Importing the Surveillance State: Tô Lâm, China, and the Pivot Away from the U.S.

Tô Lâm was packing for Beijing almost immediately after taking his presidential oath, aiming to start the first steps in his self-proclaimed New Era.

Unanimously elected as state president on April 7, 2026, while retaining his role as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), Lâm has cemented an unprecedented consolidation of power. This makes him Việt Nam’s most formidable leader in decades. 

Yet, the haste of his first overseas trip is what truly raises eyebrows. Scheduled for April 14 to 17, this state visit to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping will kick off just days after Lâm assumed his dual mandate.

While it is a long-standing norm for newly appointed Vietnamese leaders to choose China for their maiden overseas voyage—a nod to the ideological and historic “comrades and brothers” connection—the timeframe is usually much more relaxed. 

For instance, former General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng waited nearly nine months after his January 2011 election to officially visit Beijing. Even Lâm himself waited 15 days before visiting the northern neighbor after securing the party chief role in August 2024.

Now, as the head of both state and party, Lâm’s turnaround time is one week. This expedited timeline is a calculated, deliberate choice that illustrates how Việt Nam’s leadership is re-evaluating its geopolitical priorities.

Transactional Tides and Western Headwinds

Understanding this urgency requires examining the widening gulf in the Việt Nam-U.S. relationship and its increasingly institutionalized ties with China. Hà Nội has traditionally relied on its “bamboo diplomacy” to survive, bending with geopolitical winds while maintaining strategic independence. However, the current winds from Washington are erratic, transactional, and increasingly hostile.

Washington’s approach to Hà Nội has grown highly transactional, despite a performative and largely fruitless White House meeting between Lâm and U.S. President Donald Trump in February 2026.

In response to structural excess manufacturing capacity, the Trump administration launched Section 301 investigations into Việt Nam. These investigations specifically target the transshipment of Chinese goods through Vietnamese ports and a massive $178 billion trade surplus recorded in 2025.

Meanwhile, America’s broader standing across Southeast Asia is plummeting. Driven by chaotic foreign policy, aggressive tariffs, and the globally disruptive U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, regional surveys indicate a weakening of trust in the United States.

This Middle Eastern conflict has tarnished the diplomatic image of America and tangibly harmed Việt Nam, triggering fuel shortages and an energy supply crunch due to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Concrete Commitments from the Northern Neighbor 

Beijing, in contrast, offers a tangible and deeply institutionalized engagement. Meetings with Xi reliably yielded concrete frameworks like the “3+3” strategic dialogue. Inaugurated in March 2026, this framework synchronizes the foreign affairs, defense, and public security ministries of both nations.

Việt Nam is also deepening its technological reliance on China. Shrugging off Western security concerns, Hà Nội is signing deals for 5G infrastructure, cross-border standard-gauge railways, and data centers. While Washington offers tariffs and increasing volatility, Beijing bargains with immediate supply chain integration and high-speed rail links.

However, this changing dynamic does not necessarily mean that Hà Nội is blindly aligning with Beijing. Instead, Lâm and the CPV are making a cynical but pragmatic assessment of current global winds. They recognize that the current foreign policy decisions of Trump, alongside his administration’s fanatical support for a belligerent Israel, are destabilizing the global economy and alienating the international community.

Nevertheless, the South China Sea remains a bitter, unresolved dispute and the elephant in the room. Vietnamese state media has grown eerily quiet regarding the recent construction of commercial centers on Phú Lâm Island by China and the harassment of Vietnamese fishermen in the Paracels. 

Still, these territorial disputes serve as the most significant structural constraint on the bilateral relationship between Hà Nội and Beijing. Deep-seated anti-China sentiment in Vietnamese society ensures that the country must continue practicing its bamboo diplomacy. 

Lâm knows that he cannot afford to abandon the United States entirely; Việt Nam desperately needs foreign direct investment and Western markets to sustain its “China plus one” economic appeal.

Importing the Surveillance State 

What this expedited trip to Beijing represents for the domestic future of Việt Nam is perhaps the most alarming takeaway. As a former public security minister, Lâm is eagerly adopting the “China model” of governance, surveillance, and state power. 

Việt Nam is currently drafting laws to establish state-run data-trading exchanges and expanding national electronic identification systems tied to AI camera networks. Furthermore, under his consolidated rule, a counter-“color revolution” coordination is being embedded directly into diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Tô Lâm’s hasty flight to China serves as a deafening declaration that collective leadership in Việt Nam is dead, institutional checks are fading, and an era of enhanced, technology-driven authoritarianism is on the rise.

Many hoped that the integration of Việt Nam into the global economy would usher in liberal reforms. Instead, the actions of Lâm reveal a drastically different reality. The bamboo is bending, and it is leaning heavily toward the surveillance state next door.

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