionalism. This approach focuses on ‘active agency within institutional settings,’ noting how agents can be shaped, but not wholly determined by their institutional environment and have the ability to defy past conditioning (Bell, 2011). By rejecting forms of institutional determinism, the agent-centred account of the institution is more flexible and susceptible to change.

Advancing along this line, Mahoney and Thelen (2010) devised a general model of gradual institutional change rooted in agential contestations. Defined as ‘distributional instrument,’ institution can carry ‘unequal implications for resource allocation’ (Hall, 1986; Mahoney & Thelen, 2010, p. 8; Skocpol, 1995). Such makes institution a breeding ground for conflict, as groups dissatisfied with the current arrangements seek to transform the institution while satisfied groups wish to defend the status quo. In the context of such push and pull, immediate paradigm shifts are less likely than small, accumulative changes. There are four forms of gradual institutional change: displacement, layering, drift, and conversion (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). The political context (veto possibilities) and characteristics of the institutions (level of discretion in interpretation and enactment) at a given time are two factors that determine the type of gradual change that can occur (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). Later examination of the empirical case reveals that two changes via displacement in 1991 and 2003, one via conversion in 2014, were the most consequential for Vietnam’s foreign policy institution in respect to China’s relations and the South China Sea. Displacement is the removal of old rules and introduction new ones, while conversion is the redeployment of old rules for changed impacts. Both types of change make direct changes to the old institutions through active replacement and enactment of rules, thereby requiring a supportive political environment with weak veto possibilities (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010, pp. 16–18). The difference is that conversion requires a higher level of discretion in the interpretation and enactment of rules for the strategy to be materialised, whereas institutional settings with less room for discretion may need outright displacement to inflict change.

Deepening the analysis of agency and institutional change, Stephen Bell (2011, pp. 893–895) specified three capabilities of agents that allow them to work around institutional constraints and bring about change: (1) agents’ ability to reconstruct the ‘experience of their institutional situation’; (2) agent’s ability to reinterpret or manoeuvre around institutional rules without breaking them, also known as bounded discretion; (3) agents’ ability to exploit their institutional positions and resources to make institutions more enabling than constraining. To unpack the empirical question about Vietnam’s changed tactics during the 2014 oil-rig crisis, this research applies Mahoney and Thelen’s theory of gradual change to map out the evolution of Vietnam’s leading foreign policy up until 2014, then adds Bell’s insights to generate an in-depth analysis of the change via conversion in 2014, since this event is the focus of the research. Adding Bell’s notion of interpretive agency and bounded discretion also helps counter Mahoney and Thelen’s theory, which may have progressed too far in the direction of perfectly rational agents divorced from idea and institutionally unbounded. Such a combination results in an eclectic framework of analysis, a crossroad between structure and agent, material and ideas that realistically portrays the complexity and messiness of domestic institutions (Sil & Katzenstein, 2010, p. 21).

Vietnamese agency: ideological conservatives vs. nationalist revisionists

Vietnamese foreign policy is by principle a product of the VCP’s collective leadership. This does not necessarily mean that fragmentation does not exist amongst the VCP in the foreign policy space, but only mean that competing groups need to reach a compromise before formally pronounce a policy. Examining the innerworkings of the VCP’s decision-making process, the divide between conservatives/anti-imperialists/ideologues and modernisers/integrationists/rent-seekers is well-known and has been studied vastly by country experts (Elliott, 2014; A. L. Vuving, 2006). Although these binaries provide a critical foundation for examining Vietnam’s political environment, their implications for issues of national security and sovereignty are narrow since they mainly reflect leaders’ divergence over economic and development models. Do Thanh Hai (2017), drawing inspiration from Carlyle A. Thayer’s work (1994) on Vietnamese foreign policy thinking in the post-Cold War era, has provided a version of this binary that focuses on foreign policy matters and the SCS disputes. According to Do (2017, pp. 13–26), the ideological conservatives in the VCP prefer bandwagoning with China as the only remaining Communist great power to secure its regime, while the nationalist pragmatists are more inclined to foster relations with great powers beyond the socialist bloc in pursuit of a hedging strategy aiming at cautiously containing China’s assertiveness. Do argues that the two groups do not conflict with one another in terms of goal, as both groups seek to maintain one-party rule and preserve Vietnam’s independence. Nevertheless, they assign these goals different weights and have different outlooks about how to best achieve them.

More specifically, the ideological conservatives stress the role of Marxist-Leninist ideology in maintaining one-party rule and prioritising regime survival. They are often associated with those whose career and current positions are in the Party apparatus and military officials (Do, 2017, p. 15). This group generally favours closer relations with China, who they view as an ideological ally that ‘no matter how expansionist, is still a socialist country’ at the end of the day (Q. C. Tran, 2003, p. 31). Meanwhile, fearful of ‘peaceful revolution,’ or the prospect of being gradually overthrown by plots induced by Western democracies and other anti-communist forces, conservatives are reluctant to cooperate with the West. In the context of the SCS dispute, the conservatives advocate ignoring minor conflicts for the sake of ‘the big picture’ (đại cục) or national and regime stability in which warm relation with China plays a significant role (Thayer, 1994, p. 525). However, conservatives’ deference tendency does not equate with subordination or giving away Vietnam’s sovereignty or autonomy in exchange for socialist solidarity; instead, it needs to be understood as a more sophisticated strategy with deep historical roots (Do, 2017, p. 16). Since feudal times, rulers of Vietnam have engaged in a hierarchic tributary system and other symbolic reverence to the Chinese emperors to acknowledge China’s regional superiority and, thus, maintain its autonomy (Womack, 2006, pp. 39–40). Conflicts may come and go to conservatives, but Vietnam would forever be China’s neighbour. Therefore, although they are determined to protect Vietnam’s territorial and maritime sovereignty, they would nevertheless be subtle in their opposition by keeping protests quiet and seeking to settle disputes behind closed doors through Party’s channel. Conservatives would also refrain from publicising incidents in the press to avoid evoking anti-China sentiment in the country and suppress nationalist demonstrations, not only because of their damaging effects on bilateral relations but also for their potential to develop into pro-democracy movements that undermine Party’s control.

The nationalist pragmatists, on the other hand, stress the role of economic development in legitimising one-party rule and favouring a foreign policy based on national interests. They often consist of people whose careers and positions are in the state bureaucracy and officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Do, 2017, p. 19). This group is generally suspicious of Beijing’s territorial ambitions. Like the conservatives, apart from strategic considerations and personal interests, nationalists’ thinking is also deeply rooted in past trauma from the multiple invading attempts of imperial China. ‘Diversification and multilateralisation’ (đa dạng hoá, đa phương hoá) of international relations is a key objective for the nationalist to leverage Hanoi’s position while simultaneously relieving its economic dependence on Beijing. This approach is translated to nationalists’ dealings with SCS issues. Oil and other natural resources here are vital to Vietnam’s development and the interests of state-owned enterprises. Considering how much emphasis the revisionists place on economic growth and their inherent suspicion of Beijing, it is difficult for these leaders to overlook ‘small conflicts’ in the SCS. The nationalists oppose conservatives’ conciliatory approach, believing that party-to-party negotiation inevitably puts Vietnam in a disadvantageous position and allows for the two-faced Beijing to use ‘socialism as a rope to tie Vietnam’s hands’ (Thayer, 1994, p. 525). Instead, they preferred to make the issue public to garner international support, particularly from China’s rival powers such as the US, Japan, India, Australia and the EU. Additionally, ASEAN offers a platform through which Vietnam’s bargaining power vis-à-vis China is enhanced. While patriots in the Party may endorse indirect balancing as part of their hedging strategy, they generally refrain from entering a formal military alliance to oppose Beijing as the torment of being caught up in great power politics during the Cold War remains vivid in the Vietnamese collective memory (Do, 2017, p. 21; Le, 2018, p. 8).

Although Do’s devised binary is a sophisticated one that proved fitting for this research, several moderations in terminologies will be made prior to integration in the analysis. Firstly, instead of labelling the nationalist as ‘pragmatists,’ this paper will refer to this group as either nationalist or nationalist revisionist. As Do himself noted, both the nationalists and idealogues practice pragmatism to a certain degree. It shall also be later demonstrated in the study of Vietnamese response during the 2014 crisis that the nationalist ‘pragmatists’ are not always pragmatic, nor are they any more pragmatic than the conservatives. Using the term ‘revisionist’ could avoid implying such a bias and better connects to the existing literature on factions in the VCP. Do also links each camp to a preferred strategy, with the conservatives preferring to jump on the bandwagon with China and the nationalists seeking a hedging strategy. However, I argue that hedging, a tactic that simultaneously deployed engagement policies and indirect balancing policies (Goh, 2006, p. 1), encapsulates different measures pursued by both camps rather than the nationalists alone since the conservatives also play a critical role in fostering engagement. Instead, I will refer to nationalists’ strategy in the SCS as indirect balancing, to contrast with the conservative tradition of deference, all while recognising that the two share common grounds in wanting to engage with China when presented with the opportunities. Due to the limited scope of the article, I will focus on exploring the dynamic between these actors in the highest level of authority of the VCP only, that is, the Central Committee and its sub-body, the Political Bureau (short as the Politburo) (Table 1).

Table 1. Different political agents in the VCP and their foreign policy preferences.

Types of political agents in the VCP	Members	Foreign policy outlook	Policy preference in the SCS	Pragmatism within policy
Ideological Conservative	Party’s officials and the MOD	China is an important ideological ally	Ignore minor conflicts to preserve Sino-Vietnam comradeship. Keep protests low-key	Acknowledge China’s superiority to preserve Vietnam’s independence
Nationalist Revisionist	Government officials and the MOFA	China’s territorial ambitions are biggest challenge to Vietnam. Seek non- communist support.	Make the issue public and advocate for international support to deter Beijing’s ambition	Endorse indirect balancing but resist formal alliances or collusion against China

Incremental developments of Vietnamese foreign policy in the SCS prior to the 2014 oil rig crisis

Ideology-based foreign policy and conciliation in the SCS (1991–2000)

In 1991, the PRC and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam officially re-established state and party relations. This marks a transformation of Vietnamese foreign policy vis-à-vis China from a confrontational stance adopted by Le Duan after the Sino-Vietnam border war in 1979 to a cooperative attitude based on shared ideology. In this period, Vietnam’s foreign policy institution was still nascent and built mainly in the image of its paramount leader, thus; it had a relatively low level of discretion in interpretating and enforcing of policies. A prime example of this rigidity is the extreme labelling of China as an ‘imperial expansionist power’ and threat to security in the constitution’s preamble. The demise of Le Duan in 1986 and the rising influence of the conservatives presented an opportunity for change. Given the lack of institutional flexibility at the time, the outright removal of old rules and replacement of new ones was the necessary choice forward. In the late 1980s, growing unrest in constituent republics of the USSR and China’s Tiananmen Square protest had made conservative leaders anxious about the regime’s future, incentivising them to seek rapprochement with China (Q. C. Tran, 2003, p. 31). To speed up conciliation, Secretary General Nguyen Van Linh and Minister of Defence Le Duc Anh called on the VCP to make concessions to Beijing regarding the political arrangement in Cambodia, which was met with pushback from the nationalists, notably by the then Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach (Q. C. Tran, 2003, p. 86). However, without substantial backing, Thach could not stop the Secretary-General and other conservative leaders, including Do Muoi and Pham Van Dong from attending the secretive Chengdu summit in China, where they agreed with China’s terms in exchange for normalisation of relations (Thayer, 1994, p. 516). The Foreign Minister heavily criticised this decision, but the conservatives had him removed from all positions by the 7^th National Party Congress in June 1991 (Thayer, 1994, p. 520).

With Thach out of the way, the conservative faction effectively took control of Vietnam’s external affairs, officially restored relations with China in November 1991, and fostered a policy order underpinned by ideology. In 1992, details of the 1979 border war with China and its ‘imperial expansionist’ label was removed from the preamble of the Vietnamese Constitution (Bui T., 2012). Later that year, the VCP Central Committee passed a secret resolution prioritising relations with Marxist-Leninist states, of which China is on top of the list (T. Bui, 1999, p. 191). In maintaining this policy paradigm, conservative leaders institutionalised exchanges with the Chinese Party and state officials at various levels to keep the relationship on track. Between 1991 and 1995, China and Vietnam held five summit meetings, of which lead to four joint declarations that reaffirm the aspiration of settling historical differences through negotiations (Do, 2017, p. 73).

The revived tilt towards China manifested itself further in a more conciliatory approach in dealing with territorial and maritime conflicts involving China in the SCS. In February 1992, China declared a law reasserting its sovereignty claim to the islands in the SCS, reserving the right to use force to block any infringement of its sovereignty while simultaneously occupying the Three-Headed Rock in the Spratly Islands (Valencia, Dyke, & Ludwig, 1999, p. 22). By May of that year, China signed an agreement with Crestone Energy Corporation, a US oil company, to give it the right to conduct offshore exploration in an area claimed by Vietnam as part of its continental shelf (Jian, 1997, p. 596). The move was particularly insulting to the Vietnamese as the contract was signed the same time Nguyen Van Linh was visiting China (Thayer, 1994, p. 525). Despite these developments, the conservative camp upheld conciliation and quiet diplomacy. Vietnam only responded to China’s law on territorial waters with a statement reiterating its claims in the SCS in a standardised manner, while no public objection was made regarding China’s seizure of the Three-Headed Rock or its oil exploration contract (H. T. Nguyen, 1992). As China proceeded to land troops and plant a territorial marker in Dac Lac Reef in the Spratly Islands in June, nationalists and younger officials fiercely objected to conservatives’ policy of quiet diplomacy during the third plenary session of the Seventh Central Committee but failed to yield any change (Hiebert, 1992, p. 21). However, there was more pressure for the conservatives to make their protests public, or else China would continue encroaching on territory in the SCS. In 1997, China dispatched the KANTAN-03 floating oil rig to Vietnam’s Block 113 near Thua Thien Hue province (P. P. Nguyen, 1997). On this occasion, Vietnam appealed to other ASEAN members for support and successfully got the Chinese to roll back (Grant, 1997).

National interests-based foreign policy and the endurance of conciliation (2001–2006)

By the early 2000s, the ideology-based foreign strategy was undermined following the weakening of the conservative faction in the VCP. Credited for the downfall of the ideological conservatives during this period was Secretary General Le Kha Phieu. In an attempt to consolidate power, Phieu abolished the status of Advisor to the Central Committee (Co Van), one that enable retired leaders to maintain their grip over Party’s and Government’s dealings (Do, 2017, p. 106). This undercut the influence of conservatives as a whole and inevitably caused frictions within the coalition. Apart from this wrong move that cost Phieu his faction’s support, the Secretary-General was also under fierce criticism for corruption, poor economic management, love affairs, and manipulations of secret agencies (Abuza, 2002, pp. 134–138). Eventually, in 2001, Le Kha Phieu was stripped of his title as Secretary General and removed from the Politburo and Central Committee, having served only half a term (Koh, 2001, p. 540). The position of Secretary General was then filled by moderate Nong Duc Manh, who previously chaired the National Assembly. Phan Van Khai, a nationalist reformist, later succeeded Vo Van Kiet as Prime Minister.

This new political arrangement and the weakening of conservatives’ veto power created an avenue for the nationalist revisionists to yield institutional change via displacement. During the Eighth Plenum in July 2003, the VCP Central Committee passed Resolution 8, titled ‘Strategy for Defence of the Fatherland in the New Situation.’ The resolution introduced two new concepts in Vietnam’s strategic thinking: ‘object of cooperation’ (đối tác) and ‘object of struggle’ (đối tượng), with the former being defined as ‘anyone who respects our independence and sovereignty, establishes and develop friendly, equal and mutually beneficial relations with Vietnam,’ while the latter referred to ‘any force that plans and acts against the goals we (Vietnam) uphold in the course of nation building and defence’ (N. Nguyen & Le, 2016). The resolution urged that foreign countries should not be seen solely as ‘đối tác’ or ‘đối tượng’ since they can make great partners in some policy areas yet conflict with Vietnam in others. This removed the simplistic label of friend and foe off countries like China and the US and encouraged the leadership to see the multi-facet nature of international relations in a post-Cold War world. In other words, Resolution 8 signified a replacement of the old policy paradigm dictated by the Marxist-Leninist worldview with a new principle underpinned by national interests (Thayer, 2008, p. 27).

Now, while this was indeed a significant step forward for advocates of a national interests-based strategy, Resolution 8 should not be seen as complete removal of ideological concerns from Vietnam’s foreign policy thinking as it still leaves spaces for party interests to be reflected. The definition of ‘subject of struggle,’ for example, is inclusive of foreign forces who might try to inflict regime change. Situate this in the context of when the resolution was passed, which was four months after the US announced its invasion of Iraq, the clause could be a not-so-subtle reference to Vietnam’s former Cold War enemy and a reflection of conservatives’ renewed concern. The ambiguity of this resolution is likely to be purposeful since loosely framed rules can widen the scope for political support, securing a greater chance of being passed. Such is telling since it shows that the characteristic of Vietnam’s foreign policy institution has evolved from being rigid due to the overwhelming influence of strong leaders and groups, to exerting a higher level of discretion in policies’ interpretation and enactment that reflects greater fragmentation and increased coalitional competition. This opens the space for change via conversion to later occur.

Being a displacement made with compromise, Resolution 8 had less than clear-cut effects on Vietnamese foreign policy. On the one hand, reconceptualisation of foreign affairs via ‘đối tác’ and ‘đối tượng’ had enabled the nationalists to push for diversification of relations that lessened Vietnam’s dependence on Beijing, exemplified by improved diplomatic and security ties with the US, Japan, India, and Russia in this period (Do, 2017, pp. 131–132). However, in consequential policy areas like managing clashes with China in the SCS, changes were modest. Observing serious incidents from 2003 to 2005, Hanoi made the exception to publicise a few serious clashes and adopt stronger language in their protest but generally refrained from taking actions that might damage bilateral relations. For example, in November 2004, China installed the KANTAN-03 oil-drilling platform on the Vietnamese side of the Gulf of Tokin demarcation line (Vietnam News Agency, 2004). Vietnam publicly protested China’s action, but with a hint of deference. In a short statement released by MOFA requesting China to withdraw its rig, Hanoi highlighted the need to do so to avoid ‘damaging bilateral ties’ and revealed that it is seeking bilateral negotiation to resolve the situation ‘in the spirit of friendly cooperation between the two countries (MOFA, 2004; Tuoi Tre, 2004). In another incident on January 8 2005, Chinese Maritime Police opened fire on Vietnamese fishing vessels, killing nine fishermen and arresting eight others (VnExpress, 2005). Here, the Vietnamese government has made the violent incident public, labelling Chinese action ‘bullying behaviour’ in its media and a ‘serious violation of international law’ in its official response (MOFA, 2005; US Embassy in Hanoi, 2005). Nevertheless, Hanoi’s assertion started and ended with that rhetoric. After meeting senior Chinese officials days after the violent shooting, Vietnam avoided mentioning what happened at sea while stating that cooperation was ‘developing well’ and quickly suppressed anti-China protests (Thi, 2005; A. L. Vuving, 2006, p. 819). These examples demonstrated how conservatives’ influence continues to limit what the Vietnamese government can say or do in response to Chinese encroachment at sea. However, conditions were about to change by the next Party Congress in 2006, with the emergence of new revisionist actors.

New revisionist power and the gradual intensification of balancing efforts (2007–2011)

The 10^th Party Congress in 2006 saw the rise to power of Nguyen Tan Dung as Prime Minister and his deputy, Pham Gia Khiem, as the Foreign Minister, who exerted great influence over Vietnam’s foreign policy in the following period. With the nationalist revisionist forces being invigorated during their four-year term, the new government gradually adopted bolder measures to consolidate their claims and position vis-à-vis China in the SCS. These attempts can be first observed in January 2007, when the VCP Central Committee’s fourth plenum authorised the country’s first comprehensive maritime strategy, titled ‘Vietnam’s Maritime Strategy towards 2020,’ which encompassed goals for the economy, defence, and security. Economic goal was the most important and ambitious, with the government expecting the maritime economy to make up for over half of Vietnam’s total GDP by 2020 (Vietnam Communist Party, 2007).

The news was not well-received by the Chinese, who retaliated by extending the duration and latitude of its unilateral fishing ban, as well as establishing a new administrative area over the Paracel and Spratly later that year (Hoang, 2019, p. 9). The result was increased harassment of Vietnamese fishing crews. The most serious incident occurred on July 9 2007, when Chinese naval vessels opened fire at Vietnamese fishing boats, killing one fisherman and sinking one boat (The Economist, 2007). For the first time, Hanoi tolerated two rounds of nationalist protests in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, each participated by several hundred protesters (Associated Press International, 2007). This could be seen as one of the revisionists’ earlier uses of nationalism and public outcry to signal to Beijing the damaging effects of its actions. The violent fishing incident also revealed certain weaknesses of the conciliatory approach to the new administration. On this occasion, Hanoi dispatched Deputy Foreign Minister Vu Dung to Beijing to defuse tension, but no resolution was reached, and clashes occurred again in October (Mitton, 2007). By this point, nationalists were beginning to believe that bilateralism was not only ineffective but also enabled China to ‘beat Vietnam under the blanket’ (Do, 2017, p. 176).

Therefore, in the following round of tensions with China in the SCS over-extraction of hydrocarbon resources, the Hanoi authority took a different approach. Between 2007 to 2008, China continuously put pressure on foreign energy companies, forcing them to stop their production-sharing contract with Petro Vietnam, which many did due to fears of being blocked off from the Chinese market (BBC Vietnamese, 2008; US Embassy in Hanoi, 2007a). This time, Hanoi was determined to assert its rights. Nationalist leaders in the foreign ministry and Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai actively approached US officials and asked them to persuade US companies to resume their work (US Embassy in Hanoi, 2007b, 2008). Although this did not bring about desirable results, the fact that Vietnam actively reached out for third Party’s support to defy China’s pressure marked another step away from the conservative traditions of keeping the disputes within the family.

In the following years, nationalists continued to move in this new direction, seeking support from outside powers and the international community to lessen Vietnam’s vulnerability to China’s bullying in the SCS. The US was a critical part of the plan as they were seen as the only player capable of restraining China’s military power. In June 2008, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited Washington, and the two sides sat down for their first-ever Political, Security and Defence Dialogue held in October that year, with the SCS being a central theme of discussion (Thayer, 2014a). This later became an annual defence dialogue at the deputy defence minister level, which allowed for more frequent exchanges and increased presence of US ships on Vietnam’s coast (Promfret, 2010). In May 2009, Vietnam submitted a joint claim with Malaysia to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, providing the precise coordinates for the limits of Vietnam’s EEZ and extended continental shelf in an effort to strengthen the legal basis of its claim and secure greater support from the international community (Hsiao, 2016, p. 6; H. T. Nguyen, 2009). During this period, Vietnam also made effective use of its ASEAN chairmanship to integrate the SCS disputes into the agenda to draw more attention to the issue in hope of constraining China’s actions. It should be noted that Vietnam was nevertheless careful in its execution of indirect balancing and continued its engagement with China to make up for possible rough patches. In 2008, Hanoi worked with Beijing to upgrade their relationship to a ‘comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership,’ the highest level of bilateral engagement (Le, 2013).

By 2011, China increasing assertiveness, coupled with Vietnam’s gradually toughening stance on the SCS issue, collided in a series of cable-cutting incidents. On May 26 and June 9 2011, Chinese surveillance ships manoeuvred to cut the exploration cables of two Vietnamese survey ships, the Binh Minh 02 and the Viking II, while operating within Vietnam’s EEZ (BBC News, 2011; Thanh Nien, 2011). Hanoi’s willingness to condemn China’s action and internationalise the crisis was unprecedented, evident in its strongly worded official response, its release of the incident footage to shame China worldwide, its leaders’ rare expression of patriotism, and its prolonged toleration of public rage (Ba & Storey, 2016, p. 79; Phung, 2011). Much of these efforts came out of MOFA and the revisionist camp. It can be confirmed later that year that nationalist leaders gave the green light for large-scale public protest since PM Nguyen Tan Dung proposed a protesting law in response to ‘current needs’ and assigned the Ministry of Public Security to draft it (BBC Vietnamese, 2011). At the time, Vietnam had no concrete regulations determining the legality of protests but only a few mechanisms in place to discourage large public gatherings.

But before nationalists could take the matter further and seriously damage ties with Beijing, the conservative faction in the Party intervened. Newly assumed ideological conservative leader, Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, has made it a priority to stay on good terms with China (Do, 2017, p. 187). In a conciliatory move, Hanoi dispatched Deputy Foreign Minister Ho Xuan Son as a special envoy to Beijing to ease tensions, after which public demonstrations were crackdown in response to China’s demand to ‘steer public opinion along the correct direction’ (Vietnam News Agency, 2011). Seizing opportunity amidst turmoil, Trong headed to Beijing and achieved a breakthrough in managing differences in the SCS. In October, Vietnam and China signed the Agreement on Basic Principles Guiding the Settlement of Sea-related Issues, one that committed the two sides to meet twice a year to discuss the disputes and establish a hotline to address emerging tensions (VietnamPlus, 2011). While 2011 ended with a triumph for the conservatives, Party’s ideologues soon found themselves unable to continue to put a cap on nationalists countering measures in the SCS, as a decisive shift in the power equilibrium in the following year seriously undermined their veto power.

Shift in the power equilibrium in favour of the nationalists

The VCP upholds a consensus-based decision-making model, with individual leaders tend not to have a decisive role. However, during his ten years in power, nationalist revisionist figure Nguyen Tan Dung increasingly demonstrated the ability to concentrate power in his hands, earning him the title of ‘Vietnam’s most powerful politician since the demise of Secretary General Le Duan’ (Le, 2015). Although met with heavy criticism for his ties to ill-gotten wealth and mismanagement of the economy, Dung’s ability to stay ahead in party politics has made him the most powerful agent in the Politburo in this period. In 2011, despite undergoing a fierce attack by his political opponents, who revealed to the press that losses of state conglomerate Vinashin and a few others under the PM’s purview had surpassed several billion USD, Dung was still able to secure his post as PM in 11^th National Party Congress (Koh, 2012, p. 2). Dung’s grip on the Party was further unveiled in the following year. During the 6th Plenum meeting in October 2012, Dung bore the second round of attack organised by his rivals in the Politburo. Here, the Politburo recommended that the Central Committee discipline ‘a comrade of the Political Bureau’ for serious missteps in the management of the country (Koh, 2012, p. 3). This was a discrete way for the Politburo to force Dung to resign. A common practice in Vietnam’s top-down decision-making process is that the Politburo ‘recommends’, and the Central Committee would simply accept. However, to everyone’s surprise, the Central Committee rejected this recommendation and only asked the Politburo member to reflect on his mistakes (A. L. Vuving, Professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, & Hawaii, 2017, p. 423). Leaked information revealed that 95 to 126 out of 175 members of the Central Committee voted against the Politburo to back Dung, demonstrating the PM’s extended web of support (Koh, 2012, p. 4).

Dung did not simply survive after the attack but thrived as he continued to accentuate his power with victories in government elite personnel decisions. More specifically, the PM successfully blocked the appointment of rivals’ favourites while at the same time installing a few ‘rising stars’ widely seen as his allies. In the additional voting round in 2013, Nguyen Thien Nhan and Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan were admitted to the Politburo. They won against the conservative faction’s two formidable opponents: Head of the Party Central Committee Internal Affairs Nguyen Ba Thanh, and Head of the Party Central Committee Economic Commission Vuong Dinh Hue (A. L. Vuving et al., 2017, p. 423). By early 2014, private sources to Radio Free (2014) revealed that Dung’s revisionist clan now secured over half of Politburo’s support. This shift in the balance of power in favour of the nationalist created the necessary conditions for foreign policy change, leading Vietnam to adopt a strong response to the crisis evoked by China later that year.

Making of a crisis: Vietnam’s tough stance against China during the HYSY-981 standoff

Conversion of ‘cooperation and struggle’

In May 2014, China National Offshore Oil Corporation moved its HYSY-981 oil rig near the disputed Paracel archipelago and deep in Vietnam’s EEZ and continental shelf along with nearly a hundred accompanying vessels and naval ships (D. C. Nguyen, 2018). The Vietnamese sent anywhere from 30 to 63 Coast Guard and Fishery Surveillance ships to the area to block the rig from establishing a position and obstruct the operation (Zhou, 2016, p. 885). China retaliated aggressively by ramming and firing water cannons at the Vietnamese vessels, sinking one ship and damaging dozens of others (Bower & Poling, 2014). More ships were mobilised to threaten Vietnam forces. During the peak of tension, there were reportedly 137 Chinese ships and ‘dozens of aircrafts’ at the scene (VietnamPlus, 2014a). Witnessing the disparity in power, Vietnam ordered its forces to exercise restraint and maintained a defensive position at sea throughout the whole one-month duration of the standoff, focusing its protesting efforts on the diplomatic front.

As tensions rose at sea, the nationalist camp stressed the need to move beyond concerns for bilateral relations and stand up against China to secure Vietnam’s sovereignty and rights in the SCS. As stated, the conservatives’ veto power in the decision-making process has been seriously hindered by the overwhelming power of the nationalist in the Politburo and Central Committee. In addition, China’s turning its back on the Vietnam-China Agreement on Basic Principles signed just three years ago further strengthened the nationalists’ notion that Beijing was using a two-faced strategy on Vietnam. The hotline established in 2011 turned cold during the crisis as over 30 calls and requests to visit Beijing by the Vietnamese were ignored (Nguoi Lao, 2014). This put both the conservative clan and its leader who established those communication channels, Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, in a disadvantageous position.

Weak veto possibilities and high level of discretion in interpreting and implementing the principle of ‘cooperation and struggle’ left space for nationalists to transform Vietnam’s SCS policy via conversion. Here, Resolution 8 was strategically revived and reinterpreted by the nationalist into a strategy of ‘cooperation and struggle’ (vừa hợp tác, vừa đấu tranh), meaning that Vietnam would still cooperate with China on areas of mutual interests such as trade but struggle against it on the territorial and maritime frontier (Thayer, 2016; VietnamPlus, 2014b). This also means that Vietnam endorses peaceful negotiation to resolve conflicts while, at the same time, is willing to publicly protest China’s intrusive acts. To materialise this strategy, the nationalist camp utilised its full capabilities. Firstly, they reconstructed the institutional experience, using rhetoric to frame China as an ‘object of struggle’ in the SCS and prioritise the need to protect territorial and maritime sovereignty over preserving partnerships. Nationalists then went on to inflict national and international pressure to force China to withdraw the rig, which is done through a compilation of working around established rules and making use of institutional positions and resources.

Using rhetoric to construct China as an ‘object of struggle’

Considering Beijing’s increased assertiveness in the SCS since 2007, casting China as an ‘object of struggle’ should be an easy task. However, China’s past image as an older Communist brother popularised by conservatives posed a challenge for nationalists in reconfiguring an institutional environment that prioritises islands and maritime defence over regime security and economic benefits that come with maintaining good relations with Beijing. PM Nguyen Tan Dung played a pioneering role in convincing the VCP to accept the risk of damaging relations for the sake of territorial and maritime integrity. While Dung’s efforts to lobby members of the Politburo remain unknown, his public rhetoric alone serves as a strong testimonial for his determination to frame China as an ‘object of struggle’ and transform the institution’s priority during the crisis. Among the many speeches stressing the threat that China was posing to Vietnam’s security and regional stability at the time, Dung’s remark on May 21 during a meeting with his Filipino counterpart, PM Aquino, best conveyed his agenda as it highlighted the need to protect ‘sacred territory’ over maintaining ‘illusionary friendship’:

Vietnam has suffered from many grievances and losses brought upon by foreign invasions. Therefore, we have always longed for peace and friendship to build and develop our country… However, the reality is that China has increasingly flexed its muscle, bullying, violating (Vietnam’s territory) and constantly slandering and blaming Vietnam. Vietnam is determined to protect its sovereignty and legitimate rights since our territorial and maritime sovereignty are sacred. Vietnam wants peace and friendship, but only on the basis of securing independence, autonomy, and territorial and maritime integrity, and will not exchange these sacred things for an illusionary, dependent peace and friendship (as cited in Thanh Binh, 2014).

Although the remark was made in the Philippines, it had powerful domestic impacts due to its ability to resonate with rising patriotism across the country, adding support to nationalist-led policy. By calling the bilateral relations between Beijing and Hanoi ‘illusory’ and ‘dependent’, the remark was also a blatant attack on the conservatives, who still have faith in the comradeship with Beijing. After Dung’s remark, we see other members of the Politburo echoing this view. At the end of the 7^th National Assembly Meeting on June 24, the Chair of the National Assembly Nguyen Sinh Hung also condemned China’s action and praised patriotic statements made by other members of the National Assembly in his closing speech (T. P. H. Nguyen, 2020). On June 20, in an interview with the press, State President Truong Tan Sang made a statement in the same spirit as the PM:

We do not accept that anyone, any country, no matter how strong, forces us to make concessions to our country’s sovereignty and sacred territory… We are determined not to let an inch of land and sea of our Fatherland be violated. For any Vietnamese, territorial sovereignty is sacred and inviolable (as cited in T. P. H. Nguyen, 2020).

The efficient use of rhetoric by leading nationalist revisionist Nguyen Tan Dung reconstructed the VCP's environment to identify China as an ‘object of struggle’ and prioritise national sovereignty over preserving comradeships with Beijing. This helped to strengthen Party’s consensus further and justify the nationalists’ bold protests and indirect balancing measures against China during the crisis.

Manoeuvring around rules and exploiting institutional position to struggle against China

Having garnered Party’s consensus, nationalist leaders worked around rules and utilised their bureaucratic capital to carry out countermeasures. The government has combined different tactics, including enabling anti-China protests, broadcasting China’s aggression worldwide, and lobbying bilaterally and multilaterally. These measures are deployed for two purposes. The first is to help consolidate Vietnam’s inherently weak position and balance against China in the standoff. The second, more ambitious goal is to raise the cost of the conflict by damaging Beijing’s reputation and adding tensions to China’s relations with its rivals, such as the US and Japan, pressuring China into withdrawing the rig. The strategy proved successful as by mid-June, Beijing sent a delegation to Hanoi and agreed to de-escalate tensions before officially withdrawing the rig one month later.

The first measure to be examined is enabling public protest. Few days after the HYSY-981 entered Vietnam’s EEZ, national media was permitted to cover the standoff in excruciating details (N. T. Bui, 2017, p. 176). This inevitably evoked anti-Chinese sentiment across the country. In Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, Da Nang, and Can Tho, rallies went on for days and participated by thousands of people, peaking at a total of ten thousand on May 12 (Ito, 2014; Tuoi Tre, 2014a). Despite the enormous size of the crowd and their bolstering resentment, police did not attempt to disperse or arrest any demonstrators and allowed journalists and bloggers to cover the events (Brown, 2014). There is little doubt that revisionist leaders were furthering the tradition of tolerating protests for strategic purposes established since 2007. After protests broke out in 2011, the CCP’s response confirmed its distaste for Hanoi’s toleration of nationalist rallies, which could negatively affect Chinese business overseas or, worse, develop into democratic movements that spread next door to China (Rolland, 2017, p. 132). Protests could, therefore, be used by Vietnam as leverage in negotiations with China (Hoang, 2019). Furthermore, nationalistic dissents were also an effective tool to attract international attention and support, bringing greater pressure on Beijing to cede its activities.

To allow protests at such a scale to occur and achieve strategic goals, nationalists need to work cleverly around old barricade to transform the Party’s tradition of suppressing dissents. Government Regulation 38/2005 point 7 requires that crowd gatherings in public places are registered and approved by the local People’s Committee where the protests occur (Ministry of Public Security, 2005). This is widely known as a formality to discourage civilian movements and a basis for police to make arrest and disperse the crowd (Vu, 2014). In 2011, PM Nguyen Tan Dung proposed a resolution to counter this barrier. However, while change is still underway, nationalists must work within old rules. To defend public protests, nationalist leaders often cited Clause 25 of the Constitution, which grants citizens the right to ‘freedom of speech, freedom of the press, access information, hold meetings, form groups, protest… (emphasis added)’ (BBC Vietnamese, 2011). Apart from relying on the Constitution to justify demonstrations, political elites in the nationalist camp might also use their power to order local authorities to approve citizens’ requests for protests or demand public security forces not to intervene, which is highly probable considering the PM's extensive link with the Ministry of Public Security (London, 2014). However, by the mid of May, nationalists had put an end to this tolerance as demonstrations escalated to violent anti-China riots in the industrial zones of Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ha Tinh, causing 21 deaths and over 100 injuries (Hoang, 2019, pp. 15–16).

Setbacks in taking advantage of public anger for strategic aims did not completely deter nationalists’ motivation to make matters known internationally. On May 7, MOFA’s Border Committee held an international press conference to publicise details of Chinese activities in the area. Redeploying tactics from the previous crisis, video footage of Chinese boats ramming and firing water cannons at Vietnamese vessels was released to shame China and rally for international support (T. T. Nguyen & Vu, 2018). Vietnam’s bold move successfully got the Chinese to respond for the first time since the crisis occurred with a public statement refuting Vietnam’s allegations (Foreign Ministry of the PRC, 2014). Against this, MOFA released more videos of the collisions and invited foreign journalists to the scene to report, earning Vietnam’s victory against China in the global propaganda war (Thayer, 2016, p. 212; Tuoi Tre, 2014b). The US, Japan, India, the European Union, and the United Nations all expressed concerns, with Japan and the US going further to call Chinese actions provocative and threatening to the peace and stability of the region (Voice of Vietnam, 2014). During the first month of the standoff, MOFA organised another three international press conferences to continue to publicise China’s aggressions (Dinh, 2015).

Besides utilising resources from MOFA to attract publicity, nationalist elites also used other international platforms to raise their objection and call for support. Within the framework of the 24^th ASEAN Summit, on May 10, during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Vietnam successfully lobbied ASEAN to issue a joint announcement mentioning concerns for the developments in the SCS and reinforcing the Declaration on the Conduct (Vietnam News, 2014). This was a major achievement considering ASEAN’s usual lack of political will to address the dispute and antagonise China. Attending the summit, PM Nguyen Tan Dung also took the opportunity to deliver a remark condemning China’s action, which was supported by the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (Dinh, 2015, p. 100). This attempt to involve ASEAN and internationalise the conflict once again made it difficult for China to ignore. On May 12, China issued a warning, stating that ‘the SCS is not a matter between China and ASEAN’ (Foreign Ministry of the PRC, 2014b).

Since China was yet to show signs of backing down, the nationalists went on to lobby for more support, mainly from China’s adversaries. After attending the World Economic Forum on East Asia and in a sideline meeting on May 21 with President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines, PM Nguyen Tan Dung expressed his desire to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries, stressing maritime cooperation as a critical pillar (Thanh Binh, 2014). On the same day, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh talked on the phone with the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, through which Kerry extended an invitation for Pham to visit the US (BBC Vietnamese, 2014). On May 22, on the sideline of the international forum ‘Asia Future’, Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam met with Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe to thank Japan for their early support and asked for continued condemnation of China’s threatening acts (Bao Chinh Phu, 2014). The nationalists’ efforts to reach out to the US and Japan paid off handsomely. At the Shangri-la Dialogue held in Singapore on May 30, PM Abe stated in his keynote address: ‘Japan will offer its utmost support for efforts of the countries of ASEAN as they work to ensure the security of the seas and the skies, and thoroughly maintain freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight’ (South China Morning Post, 2014). Following this statement, Japan agreed to supply Vietnam with six patrol vessels. The US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel also criticised China aggressive actions at the Dialogue and agreed with Vietnam on the need to uphold international law. The Chinese delegate was furious and called the Dialogue a coordinated attempt to ‘stage a provocative challenge against China’ (Wong, 2014).

When tensions were not showing any signs of cooling down, with several members of the Central Committee calling for the removal of Vietnam’s non-alignment policy of ‘three nos’ and the PM announcing that Vietnam is preparing documents to sue China in the Arbitration Court, the crisis ended abruptly (Pearson & Vu, 2019; Thayer, 2015, p. 13). It was likely that nationalists’ efforts to place Beijing at the centre of international criticism had significantly raised the cost of China’s action, causing China to send State Councillor Yang Jiechi to Hanoi on June 18, where both sides agreed to de-escalate (Long, 2016). Eventually, the HYSY-981 retreated on July 15, one month earlier than its initial plan. The conservatives took this opportunity to undo some of the damage, sending Politburo member Le Hong Anh to Beijing in August and ordered Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh to delay his US visit to avoid alerting further alerting Beijing, demonstrating the continued struggles to shape foreign policy agenda between two camps (BBC Vietnamese, 2014). Indeed, after the crisis, nationalists still fought to sustain their indirect balancing agenda by enhancing relations with the US and other regional powers. In October 2014, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh visited Washington despite delays, and the US agreed to partially lift its long-standing arms embargo to Vietnam, allowing the sales of weapons and equipment for maritime surveillance and coastal defence (Gordon, 2014). Later in 2015, the ban was fully lifted, symbolising the complete normalisation of relations between the two former Cold War enemies. In October 2014 and July 2015, PM Nguyen Tan Dung also paid a visit to India and Japan to promote alliance politics with key strategic partners following the crisis.

Conclusion and implications of research

This article offers an agent-centred historical institutionalist analysis of Vietnam’s move towards an increasingly tougher stance against China in the SCS, addressing Hanoi’s strong response to Beijing’s deployment of the HYSY-981 oil platform in 2014. It argues that Vietnam’s assertive response during the crisis and its subsequent change in alignment tendency is not entirely an immediate result of exogenous pressure but reflects the incremental, endogenous change of Vietnam’s foreign policy institution advocated by the increasingly powerful nationalist revisionist camp. In arguing this, the research has provided an evolution of Vietnam’s foreign policy vis-à-vis China since the normalisation of relations in the context of the SCS disputes. It has tracked the role of two camps, the ideological conservatives and the nationalist revisionists, in shaping Vietnam’s SCS policy. While this binary might not exhaust the multiplicity of group interests and opinions, they are still largely reflective of a longstanding debate and competition within the Party about how to manage relations with China and maritime disputes.

As the influence of ideologues eroded over the 2000s and nationalist forces grew progressively in the mid-2000s and early 2010s, Vietnam’s dealings with China in incidents at sea moved from conciliatory to confrontational. This shift manifested most clearly during the 2014 oil rig crisis. However, it needs to be reiterated institutional arrangements, in Mahoney and Thelen’s view, are sensitive to power shifts between competing groups in the institution. Orders do not necessarily ‘lock-in’ or reinforce themselves once in place but require continuous support from agents (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). The demise of Dung and his clan after the 12^th Party Congress in 2016 and the rise of Nguyen Phu Trong as the de facto leader of the Party could, therefore, have consequences for Vietnam’s newly toughened stance against China in the SCS. In 2019, a standoff between Chinese and Vietnamese coastguard vessels at Vanguard Bank bore a striking resemblance to the 2014 standoff yet incited little protest from Hanoi (BBC Vietnamese, 2019; Grossman, 2019). Multiple reports also point out signs of Vietnam scaling down its security cooperation with the US (C. T. Nguyen, 2022; B. T. Tran, 2022). However, those expecting a complete turnaround in Vietnam’s alignment trajectory could be making a pre-matured conclusion. The legacy of nationalist foreign policy order cannot be immediately undone, as this article has demonstrated how it took over a decade of persistent lobbying for nationalists to transform Vietnam’s foreign policy institution. As it has already shown, conservatives’ silence during the 2019 Vanguard Bank standoff was eventually broke off by statements released by MOFA, hinting at continued efforts of nationalists to influence the policymaking process (Lye & Ha, 2019). Further research shall be required to draw definite conclusions about Vietnam’s current posture in the dispute. However, it is safe to say that endogenous dynamics will continue to play a role in shaping such a posture. Negligence of these dynamics and overreliance on system-level incentives could produce conclusions that are not only partial, but potentially misleading.

Apart from demonstrating how engaging with internal politics could produce a more accurate understanding of policy, this research has also shed light on the need to understand small states’ foreign policy choices. Examining crises in the SCS, China is often the focus of analysis for its capability and willingness to evoke conflicts. Meanwhile, smaller states are marginalised in scholarly discussions as they are seen as passive and, to some extent, powerless in front of China’s provocations and may only learn from crises in retrospect. However, a detailed investigation of Vietnam’s response during the 2014 oil rig has revealed the diplomatic power of a small state and its ability to escalate a conflict. Indeed, was it not for the wave of nationalist protests enabled by the government, the press conferences and the footage that broadcasted the situation, and the engagement with countries and international communities to spread the word about the crisis, perhaps, there would not be a crisis at all. Chinese provocations without Vietnamese reactions produce incidents that sparks the initial interests of avid observers but eventually goes unnoticed, leaving blurry marks on the general state of play. Therefore, research must engage the socio-political context that helps explain the complexities of small states’ policies to truly comprehend developments in the SCS and the region.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Minh Phuong Vu

Minh Phuong Vu is a PhD candidate at the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University (ANU). Her research examines the construction and meaning of crises in the South China Sea. Minh holds a Master of International Relations from the ANU and a Bachelor of International Studies (Dean’s Scholar) from the University of Wollongong. This research is a part of her Master Thesis submitted to the ANU and conducted under the supervision of Professor Wesley Widmaier. Funding for the research was provided by the ANU under the HDR Fee Merit Scholarship and the University Research Scholarship. The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.