ASEAN Centrality and Vietnam’s Strategic Autonomy: Institutional Perspectives on Sovereignty and Security

Abstract

This study examines how ASEAN’s institutional centrality shapes Vietnam’s capacity to preserve national security and sovereignty amid intensifying strategic rivalry between the United States and China. Moving beyond conventional assessments of ASEAN’s institutional effectiveness, the study conceptualizes ASEAN as a strategic institutional resource that influences the policy space available to smaller states operating under conditions of great-power competition. The analysis integrates perspectives on Bamboo Diplomacy, omni-enmeshment, strategic hedging, and the “Impossible Trinity” of security, prosperity, and autonomy to develop a three-level analytical framework linking great-power rivalry, regional institutionalism, and state-level sovereignty. The findings demonstrate that ASEAN contributes to Vietnam’s sovereignty preservation through three principal mechanisms: facilitating the multilateralization of maritime security concerns, providing an inclusive institutional environment for soft balancing between competing great powers, and reinforcing the normative conditions necessary for Vietnam to maintain strategic autonomy. ASEAN centrality is therefore found to enhance Vietnam’s diplomatic leverage not by providing direct security guarantees, but by diversifying strategic options, increasing the political costs of coercive behavior, and preventing the regional order from becoming exclusively dominated by either Washington or Beijing. However, the study also identifies significant vulnerabilities arising from ASEAN’s internal divisions and the proliferation of parallel minilateral security arrangements, including the Quad and AUKUS. These developments may weaken ASEAN’s convening capacity and progressively narrow Vietnam’s strategic room for maneuver. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that ASEAN’s institutional cohesion should be understood not merely as a regional governance outcome but also as an external condition shaping Vietnam’s ability to pursue sovereignty, security, and strategic autonomy simultaneously. It concludes that a resilient and central ASEAN remains an important institutional pillar supporting Vietnam’s Bamboo Diplomacy and its long-term strategy of avoiding excessive dependence on either great power.