[Global NK Commentary] Vietnam's Strategy Toward North Korea: Socialist Solidarity, Middle Power Diplomacy, or Economic Development Model?

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At North Korea’s 80th anniversary military parade in October 2025, international attention focused not only on the nuclear-capable missiles and advanced weaponry on display but also on two high-profile guests: Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev. However, seated in the place of honor to the immediate left of Chairman Kim Jong Un was General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Tô Lâm. This visit to Pyongyang by the Vietnamese leader was the first in 18 years, raising questions about the current state and implications of North Korea-Vietnam relations. Some observers speculate that Tô Lâm’s appearance alongside Kim symbolizes the rise of a China-led bloc within a new Cold War international order, characterized by socialist solidarity (Chung, 2025). Alternatively, given Vietnam’s trajectory of globalization and its integration into capitalist economic spheres, another interpretation posits Vietnam acting as a middle power bridging the ideological divide between the two Koreas. A third perspective suggests that as Kim claims successful nuclear armament and seeks to emerge from self-imposed isolation, Vietnam could serve as a model for North Korea to achieve economic reform and opening while maintaining the ruling party’s power. A comparative analysis of these perspectives would be significant not only for North Korea-Vietnam and inter-Korean relations but also for South Korea’s diplomacy toward Southeast Asia and the implementation of U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy.

A Resurgence of the Socialist Bloc?

North Korea and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam share formative experiences of “anti-imperialist struggle” and socialist state-building, providing a foundation for ideological solidarity and historical cooperation. North Vietnam’s official recognition of the Kim Il Sung regime in 1950 was one of the earliest diplomatic legitimacies North Korea acquired. Geopolitical solidarity was further strengthened when North Vietnam condemned the U.S.-led international intervention to prevent North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1950 as imperialist aggression (Goscha, 2012).

Following the Korean War armistice, socialist leaders sought common causes, and mutual high-level visits, such as Ho Chi Minh’s trip to Pyongyang in 1957 and Kim Il Sung’s visit to Hanoi in 1958, elevated bilateral ties. During the Vietnam War, North Korea provided munitions, vehicles, construction materials, and even pilots to North Vietnam. Kim Il Sung demonstrated a high level of support for Vietnam’s struggle, expressing willingness to delay domestic economic goals to focus on weakening the U.S. military presence in Asia (Young, 2019).

During the Cold War, both Vietnam and North Korea operated within the Soviet bloc, yet neither maintained consistently positive relations with Moscow or Beijing. North Korea’s relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated as Kim Il Sung resisted Soviet de-Stalinization and Khrushchev-era reforms (Szalontai, 2005), and the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s revealed deep divisions within the global communist movement (Westad, 2005). North Vietnam maintained strong ties with other communist states after the Vietnam War but saw relations sour following the Sino-Vietnamese border war in 1979. Thus, the socialist bloc was never monolithic, and from North Korea’s perspective, there were likely lingering resentments, including a lack of support for its unification ambitions.

Nevertheless, North Korea and Vietnam continued various forms of cooperation, including exchanges of technicians, students, and military personnel, as well as transfers of arms and significant amounts of raw materials and manufactured goods (Miyamoto, 2024). However, when Vietnam established official diplomatic relations with South Korea in December 1992, North Korea viewed it as a betrayal, and relations between North Vietnam and North Korea rapidly cooled (Tran and Nguyen, 2016).

The appearance of foreign leaders at the Pyongyang parade signals not just diplomatic symbolism but also new efforts toward functional cooperation. During the October 2025 visit, the Vietnamese delegation signed new agreements on healthcare, civil aviation, investment promotion, and cultural exchange (Kim Anh, 2025). Furthermore, under Tô Lâm, Vietnam has moved away from collective leadership toward a more centralized authority and decision-making process. Given the highly personalized political structure of North Korea under Kim Jong Un, this could foster the close leader-to-leader ties that underpinned bilateral cooperation in the early Cold War era (Han, 2025).

At the parade, North Korea showcased its latest strategic capabilities, including the Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear force as “irreversible” represents a direct challenge to UN Security Council resolutions and, more broadly, the non-proliferation regime (Park, 2025). North Korea’s ability to evade sanctions depends on the extent to which its trading partners enforce or relax them. When China tightened enforcement, for instance, by restricting North Korea’s access to the port of Dalian for essential coal shipments in 2017, North Korea adapted by using Vietnamese ports for cargo transshipment (Lintner, 2018).

While Vietnam may face international pressure regarding sanctions enforcement, it can selectively prioritize cooperation with North Korea in specific instances. For Vietnam, this signifies asserting autonomy in its foreign relations, separate from its global trade dependencies. For North Korea, it is part of an effort to cultivate partnerships to reduce its overreliance on China (Chow and Easley, 2019).

The image of the Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary standing next to Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang sparked speculation about a revival of the socialist bloc, but historical analysis reveals a far more complex picture than the geopolitical landscape of a new Cold War 2.0. North Korea seeks support and recognition from rivals like South Korea, Japan, and the United States, while also exploring alternatives to cooperation with Russia and China (Easley, 2025). North Korea would not hesitate to play potential socialist bloc partners against each other if it served the maintenance of the Kim family’s rule.

Meanwhile, Vietnam is unlikely to join an anti-Western sanctions evasion coalition. Despite retaining vestiges of its communist system, Vietnam’s modern governance is far more pragmatic than ideological. Vietnam’s market-oriented reforms and integration into global supply chains have fostered much deeper economic ties with the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Europe than with North Korea. Vietnam’s foreign policy emphasizes economic development, regional stability, and strategic autonomy, rather than signaling a revival of socialist solidarity.

Vietnam as a Middle Power

In the Indo-Pacific region, Vietnam is consolidating its status as a middle power—a state that exerts regional influence without possessing the capabilities and scale of great powers. Middle power identity is also politically important domestically, providing national pride and agency for developing countries within the ‘Global South’ facing strategic uncertainties in the regional and international order. Vietnam’s middle power strategy promotes national interests by deepening institutional engagement with ASEAN and integrating into world trade, thereby navigating U.S.-China competition (Easley, 2012).

While Vietnam occasionally voices concerns about territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, it generally adheres to ASEAN’s consensus-based approach, preferring incremental diplomatic progress over direct confrontation. Vietnam avoids the use of force, including military alliances, foreign troop presence, and coercive alignment against third countries, except in cases of self-defense (Huynh, 2022). This allows Vietnam to maintain productive relations with diverse regimes and act as a bridge between competing ideological and geopolitical camps.

Tô Lâm’s visit to South Korea in August 2025, followed by his trip to North Korea in October, reflects Vietnam’s deliberate effort to pursue simultaneous engagement. Cooperation with North Korea allows Vietnam to demonstrate to China and Russia its willingness to act independently while strengthening ties with South Korea, Japan, the United States, and Australia. In this context, Tô Lâm’s attendance next to Kim Jong Un signifies Vietnam’s diplomatic autonomy in promoting regional stability and economic development, rather than support for North Korea’s nuclear program (Vu, 2025).

By maintaining channels with North Korea while remaining within ASEAN’s institutional framework, Vietnam enhances Southeast Asia’s potential role as a mediator in Korean Peninsula affairs. Vietnam’s capacity for good offices was demonstrated when it hosted the second U.S.-North Korea summit, and Tô Lâm’s visit to Pyongyang can also be seen as a reciprocal visit following Kim Jong Un’s trip to Hanoi in 2019.

However, Vietnam’s actual leverage over great power dynamics and inter-Korean affairs remains limited. Vietnam is somewhat excluded from the geopolitical environment shaping the Korean Peninsula. While Vietnam can offer positive examples of engagement with North Korea, its influence to meaningfully alter North Korea’s behavior is insufficient, as decisions on military deterrence, denuclearization or arms control negotiations, and diplomatic and economic engagement ultimately depend on North Korea’s interactions with China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. Changes in Kim Jong Un’s strategic calculus are likely to depend on whether the benefits derived from its close cooperation with Russia, pursued since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diminish. If so, it may lead to more transactional dealings with China, and perhaps a renewed focus on South Korea and the United States.

Vietnam as an Economic Model

The economic trajectories of Vietnam and North Korea present a stark contrast. Vietnam’s Đổi Mới reforms, initiated in 1986, transformed it from a centrally planned, low-income country into one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economies, integrating into global supply chains and attracting substantial foreign direct investment (FDI). North Korea, conversely, remains constrained by extensive sanctions, relative economic isolation, and reliance on illicit trade. Vietnam avoided regime collapse while adjusting its economic system and international relations, demonstrating that a socialist party-state can pursue market-oriented development while maintaining firm administrative control.

South Korea is Vietnam’s largest FDI investor, playing a crucial role in Vietnam’s export-led GDP growth. Samsung alone accounts for over 10% of Vietnam’s exports (Guarascio, 2025). The economic benefits Vietnam derives from its relationship with South Korea contrast sharply with the minimal trade volume with North Korea, suggesting that Vietnam’s engagement with Pyongyang is shaped more by political and strategic considerations than economic incentives. Vietnam engages with North Korea to maintain diplomatic relations, enhance its international standing, and signal autonomy, despite the absence of meaningful economic interdependence.

For North Korea, continued engagement with Vietnam and study of its reform path could offer lessons for economic modernization. Kim Jong Un has reportedly acknowledged that Vietnam’s experience shows the possibility of pursuing market-oriented policies while maintaining political continuity (Lee and Park, 2018). North Korea’s periodic attempts to establish special economic zones (SEZs) can be understood as exploratory efforts to emulate aspects of economic reform and opening in China and Vietnam. Kim may also draw inspiration from Vietnam’s governing style, which is flexible when necessary but firm on core regime interests (Choi, 2025).

Vietnam demonstrates that one-party socialist rule does not necessarily equate to perpetual isolation or economic stagnation. However, the suggestion that Vietnam could serve as a model for North Korea may be overly optimistic. The structures and context that enabled Vietnam’s Đổi Mới reforms differ significantly from North Korea’s current situation. Vietnam achieved reunification in 1975 and, while facing internal and external challenges, corruption, and abuses of power, it did not operate under a personalized regime of a single ruling family. North Korea, conversely, is located on a divided peninsula with a rival South Korea that has outpaced it in regime competition. Sanctions for nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and human rights abuses constrain North Korea’s trade, and its nuclear weapons are increasingly tied to regime survival rather than serving as bargaining chips for normalizing diplomatic relations and economic modernization. The current form of the Kim Jong Un regime appears to lack the political will for the strategic decisions required for reform and opening comparable to Vietnam’s.

Conclusion: Limits and Opportunities for Vietnam’s Role

Two months before Tô Lâm stood alongside Kim Jong Un and senior Chinese and Russian representatives to view nuclear-capable missiles, Vietnam’s top leader visited Seoul as the first state guest of South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae-myung. Three weeks after the Pyongyang parade, a high-level Vietnamese delegation attended the APEC summit in South Korea. In early November, Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Hanoi after attending an ASEAN defense ministers’ meeting to meet Tô Lâm. The United States and Vietnam advanced defense trade and maritime security cooperation under their “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” (Strangio, 2025), and Hegseth expressed support for Vietnam’s “commitment to sovereignty and regional security” (Guarascio and Nguyen, 2025).

Vietnam’s trade with South Korea has grown exponentially compared to its trade with North Korea, and Vietnam and South Korea have much deeper investment and people-to-people ties (Chung, 2022). Vietnam is not part of a socialist bloc aligned with North Korea, Russia, and China. Vietnam’s middle power role in East Asia may be limited, as the Kim Jong Un regime is currently focused on benefiting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and maximizing gains from China. Should Donald Trump agree to end the war in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin and end the trade war with Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un would carefully choose an opportune moment to renegotiate with the United States, potentially creating an opening for South Korea.

The mutually beneficial relationship between South Korea and Vietnam demonstrates what diplomacy and commerce can achieve. While Vietnam can provide a venue for talks in Southeast Asia, facilitating communication, it will not act as an official mediator. Looking at U.S. foreign policy toward North Korea, at least three country cases offer ominous precedents. Iraq’s exaggerated weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime by an invasion led by the George W. Bush administration. Libya agreed to give up its nuclear ambitions, but Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed during the Barack Obama administration. Iran, too, negotiated a nuclear freeze with the United States and other governments in exchange for sanctions relief, but the Donald Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and subsequently ordered bunker-buster bombings of Iranian nuclear facilities.

If U.S. and South Korean diplomacy toward North Korea resumes, incorporating more positive historical precedents into the discussion could help foster a conducive negotiating environment. South Korea and the United States were adversaries during the Vietnam War, yet today they consider Vietnam a valued partner. If North Korea experts closely examine this case, they might find that Vietnam’s experience demonstrates the possibility of participating in the international economy, normalizing diplomatic relations, and achieving domestic political stability without possessing nuclear weapons or undergoing regime change.

References

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■ Leif-Eric Easley(Ph.D. in Political Science, Harvard University) is a professor at Ewha Womans University, where he teaches international security and political economy. He thanks research assistant Aisaule Mereke for excellent research support.

■ Translation and Editing: Oh In-hwan, Senior Researcher, EAI; Lee Sang-junEAI Researcher

    Inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 211) | leesj@eai.or.kr