ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

To Lam’s Southeast Asia Visits Expand Vietnam’s ‘Neighborhood Bamboo Diplomacy’

Hanoi’s closer engagement with its ASEAN neighbors represents an enhancement of its flexible, omnidirectional foreign policy doctrine.

Vietnamese President To Lam (right) walks past a guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony at the Malacanang Palace in Manila, Philippines, along with Philippine President President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Jun. 1, 2026.

Vietnamese President To Lam, who also serves as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), has just concluded a three-nation Southeast Asian tour covering Thailand (May 27–28), Singapore (May 29–30), and the Philippines (May 31–June 1).

If neighboring Laos and Cambodia – Vietnam’s two traditional and special partners – are added to Lam’s recent tour, along with visits to Malaysia and Indonesia, this trip brings to seven the number of Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) member states that Lam has visited since he was elected the CPV general secretary in August 2024. In Singapore last week, Lam also delivered a keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest annual security forum, making him the highest-ranking Vietnamese leader to speak at the event since former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung did so in 2013.

This was Lam’s second foreign trip since being elected president in April. The number of Lam’s Southeast Asian stops indicate that under his leadership, Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy” is extending its reach and leaning more heavily toward ASEAN member states. This reflects not only the importance that Vietnam places on these countries’ roles and the need to strengthen bilateral ties of strategic significance to Vietnam, but also signals a new shift in Vietnam’s “neighborhood diplomacy” thinking.

ASEAN has always held an important place in Vietnam’s foreign policy and has carried strategic significance for the country since 1975, to come out of sanctions and blockades imposed by China and the West after the Vietnam War. This importance has been further underscored since Vietnam joined the bloc in 1995.

Nevertheless, Vietnam’s attention to individual ASEAN member states has been uneven and inconsistent. Vietnam assigns high priority to neighborhood diplomacy, yet for much of this period the concept of “neighbor” has implied only countries sharing a land border with Vietnam – namely China, Laos, and Cambodia – while the remaining ASEAN states have been more often viewed as “regional countries,” a broader term that can encompass not just countries in Southeast Asia but also those in Northeast Asia and South Asia.

Since Lam became CPV chief in August 2024 and took direct charge of external affairs work, this outlook and Vietnam’s approach toward ASEAN member states appear to have undergone a shift. Within just six months, from November 2024 to May 2025, Vietnam established Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships (CSPs) with four ASEAN countries, three of which were formalized during  Lam’s visits to Malaysia (November 2024), Indonesia (March 2025), and Singapore (March 2025). The fourth upgrade, with Thailand, was announced during the visit of then Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to Vietnam that May.

During Lam’s visit to the Philippines this week, the two countries upgraded their relations to an Enhanced Strategic Partnership, a closer step to a CSP. Notably, Vietnam is the........

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