The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

THE EDITORS

Series Chairman:

Series Editor:

Editorial Committee:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• • Vietnam-US relations have kept strengthening since bilateral normalization in 1995, including in the defence and strategic domains. This has turned the two countries into increasingly important security partners for each other.

• • The shared perception of the China threat, especially in the South China Sea, provided the strongest momentum towards bilateral strategic rapprochement in recent years despite the strategic uncertainties generated by the Trump administration. Such strategic dynamics also shaped Vietnam's supportive view of the US-led regional and global orders.

• • In the short to medium term, challenges for bilateral relations include the further improvement of mutual trust and the building up of Vietnam's capacity to participate in more substantive defence cooperation initiatives with the United States. In the long run, how to balance its strengthening ties with Washington and the troubling yet important relationship with Beijing remains a challenge for Hanoi.

• • Vietnam's support for the US-led rules-based international order should remain persistent, but will vary depending on the shifting dynamics in Vietnam's relations with China as well as Sino-US strategic competition.

INTRODUCTION

Stepping out of the shadow of the past, Vietnam-US relations have seen new horizons since the two Cold War enemies normalized ties in 1995. In 2013, Hanoi and Washington entered into a “comprehensive partnership”, marking a new era of bilateral relations in which the two sides strengthened their ties beyond the economic domain. Currently, the two sides are considering upgrading their relations to the level of “strategic partnership”. The steady progress in bilateral cooperation, especially in the defence and strategic domains, has surprised regional observers and brought new substance to the relationship. Vietnam and the United States have indeed become important security partners, with each country playing an increasingly important role in the other's security policy.

This article analyses the Vietnam-US security relationship with a focus on Vietnam's perception of the relationship and the role that Hanoi would like Washington to play in its security policy. It is arguably their common perception of the China threat, especially in the South China Sea, which has added the strongest momentum to their strategic rapprochement in recent years. Due to this common interest in managing China's rise and its increasing maritime assertiveness, bilateral ties have continued to grow steadily despite the strategic uncertainty generated by the Trump administration. At the same time, such strategic dynamics have also led Vietnam to maintain its supportive view of the US-led regional and global orders. This position of Hanoi will likely stay unchanged in the near future.

The article starts with an overview of the foundations of the Vietnam-US security partnership, followed by an analysis of the role of the United States in Vietnam's national security strategy. It then reviews the key issues in their bilateral security partnership and discusses Vietnam's perception of US power under the Obama and Trump administrations. It concludes by assessing Vietnam's perception of the rules-based international order and the role of the United States in this order.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE VIETNAM-US SECURITY PARTNERSHIP

Among the major allies and security partners of the United States in Asia, Vietnam is perhaps the most special one given the two countries’ recent history of extreme hostility as well as their rival ideologies.

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

THE EDITORS

Series Chairman:

Series Editor:

Editorial Committee:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• • American Indo-Pacific policy will be driven by its China policy, regardless of whether there is a second-term Donald Trump administration or a first-term Joe Biden administration.

• • The Republicans will continue to frame the major challenge as “balancing” against Chinese power and “countering” the worst aspects of Beijing's policies. Establishment or moderate Democrats under Biden will choose the softer language of seeking a favourable “competitive coexistence” in the military, economic, political and global governance realms, and the reassertion of American leadership and moral standing.

• • In advancing the FOIP, the current administration argues that disruptiveness and unpredictability are necessary to reverse what they see as the “normalization” of Chinese assertiveness, coercion and revisionism. They also point to the closeness of US cooperation with Japan, Australia and India and bourgeoning strategic relationships with Vietnam. A second-term Trump administration will continue to seek out “fit-for-purpose” existing institutions and relationships, or prioritize new ones.

• • Establishment Democrats believe that the “America First” unilateralist approach is unsettling for allies and partners. In advancing a favourable “competitive coexistence” with China, Democrats will seek to expand the tools of statecraft and achieve a better balance between military/economic/political/governance approaches.

• • Prima facie, a Biden administration might position America as a more consultative guarantor of a preferred order. However, there will be greater pressure on Southeast Asians to accept more collective responsibility to advance common objectives. This means hedging in a manner more suitable to American rather than Chinese preferences. Failing that, more emphasis might be placed on greater institutionalization of the Quad and ad hoc groupings.

• • A Bernie Sanders administration, now an unlikely prospect, would be a disaster for US standing and power in the region, and therefore for Southeast Asia.

As Singapore clocked its first handful of coronavirus cases in late January 2020, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, while on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, issued an appeal for the public to remain calm. This appeal bore some similarities with China's former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦) foreign policy doctrine—to calmly observe, hold one's ground, react firmly, act but keep a low profile (冷静观察、稳住阵脚、沉着应付、韬光养晦、有所作为: leng jing guan cha, wen zhu zhen jiao, chen zhuo ying fu, tao guang yang hui, you suo zuo wei).

Drawing inspiration from PM Lee's call for “calm” and its similarities with Deng's Tao Guang Yang Hui, this article discusses the evolution of China's foreign policy since Deng Xiaoping, as well as the implications of this foreign policy transformation for Southeast Asia. Methodologically, this paper compares Deng Xiaoping's and Xi Jinping's foreign policy doctrines through an analysis of state narratives—namely the evolution from Deng's Tao Guang Yang Hui to Xi's Xin Xing (新型). This shift has largely been interpreted as the most important shift in China's foreign policy.

This paper will address three questions: Was Deng's Tao Guang Yang Hui, characterized by the “No’s” (不: bu), really replaced? What is new about Xi's Xin Xing? And whither China's foreign policy?

UNPACKING TAO GUANG YANG HUI

Tao Guang Yang Hui, coined and formulated by Deng between 1989 and 1991, functioned as the core doctrine of China's foreign policy against the backdrop of the Tiananmen incident, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. With Tao Guang Yang Hui, Deng relaunched China's “reform and opening up” with his well-known Southern Tour of 1992, and successfully froze China's internal debate on the “-isms”—i.e., socialism or capitalism—and re-embraced US-led globalization.

Today, “Deng Xiaoping Theory”, which encompasses elements of Tao Guang Yang Hui, is enshrined in the People's Republic of China's Constitution, and accorded the same ideological standing as “Mao Zedong Thought” and “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” as China's “guiding principles”.

The story of this book begins in 2014. Zlatko discussed the situation in Taiwan with Dr Saša Istenič Kotar, a good colleague and the Director of the Center for Taiwan Studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Somehow, this discussion turned to the parliamentary dimension of Taiwan's international relations. As Zlatko had been writing on parliamentary institutions and the parliamentary dimension of international relations in general, he went to search for what has already been written on this regarding Taiwan. Detailed preliminary research has confirmed that not much is available in the scholarly literature about what is or may be the contribution of Taiwanese and other parliamentarians to ease Taiwan's international isolation. This has brought Taiwan to the centre of Zlatko's research interest in the context of the fast-growing literature on international parliamentary institutions and parliamentary diplomacy.

The next step was to test whether Taiwan's academics and practitioners share his enthusiasm. So, he prepared a research proposal and responded to a call for applications from Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Taiwan Fellowships, designed to stimulate research on Taiwan. His application was successful, and the first part of the research started in Taiwan in 2016. At the initial stage, the support and hospitality he received from the wonderful staff at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library (NCL) under the leadership of Director General Tseng Shu-hsien, in particular Yi-Syuan Wu, Arthur Ding from the Institute of International Relations at the National Chengchi University, Jana Rošker from the University of Ljubljana – who was a guest researcher in Taipei at that time – Zlatko's nextbooth neighbour at the NCL Wen-Ti Sung from the Australian National University, and Mor Sobol from the Tamkang University and a volleyball teammate, were very important. For that, they will never be forgotten.

It was in Taipei when Zlatko, following up Saša's suggestions for who to get in touch with while in Taiwan, met David. A renowned academic with rich practical diplomatic experience, David showed a keen interest in Zlatko's research, which has paved the way for their partnership for this book project. This phase included Zlatko's second stay in Taiwan which began in 2017, this time with the support of a grant from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

This chapter discusses factors that have an impact on the capacity of members of the Legislative Yuan to act internationally and in this way contribute to parliamentary diplomacy of Taiwan. A great deal of the analysis in this section is based on 73 interviews conducted with 62 interviewees. For various reasons, mostly associated with the political sensitivity of the topic and related research, the position they occupied and/ or the (political) status they had at the time of conducting interviews, the interviewees agreed to talk to us if our discussion was off the record. We honour their trust in the following way. When we refer directly to an interviewee, we do so by providing general information about his or her position at the time of the interview. We also provide information about the place and date of the interview. All interviews have been done in the period 2016–2020. The majority of them have been conducted in Taipei, others have taken place by using telecommunication applications or by email. We have opted for semi-structured interviews to allow our respondents to reflect on the topic, and also broadly about challenges and opportunities for Taiwan's parliamentary diplomacy. The interviewees have been informed about the background and the aim of the research. We have told them that the focus of our research is the period since the early 1990s when parliamentary diplomacy was introduced to Taiwan's foreign policy. We have explained to them that we aimed to understand better the potential of parliamentarians to help Taiwan pursue its foreign policy. The maximum time devoted to an interview was between 30 minutes and 90 minutes, and the average time spent in an interview roughly 60 minutes.

Our group of interviewees is diverse. We have met no less than 18 parliamentarians who were members of the Legislative Yuan at that time. Four of them were from the KMT, and 14 from the DPP. We have been fortunate to include several prominent KMT and DPP parliamentarians among our interviewees. On the executive branch side, we have interviewed eight officials. At the time of conducting those interviews, all of them were employees of the MOFA, some of whom were directly involved in coordinating parliamentary visits. From the administrative and research support side, we have interviewed seven individuals, including a high-ranking official in the Legislative Yuan and a person with experience in coordinating activities in the parliament.

The excerpt of this letter to The Lancet, a renowned medical journal, has turned out to be prophetic, because only five years after its publication, Taiwan was among the three countries most affected by the SARS outbreak between 2002 and 2004 (McNeil Jr., 2003; WHO, 2003). The authorities in Taipei were convinced that assistance from the World Health Organization (WHO) would have helped Taiwan in dealing with the outbreak, but requests for help were in vain (Chien, 2003). The problem Taiwan has been facing stems from the fact that very few countries recognize it. Consequently, Taiwan is blocked from participating in international governmental institutions, some, such as the WHO, being of vital importance to Taiwan. Even though a real population lives in Taiwan, which deals with real problems and faces real challenges, they are considered and treated as second-class citizens in the contemporary international community.

States are considered as primary actors in international relations and are the original subjects of international law.

Changes in the international community are barely visible tremors, but from time to time, they take the form of major earthquakes. In the last 50 years, Taiwan has experienced at least three of them. The first one occurred in the 1970s. The second one happened with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 1970s led to the forced exit of Taiwan from the international arena. The Cold War ended with the collapse of a superpower. In the dawning of a new era, it was hoped that the great power rivalry would be replaced by global governance (Rosenau, 1992). That would benefit Taiwan because it favoured cooperation over confrontation. But the liberal international order and the spread of democracy are under threat. Multilateralism seems to be giving way to a new rebalancing of power as the PRC has replaced the Soviet Union in the race with the US for global domination. The third earthquake is coming; it represents the biggest challenge for Taiwan since 1949 because the PRC aims to be a superpower, determined to implement the One China principle.

Taiwan has never accepted the role of a passive observer; it wanted to influence the course of those changes and survive earthquakes unbruised. During the Cold War, Taiwan was employing various types of diplomacies to limit the damage the PRC was inflicting on it by isolating it from the international community. In the 1990s Taiwan started to transform itself by introducing the democratic political system. The process could not have had better timing for Taiwan. The democratization on the island was taking place at the time when the PRC was strengthening its communist regime which also led to the crushing of protests on Tiananmen Square in 1989. In the space of just a few years, two politically completely different Chinas emerged from the Cold War. Democratization processes have not changed much for Taiwan internationally, for the PRC was preventing Taiwan's access to the international community wherever it could. But thanks to democratization, Taiwanese authorities could employ democratically elected parliamentarians as new actors to defend and promote Taiwan's interests. Indeed, the intensified interactions among parliamentarians worldwide which took place after the Cold War encouraged Taiwan to try to connect with the international community at the inter-parliamentary level of international relations. President Lee Teng-hui's administration instructed the MOFA to set up a parliamentary liaison group in 1993 to assist parliamentarians in their international activities.