The Ideological Influence of the Communist Party of China on the Communist Party of Vietnam

The article focuses on the peculiarities of Vietnam’s position in the orbit of the ideological and theoretical influence of China. The author examines the most important party documents of both states, reveals their main similarities and differences. The author concludes that Hanoi scrupulously studies, critically assesses, and actively uses the experience of Chinese economic and political reforms. The party and state leadership of Vietnam, when carrying out major transformations of recent decades, was directly guided by the successful experience of their Chinese colleagues. This led to the situation where today’s political systems of Vietnam and China are quite similar, but still are not (and will never be) twin brothers. At the same time, the countries developed a wide network of inter-party contacts which is used not only as an instrument of exchanging views on adapting Marxism-Leninism to current realities, but also as an additional and mutually beneficial channel of communication on a wide range of issues. Despite this, the similarity of the political systems does not necessarily lead to a change in foreign policy. China has an impressive array of tools to influence its southern neighbor, but their ideological closeness is definitely not the most important of them. It is concluded that the role of ideology in Vietnam’s policy, although it remains noticeable, is significantly inferior to the role of national interests and pragmatic views.