Over the past 70 years, from a feudal-colonial country, Vietnam has become an independent, unified country with foreign relations with most of the countries in the world. There are many factors contributing to that achievement in which Vietnamese diplomacy deeply imprinted with Ho Chi Minh thought, guideline and style is an important one.

President Ho Chi Minh and Laotian leader Souphanouvong in 1954 (File photo)

1. Consistent aims, inherited tradition

The first task of the Vietnamese diplomacy was to set out the right aims, ensuring national interest and matching the time trend. Since the very first revolutionary days, our Party has raised its slogan of “Nation first. Fatherland first”. For our country, the primary interest is to maintain national independence, sovereignty, unification and integrity; national development and affirmation of the high status in the international arena. These aims are closely connected. Depending on each particular situation and period, one of the aims may be better prioritized than the others. During the time from the foundation of the Vietnam Democratic Republic in 1945 to the death of President Ho Chi Minh in 1969, resistance war to protect national independence and unification was always regarded as the first priority. During that time, President Ho Chi Minh has always attached importance and been consistent with this aim. Accordingly, at the Geneva Conference in 1954, we persistently struggled to claim our national independence, sovereignty, unification and integrity to the powers. Later in the Paris Peace Accords on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam (1973), we also struggled persistently to ask for those basic national rights.

Ho Chi Minh thought on diplomacy also raises high of independence, self-reliance and international solidarity. This manifests the sound thinking, guideline and strategic view of President Ho Chi Minh given the complicacies of the regional and international context in 1950s. His thinking has helped the Vietnamese diplomacy draw out its external guideline of independence, self-reliance which was suitable with national interest and made contribution to the common aims of other nations of peace, national independence, democracy, social advance and  equal cooperation for mutual interest.

Specially, in diplomacy, Ho Chi Minh has always been a clear example of the nation’s tradition of pacification, a symbol of humanistic diplomacy. In his letter to the French in Indochina, in his capacity as a faithful friend of friendly French not as a president of the Vietnam Democratic Republic, he stressed “We are a peace loving nation. We care for the interest and freedom of other nations”, “We don’t hate French people. Our struggle doesn’t aim at the France but the brutal occupation of the French colonialism in Indochina”. In his letter to the American women in March 1964, he wrote: “People of the two countries don’t hate each other. We, particularly women, all want to live in peace and friendship… However, if war is not to be ended soon, American people, first and foremost American women, will suffer the pain of losing husbands and sons! So, you, American women, should protest against the aggression of the American Government!”

Moreover, Ho Chi Minh soon attached importance to foreign relations. In his appeal to the United Nations in 1946, he wrote: “Vietnam is ready to exercise its open policy and set up cooperation in all fields with democratic nations”. Grasping being consistent with his diplomatic thinking, in the two resistance wars against the French and the American in the present cause of national development and defence, the Vietnamese diplomacy has always pursue its guideline of more friends, less enemies; widening international solidarity and Indochinese solidarity; taking advantage of the help and support of friendly countries, peace loving people in the world, making contribution to creating the synergy to fulfill the cause of building and protecting Vietnam socialist Fatherland.

2. Creating the synergy

To gain the setout aims, “position” and “strength” are always the decisive factors. President Ho Chi Minh explained this very simply “We must rely on our potentialities. Our diplomacy will thrive when our potentialities are strong. Potentiality is the gong and diplomacy is its sound. Big gong makes big sound”. The matter is given the time when the revolution has just succeeded, the country faced various difficulties with both domestic and external enemies, and how could we generate our potentialities? Thus, if we looked only on our hard power of economics and defence, then, our potentialities would be very limited. However, President Ho Chi Minh and our Party, on one hand, strengthened the cause of national construction, particularly in the fields of hunger prevention and illiteracy eradication, government and armed forces establishment and making the full use of our soft powers of righteousness of our revolution, the patriotism of our people and the national solidarity to gather people of all strata under the motto “Regardless of you’re men or women, you’re young or old, whatever religion, political party and race you are, take up arms  against the French to save the nation as long as you are Vietnamese”.

Together with promoting national potentialities, President Ho Chi Minh also linked our revolution closely with progressive movements in the world. In the communiqué on the “Foreign policy of the interim government” released on 3^rd October 1945, Ho Chi Minh pointed out: “Bringing the nation to complete and endless independence, joining hands with the ally country in fighting against the fascism, basing on the democratic principles approved by other nations to recreate the world peace”. On deciding objects of diplomacy, he pointed out: “Vietnam considers Asian countries as brothers and the five powers as friends”. In his strategic direction, diplomacy was put in the close relation with politics, military and economics. This was clearly shown in his thinking on the combination of the three diplomacy branches: Party diplomacy, State diplomacy and people-to-people exchange – a concept dated back to the 1940s and is still inherited and developed up to now.

So, the guideline of “creating synergy” in the field of diplomacy originated early in  Ho Chi Minh thought and was persistently followed by our Party and State. Such synergy is generated from the combination of hard power and soft power, of different sectors, of the national strength with that of the times, of domestic and international power creating increasingly great potentialities for diplomacy.

The guideline has been applied by our Party and State in the time of renovation and open policy, bringing about great achievements in all fields, including diplomacy itself.

3. Strong principles, flexible policies

In diplomacy, setting the right aims, generating sufficient forces are essential but not enough. In order to achieve the set-out goals, we need to have sound strategies. This was shown in President Ho Chi Minh’s words to Huynh Thuc Khang before his trip to France in 1946 “The invariables decide the variables”. In his opinion, invariables are matters of principle and strategic significance such as national independence, sovereignty, unification, integrity and interest. Variables are policies which can be flexible and changeable in accordance with each situation. However, in diplomacy, in many of the cases, it is hard to distinguish between a strategy and a policy because they are mixed and intertwined. Policies must bear the contents of strategies and strategies can only be shown in policies.

It has been shown in reality that the flexible and creative policies applied by President Ho Chi Minh are: more friends, less enemies; exploiting contradictions among enemies; seizing and making use of the opportunity, gaining partial victory before the total one, etc. He particularly emphasizes and pursues the policy of more friends and less enemies. In September 1947, when an American journalist asked him about Vietnam’s foreign policies at that time, he replied briefly: “being a friend to all democratic countries and hating no one”. In the two resistance wars, Ho Chi Minh used to remind the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that: “…diplomacy must bring more friends and allies and less enemies to the country”. Nowadays, the policy is manifested in the Party’s foreign policy of mulilateralization and diversification of relations which has been written in the Resolution of the 7^th National Congress of the Party in 1991 as “Vietnam wants to be a friend to all countries in the world for peace, independence and development”, in the Resolution of the 8^th National Congress of Party in 1996 as “Vietnam is ready to become a reliable friend in the international community for peace, independence and development” and in the 11^th National Congress of the Party in 2011 as “Vietnam is a reliable friend and partner and a responsible member of the international community”.

Vu Khoan

Former member of  Secretariat

Former  Deputy Prime Minister