Vietnam's annual changes in power measures. — Photo from Lowy Institute

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam is deemed to be the second-most influential diplomatically in the 2023 edition of the Asia Power Index report, behind only Indonesia, the region’s largest country in both population and economic size.

Vietnam’s overall scores stood at 17.5 in 2023, down by 0.8 points compared to 2021 (the 2022 report was skipped), as did most countries as they are still feeling the long-term, acute impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the three-year period, Vietnam’s power points net-change was -0.5. Only Cambodia and Brunei earned higher comprehensive power scores in this period (+0.1 and +0.8, respectively).

The scores are weighted on eight thematic measures of power, divided into two groups – Resources (Economic capability, Military capability, Resilience, Future resources) which are prerequisite resources and capabilities for exercising power, and Influence (Economic relationships, Defence networks, Diplomatic influence, and Cultural influence) which evaluates regional influence.

Vietnam made it into the top 10 of the Future resources, Economic Relationships, and Diplomatic influence in Asia.

The country, seen as the middle power in Asia – along with 15 others in Asia including Japan, India, Russia, New Zealand, Indonesia, North Korea, and Pakistan – performs best in the diplomatic influence measure, placing ninth, the result of its proactive diplomatic outreach with a diverse set of partners.

Resilience remains the country’s weakest measure, with Vietnam ranking 19th, in part reflecting its contested maritime boundaries in the East Sea, Lowy stated.

Vietnam’s biggest declines in 2022 were in the defence networks measure, where the country has dropped to 15th place.

The report commented that Vietnam “exerts more influence in the region than expected given its available resources,” as shown by the country’s positive power gap score (2.2), which improved in 2022.

Japan, Australia, and Singapore are the three countries with the biggest positive gap between their influence and what they have (overachievers).

Laos, Cambodia, South Korea, China, and Thailand were deemed to be the five countries most reliant on trade with Việt Nam, while Vietnam does most of its trade with China, the United States, South Korea, European Union, and Japan (in descending order), according to the institute.

Per the report, the United States and China lead in terms of comprehensive power and are the only two categorised as ‘superpowers’ though both lost the most points in 2022.

Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Papua New Guinea are among the minor powers.

Source: VNS