The window to become a developed nation is closing. Vietnam cannot afford to wait.
Beneath the long shadow of historical rivalry, Vietnam is quietly borrowing from its northern neighbor a more intimate kind of knowledge: how a strong state reshapes land, cities, and national destiny by decree. Under To Lam, Hanoi has moved from studying China's political economy in the abstract to applying its urban transformation model in concrete—literally—across more than a thousand clearance projects in the capital. This developmental apprenticeship, unfolding below the headlines of South China Sea tensions, may prove the most consequential dimension of the Vietnam-China relationship yet.
- Vietnam's leader To Lam has made state-directed urban transformation the centerpiece of his national rise agenda, accelerating a pace of change that marks a sharp break from previous eras of incremental reform.
- Over 1,400 land clearance projects are remaking Hanoi in real time—ring roads, river crossings, entire new districts—displacing residents at a scale that leaves little room for grievance to slow the machinery of progress.
- The legal framework enabling this—land held by 'the entire people' with the state as custodian—gives Hanoi the same sweeping reclamation powers Beijing used to remake Shanghai and Shenzhen, and Vietnam is learning to wield them.
- China's own history of forced demolition and social unrest serves as a cautionary map: Vietnam has raised compensation rates and expanded resettlement areas, yet complaints about fairness persist as the pace outstrips adjustment.
- The learning extends far beyond concrete and cranes—high-speed rail, digital governance, energy transition, and cyberspace sovereignty are all on the curriculum, reshaping what the Vietnam-China relationship is fundamentally about.
Vietnam's wariness of China runs deep—centuries of domination, border wars, contested waters. Yet beneath that familiar story of strategic anxiety, a quieter current has been gaining force: Hanoi's systematic study of how Beijing uses state power to physically transform a nation. Under To Lam, who took office with an explicit vision of national rise, that study has become policy visible on Hanoi's streets.
In April 2026, To Lam traveled by high-speed rail to Xiong'an New Area in Hebei—a vast experiment in state-directed urbanism where former farmland was converted by party decree into a showcase of infrastructure, digital systems, and administrative relocation. The visit was not ceremonial. It was a study tour, and the lessons came home quickly.
Across Hanoi, some 1,428 land clearance projects are now underway—ring roads, Red River bridges, entire new towns rising from cleared ground. The legal architecture enabling this mirrors China's: Vietnamese land belongs to 'the entire people,' with the state as custodian and citizens holding only use rights. That technical distinction gives the government sweeping power to reclaim land for projects deemed national priorities—the same tool Beijing used to remake Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chongqing.
China's experience also carries a warning. The demolition campaigns of the reform era generated deep social tension, and Beijing eventually shifted toward market-based compensation and managed relocation. Vietnam is following a similar arc, unevenly. Compensation has been raised to twice the standard rate for major projects, and resettlement areas expanded—yet complaints about fairness persist, and the pace of displacement leaves little room for course correction.
What sustains this politically is narrative. State media frames clearance not as disruption but as collective sacrifice in service of historic progress—an echo of Xi Jinping's invocation of national rejuvenation, asking citizens to embrace hardship for a transcendent purpose. The window to become a developed nation is closing, the argument runs. Vietnam cannot afford to wait.
The learning extends well beyond urban planning. To Lam is studying China's approach to high-speed rail, energy transition, e-governance, and digital sovereignty—and studying China's mistakes, particularly its property market correction, to avoid repeating them. Joint 'Red Study Tours' have brought over a thousand Vietnamese participants to China's centers of innovation and enterprise.
China has always occupied a dual place in Vietnam's consciousness—source of strategic threat and source of statecraft lessons. To Lam appears to have recalibrated that balance decisively. The developmental learning happening below the geopolitical headlines, written in cleared lots and rising cranes across Hanoi, may be becoming the Vietnam-China relationship's most consequential dimension.
Vietnam's relationship with China has always been shadowed by history—centuries of domination, border wars, competing claims in the South China Sea. But beneath the familiar story of wariness and autonomy lies a quieter current that may prove more durable: Hanoi's systematic study of how Beijing uses state power to remake cities, move mountains of earth, and bend entire regions toward development. Under To Lam, who took power with an explicit vision of national rise, this learning has accelerated into something visible on Hanoi's streets.
The parallels run deep. Vietnam's Communist Party has long looked to China as a reference point—first for how to organize a revolutionary state, later for how to reform an economy while keeping political control intact. The Renovation reforms of the 1980s and 1990s followed patterns Deng Xiaoping had already traced. But To Lam's interest is different. He is not primarily studying party discipline or market mechanics. He is studying how China physically transforms itself. In April 2026, he traveled by high-speed rail to Xiong'an New Area in Hebei, a vast experiment in state-directed urbanism: former farmland converted by party decree in 2017 into a showcase of infrastructure, green design, digital systems, and administrative relocation. The visit was not ceremonial. It was a study tour.
Back in Hanoi, the lessons are already being applied at scale. Around 1,428 land clearance projects are underway across the capital—ring roads, bridges over the Red River, entire new towns rising from cleared ground. The pace and political will behind this effort mark a sharp break from previous eras. The city has become, in effect, a vast construction site. This is not incremental development. This is the state deciding what the city will be and moving to make it so.
The legal architecture makes this possible. In China, urban land is owned by the state. In Vietnam, land belongs to "the entire people," with the state as custodian and citizens holding only use rights. The distinction is technical but consequential: it gives governments sweeping power to reclaim land for projects deemed to serve national interests. China used this power to remake Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chongqing—entire districts erased and rebuilt as financial centers, metro systems, industrial parks. Vietnam now has the same tool and is learning to use it.
But China's experience also carries a warning. From the 1990s onward, the demolition campaigns—chaiqian in Chinese—became a defining feature of reform-era growth. Residents were relocated, often with inadequate compensation. Social tension simmered. Over time, Beijing softened its language and approach, moving from forced demolition to market-based compensation and managed relocation. Vietnam is following a similar arc, though unevenly. Compensation in Hanoi has been raised to twice the standard rate for major projects. Resettlement areas are being expanded. Yet complaints about fairness and implementation persist. The scale of displacement is enormous, and the pace leaves little room for adjustment.
What makes this politically sustainable is narrative. The Vietnamese state media frames land clearance not as disruption but as necessity—the price of building modern cities that will anchor the nation's rise. Citizens are invited to see themselves as participants in a historic project, their sacrifice recast as contribution to collective progress. The window to become a developed nation is closing, the argument goes. Vietnam cannot afford to wait. This echoes Xi Jinping's invocation of the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," the same appeal to transcendent purpose that asks young people to embrace hardship and asks households to accept slower income growth in service of state priorities.
The learning extends well beyond urban planning. To Lam is studying China's approach to high-speed rail, technological upgrading, energy transition, e-governance, and digital sovereignty. He is also studying China's mistakes—particularly the property market correction that has dragged on growth—and seeking to avoid them. The "Red Study Tour," organized jointly by the two countries' youth organizations, has brought more than 1,000 Vietnamese participants to China's centers of innovation, urban planning, and enterprise development. Revolutionary history and socialist ideals provide the frame, but the substance is contemporary: how does a strong state accelerate development?
China has always occupied a dual place in Vietnam's consciousness—a source of strategic anxiety and a source of statecraft lessons. To Lam appears to have recalibrated that balance. As he pursues his vision of national rise, China offers not only capital, markets, and technology but a proven template: how a strong state can reshape physical space, mobilize resources, and compress decades of development into years. That template is now visibly at work in Hanoi's streets, in the cleared lots and rising cranes. The quieter dimension of the Vietnam-China relationship—the developmental learning that happens below the headlines of geopolitics—may be becoming its most consequential.
Notable Quotes
China offers not only capital, markets, and technology but a proven template for how a strong state can reshape physical space, mobilize resources, and accelerate development.— Analysis of To Lam's strategic approach
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why is To Lam so focused on learning from China's urban model specifically? Isn't Vietnam supposed to be wary of Chinese influence?
The wariness is real and hasn't gone away. But To Lam sees something in what China has accomplished—the ability to move fast, to remake entire cities in a decade. He's not learning about ideology. He's learning about execution.
What makes Xiong'an so important to him that he traveled there in person?
Xiong'an is the proof of concept. It shows what's possible when a state decides to build something from scratch and has the legal and political tools to do it. No environmental reviews that take years, no property owners blocking the way. Just the decision and the implementation.
But doesn't Vietnam already have the legal power to do this? Why does it need to learn from China?
It has the power on paper. What it's learning is how to exercise that power at scale, how to manage the social costs, how to tell a story that makes people accept displacement as necessary. China has been doing this for thirty years. Vietnam is compressing that learning curve.
What happens to the people being displaced?
Some get compensated at twice the standard rate. Some get resettlement in new areas. But the pace is fast and the implementation is uneven. There are complaints about fairness. The state narrative is that this is the price of national rise, that everyone is sacrificing for the collective future.
Is that narrative working?
It's working well enough to keep the projects moving. Whether it will hold as displacement accelerates—that's an open question. China had to soften its approach over time because the social tension became too visible. Vietnam may face the same pressure.
What else is To Lam trying to learn from China beyond cities?
Everything. High-speed rail, technology, energy, digital governance. But he's also studying what went wrong—China's property bubble, the way it's weighed on growth. He wants the development model without the correction.