Vietnam’s Memory Diplomacy: Curating the Past for an Uncertain Future

Memory diplomacy — the strategic use of collective memory to advance foreign policy goals — is central to how Vietnam manages relations with key diplomatic partners. Hanoi’s playbook involves a dual approach: reinforcing past comradeship and solidarity with its traditional partners while simultaneously spotlighting memories of pre-war diplomatic interactions and post-war rapprochement with the US. 

Vietnam has actively buttressed ties with former comrades-in-arms this year through a series of commemorative activities. On 30 April, the country welcomed soldiers from China, Laos, and Cambodia to march in its parade marking the 50th anniversary of national reunification (the end of the Vietnam War). On 2 September, military contingents from these three countries and Russia joined Vietnam’s parade for the 80th anniversary of national independence. A month earlier, Vietnam’s Ministry of Defence had unveiled a memorial site within the Vietnam Military History Museum, with monuments honouring Soviet, Cuban, Chinese, Lao, and Cambodian soldiers and military advisors who supported Vietnam’s wars for independence. 

Vietnam has also participated in its traditional partners’ landmark ceremonies. On 9 May, 68 Vietnamese soldiers joined Russia’s parade commemorating the Soviet victory in World War II — the first time that the Vietnam’s People Army took part in a foreign military parade. In September, President Luong Cuong attended China’s military parade for the 80th anniversary of victory against fascism. The following month, the Communist Party of Vietnam’s General Secretary To Lam — the country’s top leader — visited North Korea and observed the military parade for the ruling party’s 80th founding anniversary. 

These gestures signal political loyalty while creating memory alliances, reassuring Vietnam’s traditional partners that it would not align with the West to undermine their interests. This allows Hanoi to continue its multidirectional foreign policy in an era marked by intensifying geopolitical tensions and competing blocs. 

Yet Vietnam’s memory diplomacy is not reserved solely for traditional friends. Fostering close ties with the US, Vietnam’s former foe, also requires strategic curation of historical memory. Hanoi has long pursued the policy of “shelving the past, looking to the future” in its relations with Washington. This approach seeks to prevent painful memories and legacies of the Vietnam War from blocking the path toward deeper cooperative partnerships. 

He then conveyed To Lam’s message to the American audience: “We cannot choose the past, but we can choose how to look at the past so that we can make choices for the future.”

Some aspects of the past, however, have been selectively “unshelved”. During his trip to the US last year, in a speech marking one year of the comprehensive strategic partnership, To Lam traced Vietnam-US relations back to the World War II period. He highlighted the assistance Vietnamese forces provided to American pilots and Ho Chi Minh’s letters to American leaders, including US President Harry Truman, to seek support for Vietnam’s independence. He then noted that “due to historical conditions and circumstances”, Ho Chi Minh’s wish was not fulfilled. Lam went on to suggest that the two countries becoming friends and comprehensive strategic partners now fulfils Ho Chi Minh’s original aspiration. 

This narrative of missed opportunity for friendship has been amplified through Vietnam’s 2025 celebration activities of its ties with the US. On 17 October, the two countries organised a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Vietnam-US Friendship Association. At the event, Phan Anh Son, Chairman of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations, remarked that Ho Chi Minh founded the association “to ensure that the two nations, once comrades in the Allied forces, would continue to cooperate for peace and progress”.

A month earlier, during his New York trip, President Luong Cuong met with American veterans and former anti-war activists on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of bilateral normalisation. Like To Lam, Luong Cuong invoked Ho Chi Minh’s letters to Harry Truman. He also emphasised the Vietnamese people’s spirit of forgiveness and ongoing bilateral cooperation to address war legacies. He then conveyed To Lam’s message to the American audience: “We cannot choose the past, but we can choose how to look at the past so that we can make choices for the future.” 

Vietnam’s choice in recent years seems to be not merely setting painful memories aside but actively co-producing with the US a feel-good story of reconciliation — one where former enemies overcome the past to become (comprehensive strategic) partners. Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than the partnership between Vietnam’s War Remnants Museum and USAID to develop an exhibition on Vietnam-US reconciliation and US-sponsored programs addressing war legacies. It is particularly telling that a state-run museum founded to document American war crimes is now willing to host a US-funded exhibition showcasing American humanitarian activities in Vietnam. 

Originally planned to open this year, the exhibition has been in limbo due to the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID and the US Institute of Peace, which are involved in implementing the project. Still, the initiative underscores Vietnam’s desire to align historical narratives of the post-normalisation period with the US. 

By strategically foregrounding different historical memories that resonate with each partner’s perspective, Vietnam signals peaceful intentions, thereby allowing it to sustain and deepen cordial bilateral ties for national interests. The past — or more accurately, interpretations of it — turns out to be essential for Vietnam to navigate an uncertain future. 

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