Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) held a plenary session on Party and people-to-people diplomacy in Hanoi on August 5 as part of the 33rd Diplomatic Conference. The hybrid event was connected to the municipal and provincial Party Committees, and Vietnamese representative agencies abroad.
Politburo member and Permanent member of the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat Tran Cam Tu attended the event. Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Hoai Trung delivered the opening speech.
Mining soft power for trust and consensus
Assoc. Prof. Dr Le Hai Binh, member of the Party Central Committee and Permanent Vice President of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, flagged a mindset breakthrough by the 14th National Party Congress that defines foreign affairs as a core, regular task and stresses proactive shaping over simply participating and adapting.
Citing Party General Secretary and State President To Lam’s assertion that diplomacy is now a component of national comprehensive strength, Binh dissected Party diplomacy’s strategic role across three levels, including building the political foundation for the broader diplomatic landscape, feeding policy formulation, and safeguarding ideological footing and strategic autonomy.
People-to-people diplomacy, Binh said, is a channel for converting soft power into trust, international consensus and resources for national development.
To upgrade external engagement, he proposed broadening the concept of academic diplomacy so that every Vietnamese scholar, at home or abroad, becomes a stakeholder, building a global network of informed voices that use scientific arguments to push back directly against disinformation in international forums.
He also laid out four breakthrough solutions, including distilling Party diplomacy outcomes into concise advisory reports sent directly to the Central Steering Committee, elevating external relations training in the academy system with specialised courses for Party diplomacy officials, compiling standardised reference materials for academic debates, building a unified database to manage a strategic overseas personnel network, and adding effectiveness metrics based on tangible outputs and long-term impact.
Building a solid social base for State and Party diplomacy
Cao Xuan Thao, Vice President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF)’s Central Committee, spotlighted the VFF’s role and position in people-to-people diplomacy. A new operating model launched in mid-2025 has enabled the VFF to revamp working methods and reach consensus on a clear division of labour among its member chapters, he said.
The VFF is working to strengthen the social foundation for Party and State diplomacy by making people-to-people efforts more professional. It is moving beyond traditional exchanges to include knowledge, science, culture, and even digital and creative diplomacy. Alongside maintaining traditional ties, it is also building new connections with foreign social organisations, research institutes, and businesses in emerging fields like green transition, digital transformation, and tackling climate change.
Thao said the VFF views the community of more than 6.5 million overseas Vietnamese as a vital source of intellectual and technological resources to foster connectivity and showcase the nation. It will exercise its central role in mobilising, guiding and coordinating the diplomatic plans of its chapters to ensure coherence with Party and State diplomacy - a key direction for lifting the effectiveness of people-to-people diplomacy in the new period.
Fortifying security-development belt
Vu Hoang Anh, Vice Secretary of the Lang Son provincial Party Committee, shared local experience in managing its border with China’s Guangxi, a critical gateway connecting Vietnam to ASEAN and reinforcing the country’s “security-development belt".
Anh said Lang Son has drawn key lessons in upholding the Party Committee’s direct, unified leadership and leveraging Party diplomacy through annual spring meetings and cooperation mechanisms with Guangxi, thus deepening political trust and directing relevant forces to intensify border cooperation.
The province is also renewing people-to-people diplomacy by sustaining village-to-village twinning models along the frontier, laying a foundation for friendship and cooperation while tapping local advantages and promoting economic diplomacy to fuel the security-development belt.
To firmly consolidate the belt, Lang Son proposed the Party Central Committee refine mechanisms compatible with the two-tier local administration model, giving commune-level authorities, especially border communes, sufficient legal grounds to sign and launch international agreements on friendly cooperation and tap local potential effectively.
It also urged sustained investment in road and high-speed rail infrastructure, as well as border gate infrastructure at international and bilateral crossings, paired with digital transformation. It further called for continued study and guidance on expanding effective, substantive friendship exchanges and twinning models among localities, organisations and border communities.
From cultural diplomacy and heritage to hard power
Le Tri Thanh, Vice Secretary of the Hue municipal Party Committee and Chairman of the Hue People’s Committee, stressed the imperative of turning cultural diplomacy and heritage into internal resources that fuel socio-economic development.
Blessed with distinct competitive advantages from UNESCO-recognised heritage sites, Hue city is pursuing international cooperation to capture conservation expertise and sustainable development models while forcefully pivoting people-to-people diplomacy from mere friendship exchanges toward substantive, value-generating cooperation. The city is betting on residents as cultural ambassadors and on digital technologies to digitise heritage and deliver multilingual communications, pulling Hue’s culture closer to global audiences.
He proposed the MoFA take the lead, coordinating with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, localities and relevant agencies to build a Vietnam Heritage Diplomacy Network, connecting localities with standout heritage and broadening connections to UNESCO, conservation funds, financial bodies and international partners.
Party diplomacy as strategic anchor
Vietnamese Ambassador to China Pham Thanh Binh described Party diplomacy as a strategic anchor that steers the overall direction of bilateral ties.
Binh said the Vietnamese representative mission in China has proactively sharpened research and policy recommendations, pushed exchanges through Party channels, and leveraged dialogue mechanisms and theoretical seminars to connect localities and pull in resources.
Through people-to-people diplomacy, the mission has kept signature events humming, such as Vietnam Cultural Day in China, the Vietnam-China People’s Forum and the Border People’s Festival, to solidify a social foundation for the relationship.
Binh proposed embedding people-to-people diplomacy within the broader strategic framework, deepening links with Chinese localities which have strengths in technology and logistics, ramping up digital external communications, activating the overseas Vietnamese community as a vital bridge for friendship with host countries, and focusing on building a corps of officials in charge of foreign affairs with deep professional expertise and understanding of political systems and cultures of the host countries.
Turning to Africa, Ambassador Hoang Sy Cuong said the Communist Party of Vietnam has established official relations with roughly 40 political parties across 24 African countries, playing a key role in constructing the political foundation for advancing state-to-state relations and economic cooperation.
Despite headwinds arising from vast geography, thin staffing at missions and complex domestic politics in some host nations, Vietnam’s standing is consistently highly valued by African countries, which have shown an appetite for learning from Vietnam’s Doi Moi (renewal) model.
To amplify the power of Party diplomacy, Cuong advocated increasing Party delegation exchanges, embedding Party cooperation into high-level activities, signing additional cooperation agreements with major political and left-wing parties, accelerating information sharing and online theoretical exchanges, and sustaining training courses while inviting partner delegations to Vietnam to study and share experience./.
