Transnational Repression and Diplomatic Partnerships Under Tô Lâm 

In October 2025, Việt Nam and the United Kingdom elevated their relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, finalizing Hà Nội’s highest-tier diplomatic ties with all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. 

Việt Nam’s rhetoric boasts of these agreements as monuments to strategic trust. However, this trust is hollow. While Western capitals celebrate Việt Nam as a dynamic economic and security partner, Hà Nội actively turns those same nations into venues for transnational repression. 

In truth, Vietnam has leveraged its expanding network of global partnerships to build a layer of immunity where the regime carries out an aggressive, borderless campaign against political exiles. 

Through kidnapping, forced disappearances, and the weaponization of domestic courts, Việt Nam ensures that physical distance no longer guarantees safety from the state’s reach.

A Precedent of Betrayal

This borderless crackdown relies on convicting political opponents in absentia to establish a veneer of judicial credibility, then leveraging diplomatic agreements to secure their physical return. 

The most glaring victim of this tactic is Y Quỳnh B’Đăp, an indigenous Christian activist and officially recognized UN refugee. B’Đăp fled to Thailand in 2018 to escape domestic persecution, only to be targeted by a Vietnamese “mobile court” in January 2024. During a highly compressed mass trial, Hà Nội convicted nearly 100 individuals in just five days, handing B’Đăp a 10-year prison sentence in absentia on fabricated terrorism charges.

Armed with this sham domestic conviction, Hà Nội turned its attention to Bangkok. In May 2025, Việt Nam and Thailand elevated their ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership; months later, Thailand quietly completed B’Đăp’s extradition in November of that year. An appeals court authorized the transfer with only 24 hours’ notice given to the defense, ensuring that authorities could ferry him across the border before his lawyers could even file emergency petitions.

Despite hosting the UN’s regional hub and recently lobbying for a UN Human Rights Council seat, Bangkok effectively acted as Hà Nội’s jailer—ignoring its own anti-torture statutes and international non-refoulement obligations. 

Since that day, B’Đăp has vanished into Việt Nam’s custody.

Encroaching on Democratic Sovereignty in the West

Under President Tô Lâm, Việt Nam has increasingly utilized in absentia convictions under Articles 117 and 299 to brand exiles as criminals and jeopardize their security abroad. This campaign operates in tandem with domestic crackdowns on religious freedom in the Central Highlands, where independent Protestant groups are routinely persecuted as threats to national unity.

When authorities cannot physically reach movement leaders, they resort to the judicial system. This occurred in 2023 when the state charged Pastor A Ga, a protected refugee residing in the United States; although a local court scheduled his in absentia trial for July 31, 2026, it was abruptly canceled without explanation. 

Similarly, authorities targeted Nguyễn Đình Thắng—a U.S. citizen and CEO of Boat People SOS, which heavily supports these independent congregations—by sentencing him in absentia to 11 years in prison on fabricated terrorism charges.

Speaking to Christian Solidarity Worldwide after hearing news of his sentencing, Thắng stated:

“Vietnam’s communist regime has for the last two years escalated transnational repression against human rights defenders who expose religious persecution and other rights violations in Vietnam. It does not want the world to realize the situation is getting so much worse in the country.”

Hà Nội next expanded its reach to Canada. 

On Aug. 3, 2026, the Hà Nội People’s Court sentenced exiled photojournalist Đoàn Bảo Châu in absentia to seven years in prison and five years of probation under Article 117. Châu, now residing in Canada, was convicted for producing six online videos discussing domestic human rights. Citing his absence and failure to answer police summonses, judges handed down a sentence that exceeded even the prosecutors’ recommendation.

By prosecuting foreign citizens and permanent residents, Hà Nội directly infringes upon the sovereignty of its Western allies. These rulings are designed to restrict international travel, sever family ties, and weaponize Interpol red notices to disrupt lives abroad.

It is important to understand that the individuals Việt Nam brands as dangerous fugitives are, in fact, legally recognized refugees and naturalized citizens living in the open. Western democracies spent months, sometimes years, rigorously vetting their asylum claims, recognizing them as victims of state persecution. By retroactively declaring these protected individuals to be criminals or terrorists, Hà Nội is mocking the asylum frameworks of its partners. 

If a government is willing to brazenly disregard the legal realities and sovereign protections of its democratic allies, Western capitals must ask themselves: what exactly are they trusting Việt Nam with?