Fractured hegemony and Vietnamese pragmatism in the Red River basin

Abstract

In the transboundary Red River basin, Viet Nam is the downstream country with China PRC and the Lao PDR situated upstream. The Red River has been rapidly developed with hydraulic infrastructure both in China and Viet Nam, accelerated by UNFCCC funding for dams through the Clean Development Mechanism. This rapid and simultaneous construction of dams has brought about many changes to the river in a shared basin that does not have the transboundary institutional capacity nor cooperation to jointly monitor and manage these changes. This is typically a scenario that has been found to lead to increased hydropolitical tensions and conflict. However, given the fractured hegemonic power of China as an upstream neighbor and the importance of the China relationship for Viet Nam, neither conflict nor cooperation around shared water are realistic options. Instead, Vietnamese actors are operating pragmatically in the spaces between. Experimentation in ‘what is possible’ given the asymmetric relationship is diverse, decentralized, and widespread. Distributed sensemaking by Vietnamese actors, while not able to overcome the power imbalance, does decrease gaps of uncertainty and allow for Viet Nam to enhance its ideational power of how and why change is happening in the Red River. This enhanced understanding through pragmatic sensemaking improves the knowledge and bargaining power of Viet Nam with a fractured upstream superpower.