“The substance behind the slogan is already taking shape. Vietnam and Laos signed a memorandum to establish the first Vietnamese university in Laos. This is a project that moved from idea to ink in just two months. Construction on a long-delayed railway from Vientiane to Vietnam’s Vung Ang Port is expected to begin on the Lao side later this year. This is part of a USD6.6 billion project to connect Laos to the sea. In an unusual move, Hanoi has granted Laos a 60 per cent stake in the port. In December 2025, Laos rolled out a national digital citizen identification system built with Vietnamese technical assistance, modelled on VNeID, Hanoi’s ambitious government super-app. The ‘cohesion’ is not just about physical connectivity; Vietnam wants to take Laos by the arm in the virtual space, too.”
“Vietnam’s overtures to Laos are not merely altruistic. China’s footprint in Laos has grown enormous over the past decade. Beijing has become Laos’s largest trading partner and biggest source of foreign investment, with a cumulative total of around USD18 billion. The China-Laos railway, completed in 2021, has physically reoriented Laos’s trade routes northward. With Laos struggling under the weight of debt-fuelled infrastructure spending — much of it bankrolled by Beijing — Hanoi fears that economic dependence will translate into strategic drift towards China, which has a longstanding dispute with Hanoi in the South China Sea.”
“Hanoi’s strategy also has a trilateral dimension. Immediately after leaving Vientiane, To Lam and Thongloun Sisoulith flew to Phnom Penh together to meet Cambodian strongman Hun Sen. Following last year’s unprecedented summit in Ho Chi Minh City, this shows Vietnam’s effort to institutionalise a tighter Indochina framework after the sudden dissolution of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area in 2024. The aim is to keep the Indochinese neighbourhood aligned – and to prevent either Vientiane or Phnom Penh from drifting too far into Beijing’s embrace. ”
https://fulcrum.sg/beyond-brotherhood-vietnams-new-playbook-for-laos/