World Conjuncture: A Core Concept in the Making of Vietnam’s Foreign Policies

Seeing the World through the Lens of Conjuncture: A Vietnam-specific Approach

A distinct feature of Vietnam’s stance on international politics is prevalently recognizing and applying the concept of conjuncture and its variants by both Vietnamese political leaders and academia. Officially speaking, “conjuncture” can be considered the most possible English equivalent for “cục diện” in Vietnamese as it is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “a combination of things happening at the same time”, bearing much resemblance to a Vietnamese definition that “conjuncture (局面) is a Sino-Vietnamese word, often used by the Marxists in China and Vietnam to mention general developments and circumstances of struggles and disputes manifested in a certain period of time” (Luoc and Hung, 2019: 10).[i] Moreover, the official English edition of the Thirteenth CPV Congress Documents also used “conjuncture” to mention “cục diện” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021: 76).

With regard to international politics, Vietnam’s analytical frameworks are inclined to be based on the concepts of “cục diện quốc tế” [international conjuncture], “cục diện thế giới” [world conjuncture], and “cục diện khu vực” [regional conjuncture]. The relationship between them can be explained as follows: “The international conjuncture has its own space and time. Its scope of space is determined by that of the international system. The time span of conjuncture is determined by its movements and changes. Accordingly, it is totally justifiable as far as the existance of world and regional conjunctures are concerned. Similarly, it is totally justifiable for the existence of conjuncture in a great historical period as well as in a shorter time span” (Nam, 2023). To simplify, the world conjuncture is the international conjuncture at global level whereas the regional conjuncture is the international conjuncture at regional level. The implications of these concepts will be explained in more detail in the following sections.

The above observations reveal the Marxist ideological origin of “conjuncture”. As one study pointed out, historically in Vietnam, “the word ‘conjuncture’ was most commonly associated with phrases like ‘battlefield conjuncture’. The previous uses of such phrases as ‘world conjuncture’ and ‘world economic conjuncture’ were of certain historical political, and ideological significance. In the old worldview, when referring to the ‘world conjuncture’ or ‘world economic conjuncture’, people often relate to the conjuncture of the struggle between socialist and capitalist blocs, between capitalism and socialism, between capitalist mode of production and communist mode of production, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the world” (Luoc and Hung, 2019: 10). In recent Western studies of international politics and relations, unlike the spillover of such concepts as “world order” or “international order”, the term “world conjuncture” is less directly mentioned as a prominent research object. The essence of this phenomenon seemingly derives from the Marxist character of “conjuncture” on grounds that it reflects the historical perspective of dialectical materialism, as one Vietnamese Marxist scholar asserts: “The study of world conjuncture necessitates placing it in a concrete historical context and highlighting the salient features that are dominating international life” (Thao, 2023: 148).

For all Marxist clout, one of the fundamental differences between Vietnam and China is that the CPV only uses “conjuncture” to officially characterize “world conjuncture” whereas the formal usage of “局面” in China should be much broader. In particular, in the Xi Jinping Thought – the current leading ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), this concept appears in numerous official expressions and aspects ranging from “改革开放新局面” [new conjuncture of reform and opening-up], “政治局面” [political conjuncture] to “国防和军队现代化新局面” [new conjuncture of defense and military modernization] (习近平, 2023: 83, 123, 167, 251). In terms of international politics, there have been incremental discussions on “开创中国特色大国外交新局面” [Create a new conjuncture in major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics] (王毅, 2024) mainly among Chinese scholars.

Compared with Western studies, this Vietnamese conjuncture-based approach to world politics is intensely specific since conjuncture and its derivative terms are not the dominant keywords in all mainstream schools of Western International Relations (IR) theory, especially Realism and Liberalism. This is not the case when it comes to the concept of “trật tự” [order], which is shared by various Western and Eastern IR branches and widely accepted as an intrinsic concept to study international politics the world over, including Vietnam. In fact, the English translating ways of “cục diện” still varies in Vietnam (“constellation”, “complexion”, “configuration”, “conjuncture”, etc.) while it is on contrary to the case of “trật tự”, which has always been uniquely translated into English as “order”.

To sum up, socialist countries like Vietnam and China tend to apply the concept of conjuncture to analyzing the overall situations of certain fields in particular periods. In the case of Vietnam, “over the past 20 years, the term ‘conjuncture’ has been mentioned a lot in policy documents, in various types of newspapers and scientific publications in Vietnam … However, the understanding of conjuncture still varies and is somewhat abstract. In the context of the world with countless rapid, complex, and unpredictable changes today, studying the connotation of ‘conjuncture’ helps to identify more promptly and accurately its changing impacts on international relations, providing more basis for forecasting the international conjuncture to ensure national interests” (Nam, 2023). In other words, although there have been numerous opinions around conjuncture-related theoretical issues, it is indisputable that seeing the world through the lens of conjuncture should be a cornerstone to discovering Vietnamese political leaders’ stance on international politics.

Defining World Conjuncture from the Vietnamese Perspectives

Of the three mentioned-above derivatives of “conjuncture”, “world conjuncture” has been the only one officially used by the CPV since 2011. The concept was first launched at the Eleventh Congress in 2011 and then continued to be updated at the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses. From the CPV’s side, although they do not give a detailed definition in their official Congress Documents, it is possible to find the definition of world conjuncture through an official material edited by a group of CPV experts in 2016 to explain all major terms in the Twelfth Congress Documents.

There was another book published in 2021 on explaining all major terms used by the Thirteenth Congress Documents with no definition of world conjuncture, meaning that this has been the CPV’s official interpretation of the concept to date.

Comparing this view with several recently proposed definitions, it is possible to see both convergence and divergence. On the one hand, a brief narrative depicting the world conjuncture as “the conjuncture in all aspects of the world over a certain period of time” (Luoc and Hung, 2019: 10–11) shows clear agreement with the CPV’s view. Despite supporting the view that world conjuncture reflects the world situations over a certain period of time, the following definition showcases an inclination toward a more centric observation by confining world conjuncture to several key areas and issues of international politics and economics. It asserts that world conjuncture is “the correlation of forces among superpowers or great powers as well as among other international actors in the core domains, first and foremost political, economic, military, and security; it is the appearance, operating institutions, and movement trends of the world in a certain period of time” (Thao, 2023: 148).

On the other hand, the discrepancy becomes even greater in comparison with the perspective of an ongoing Key Ministerial Research Program in Vietnam, which states that “world conjuncture is not a ‘big picture’ of the world but the reflection of the most fundamental characteristics of each period in a world order … World conjuncture is constantly volatile. In other words, world conjuncture reflects the dynamic aspect of the world order” (Thanh, 2021: 12). Thus, unlike the CPV’s above-mentioned interpretation, some of the more recently published studies in Vietnam tend to predicate that world conjuncture encompasses the core features of world order in a given historical period, thereby representing the efforts from several Vietnamese scholars in identifying the relationship between world conjuncture (a Vietnam-specific concept) and world order (an internationally-accepted concept in IR).

In general, the curent mainstream understanding in Vietnam is inclined to hold that world conjuncture is a core element unveiling the most substantial characteristics of world order in a certain historical period. On grounds that Marxism-Leninism is identified as the CPV’s traditional ideological foundation and guideline for action, this way of exposing world conjuncture-world order relations could be a good example of the CPV applying Law of transformation of quantitative to qualitative change, which is one of the three basic laws of Marxist-Leninist Dialectical Materialism besides Law of unity and struggles of opposites and Law of the negation of negation, as one study confirms that “The relations between ‘world conjuncture’ and ‘world order’ is the transformative relations between ‘quantity’ and ‘quality’. ‘World conjuncture’ always manifests itself in rapid changes whereas establishing a ‘world order’ is not easy. Currently, the world is in a state of transition and a struggle to form a new post–Cold War world order. But that transitional state is bound to last long” (Hoang, 2022: 24).

What Consitutes the World Conjuncture?

As mentioned earlier, in recent years, there have been numerous Vietnamese definitions of world conjuncture, meaning the diverse connotation of this concept. Below is a comparison table of some notable interpretations regarding what constitutes world conjuncture:

Table 1. Components of world conjuncture according to recent public interpretations in Vietnam
Source: Author’s compilation

From the above comparison table, especially the items in bold (intentionally by the author, not original), the basic components of world conjuncture which have hitherto been widely accepted in Vietnam by both political and academic societies comprise:

1. Power relations among the world’s major forces, typically major powers and power centers.
2. Dominant relational paradigms with two basic ones, namely cooperation and conflict, and other derivatives.
3. Common international institutions, typically international organizations and international law.
4. Major trends and common issues in international relations.

Of course, this is only a temporary confirmation because Vietnam’s view of world conjuncture may change in the coming time according to both theoretical and practical developments in Vietnam and the world over. Moreover, as pointed out, a research orientation has recently emerged in Vietnam to place world conjuncture in close correlation with world order. The official view of CPV theorists also confirms this by asserting that world conjuncture is a slice of world order at a specified period of time, leading different conjunctures to emerging during the same period of a world order, or maybe in moments of transition from one certain order to another (Thao, 2023: 148).