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| Flag-raising ceremony during the event marking Vietnam’s admission as the seventh member of ASEAN on July 28, 1995 in Brunei__Photo: VNA |
As Vietnam commemorates three decades of membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the country finds itself in a markedly different position than when it first joined the bloc in 1995.
Once a diplomatically isolated state struggling under the weight of sanctions and blockades, Vietnam now stands as a proactive regional actor with expansive global partnerships and a promising economic clout.
On July 28, 1995, in a ceremony in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was hoisted for the first time prior to the 28th ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting, marking the country's accession as the bloc's seventh member.
Thirty years later, Vietnam’s membership is widely seen as a turning point in its foreign policy – a strategic decision that helped pull the country out of Cold War isolation and embed it within a dynamic regional and global system.
"It was a hit-or-miss moment," said Nguyen Vu Tung, a former Vietnamese ambassador to South Korea and president of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, during a commemorative meeting hosted by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
The decision to join ASEAN was about foreign policy but also about economic development model, because eventually the function of Vietnam's foreign policy is to create favorable conditions for national development, Tung said.
"At the time, there were visible success stories of East Asian economic miracles, including in Southeast Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Vietnam just happened to be in that region where the miracles happened, so that's another consideration to join ASEAN," Tung added.
By joining ASEAN, Vietnam has accomplished its goal of having a peaceful and cooperative neighboring environment for it to focus on economic development under the đổi mới (renewal) agenda, as well as enjoy new economic interests, especially in terms of trade, investment and tourism.
Vietnam’s road to ASEAN was paved with profound structural shifts. The end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet bloc and the 1991 settlement of the Cambodian conflict opened a window for realignment.
As Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales Canberra and a veteran Vietnam observer, told Việt Nam News: "In the late 1980s, Vietnam assessed that the major threats to its security and independence were economic weakness, political isolation and embargo. The Politburo [of the Vietnam Communist Party] introduced the concept of national interest and called for 'more friends, fewer enemies'."
Vietnam in 1991 then adopted the policy of diversifying and multilateralizing its all-round relations with all countries.
That spirit of strategic recalibration culminated in Vietnam’s decision to seek ASEAN membership. The formal accession came just over two weeks after normalization of ties with the United States after a protracted blockade following the bitter war that the US waged in Vietnam.
According to Andrew Wells-Dang, PhD, a senior specialist on Vietnam-US relations, this is not a mere coincidence.
"These two steps extended đổi mới to foreign relations and laid the foundation for Vietnam’s economic development and diversified foreign policy since then," Wells-Dang said.
Vietnam's membership in ASEAN was supported by both China and the United States as a positive development contributing to peace and security in the region, Thayer said, adding that Vietnam's membership in ASEAN enhanced its prestige and standing in the world.
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| In 1998, Vietnam successfully organises the ASEAN Summit for the first time since joining the bloc three years earlier__Photo: VNA |
From outsider to insider
In its early ASEAN years, Vietnam approached the bloc with a degree of caution. Hoang Thi Ha, a former ASEAN Secretariat official and now a senior fellow at ISEAS, recalled that Hanoi was among the most conservative voices within ASEAN.
"Vietnam was a staunch guardian of traditional ASEAN principles, particularly consensus and non-interference. Having only just escaped Cold War divisions, it was highly wary of any external agendas," she said.
Economically, Vietnam argued for a phased approach to integration and targeted support to narrow development gaps. As a more recent member, Vietnam consistently supported ASEAN’s initiatives to close the development gap, which had been clearly demonstrated in the 2001 Hanoi Declaration on Narrowing the Development Gap for Closer ASEAN Integration, which highlights a shared duty to help Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam fully participate in the ASEAN economic community.
Over time, Vietnam's posture evolved from defensive to more proactive. Ha noted a significant shift as it gained economic confidence and diplomatic sophistication.
Vietnam gradually transitioned to an outward-looking actor, aligning more with maritime ASEAN states like Singapore in the advocacy for an open, inclusive and rules-based regional order, as well as in a strong involvement of all major powers in ASEAN-led mechanisms, she said.
"ASEAN provided regular hands-on platforms for Vietnamese officials to unlearn Cold War rigid binary thinking of friend vs foes or scepticism towards ideologically different states, and to internalize regional norms, as well as international practices, standards and multilateral diplomacy and negotiation skills," Ha said. "Those were crucial experiences that shape the country's broader global integration."
Over the last three decades since the accession, Vietnam has made at least four major contributions to ASEAN, Thayer said.
First, Vietnam promoted the admission of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, thus meeting the original ASEAN goal of including all countries in Southeast Asia.
Second, when Vietnam assumed the role of ASEAN Chair for the first time in 1998, the country had secured the endorsement of a six-year Hanoi Plan of Action to implement ASEAN Vision 2020.
Third, when Vietnam served as ASEAN Chair for the second time in 2010, it successfully expanded membership on the East Asia Forum to include the United States and Russia, and also hosted the inaugural ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting Plus – which is a platform for the bloc to engage with its dialogue partners to strengthen security and defense cooperation for peace, stability and development in the region.
Fourth, as ASEAN Chair for the third time in 2020, Vietnam made an outstanding contribution to ASEAN’s development during the complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thayer said.
"Vietnam pioneered virtual meetings of ASEAN officials and Vietnam undertook a proactive role in lobbying the major powers for access to vaccines and the transfer of needed medical equipment," he said.
On the East Sea [internationally known as China Sea] issue, Vietnam has walked a fine line. Hanoi has sought to leverage ASEAN mechanisms to press for international legal norms while avoiding bloc fracture.
Vietnam's 2020 ASEAN Chairmanship saw a carefully calibrated diplomatic gain: the bloc’s reaffirmation of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as the basis for maritime conduct.
"Vietnam foregrounded the convention in all summit documents," Ha said, calling it a modest but meaningful diplomatic victory.
On Vietnam's accession, Secretary-General of ASEAN Kao Kim Hourn has noted the 'transformative catalyst' for the grouping's ASEAN-10 vision, how the country's multi-directional foreign policy aligns and enriches outward-looking external relations, its staunch advocate for a network of free trade agreements, and how its sustained high economic growth has not just benefited Vietnamese people but also strengthened the whole region.
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| Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (4th left) and other ASEAN leaders at the signing ceremony of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on ASEAN 2045__Photo: VNA |
Today, Vietnam is proud of its 30-year journey of international integration, with ASEAN serving as a starting point and gateway to broader regional and global engagement. The country has now established diplomatic relations with 194 states and actively participates in over 70 international and regional bodies, and entered free trade agreements with over 60 countries and economies.
ASEAN remains a pillar of Vietnam's foreign policy, though not the sole one.
"Vietnam views ASEAN as one pillar of a multi-polar strategy," said Dr Wells-Dang. "Its importance has not always reached its potential, partly due to differences among ASEAN members on issues like the East Sea or Mekong water governance."
Still, ASEAN provides a vital anchor for Vietnam's regional identity.
"Vietnam is now seen as a pivot country," he said. "It may not be the leading face of ASEAN, but its role has steadily increased. It's impossible to imagine the bloc without Vietnam."
Surveys bear this out. In the 2024 and 2025 reports by the ASEAN Studies Center at the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute, Việt Nam ranked fifth in the region in terms of contributing to ASEAN’s long-term development, behind Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Facing the future
As ASEAN enters a period of institutional introspection amid great-power rivalry, the bloc faces pressure to adapt.
Wells-Dang said that the ASEAN's governing principles include respect for members' sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs.
"While sovereignty is unquestionable, the non-interference principle has weakened ASEAN's ability to resolve conflicts within and among member states," Wells-Dang said.
"How can Vietnam and Singapore, for instance, take a more active role in addressing the civil war in Myanmar, tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, or flashpoints in the East Sea?
"As the United States and other major powers take a more isolationist posture, or are preoccupied with their own domestic and regional challenges, there is potential for ASEAN to become more than a regional talking shop and become central to promoting peace and stability in Southeast Asia."
For now, the legacy of Vietnam's 1995 decision is clear. What began as a bold gamble amid economic crisis has matured into one of Southeast Asia’s most significant post-Cold War foreign policy realignments. In ASEAN, Vietnam found both a platform and a community.
As said by General Secretary To Lam of the Vietnam Communist Party when he gave a policy speech at the ASEAN Secretariat in March, since "embarking on our open-door policy and integration journey, ASEAN has served as the premier multilateral mechanism most directly connected with Vietnam".
And looking forward, he said that Vietnam's foreign policy focus would remain on collaborating with ASEAN to cultivate a dynamic and united community that advances peace, stability and prosperity in the region, "especially with a sense of self-responsibility for a more proactive role and greater contributions to the bloc via the guiding principle of being creative in thought, innovative in approach, flexible in delivery, effective in method and decisive in action".- (VNS/VLLF)
