The Challenges of Peace: US-Vietnam Relations since 1975 International Symposium

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The Challenges of Peace: US-Vietnam Relations since 1975 International Symposium

Organizers: The Center for Southeast Asia Studies at the University of California Berkeley and the US-Vietnam Research Center at the University of Oregon

Symposium date: September 18-19, 2025

Location: University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

US-Vietnam relations have changed significantly since the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975 when the two countries were bitter enemies. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of that conflict, Hanoi and Washington have just upgraded their relationship and become “comprehensive strategic partners.” The United States is Vietnam’s second largest trading partner, and Vietnam ranks fifth globally in the number of students it sends to the U.S. This is an impressive improvement in relations between two countries with opposing ideologies and a history of violent confrontation.

Nevertheless, many feel that the relationship could have advanced much further and taken advantage of numerous missed opportunities. Some are doubtful about the prospects for deepening the relationship in the future, given Vietnam’s still close ties to Russia and China, America’s opponents on the world stage. This half-century anniversary offers an opportunity to assess and reflect upon the bilateral relationship which leaders of both countries value highly. 

Scholarship on US-Vietnam relations has focused on the war that ended 50 years ago but not on the peace since. Hence, the complex processes of post-conflict reconstruction, normalization, and reconciliation remain poorly understood. The meaning of peace and the post-conflict behavior of the victors, the vanquished, and neutral parties have yet to be explored systematically and in depth. For historians of the Vietnam War, the study of post-conflict peace may illuminate the costs, causes and consequences of the war, and call for a rethinking of popular assumptions about missed chances for peace.

Papers will be presented from U.S., international and Vietnam-based scholars, analysts, practitioners, and students on the four sets of themes and questions as follows:

I. Then and Now

What is the current status of US-Vietnam relations? Are the two countries close or not? How did we get here? What may have been missed opportunities to deepen the relationship since 1975? What do Vietnam and the U.S. mean to each other, for the elites as well as for common people in both countries? To what extent does the past bear on the relationship? Are there comparable cases of reconciliation between two hostile countries? Which theories of international relations best explain the evolution of the relationship?

II. Dynamics, Parameters, and Agents of Change

What are the major factors driving or constraining US-Vietnam relations: national interests, domestic politics, culture, or ideology? What are the major convergent and divergent interests between the U.S. and Vietnam? How do deep asymmetries in the relationship affect it? How are images of the other presented in each country, and to what extent have they shaped the relationship? Who are the agents of change: politicians, military officers and veterans, business and labor leaders, professional, religious, artistic, and nongovernmental organizations, intellectuals, scholars, students, activists, Vietnamese Americans, or Mark Zuckerberg?

III. Regional and Global Contexts

What does Vietnam and the U.S. mean to each other in regional and global contexts? How do China, Russia, and other powers influence US-Vietnam relations? How is the relationship affected by the rising ambitions of China, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, a new Cold War between the U.S. and China-Russia, a resurgence of global Islamism, new U.S. military entanglements in the Middle East and central Asia, the militarization of Japan, the regional ascent of authoritarianism, the deepening division within ASEAN, and China’s expansion of influence in Cambodia and Laos?

IV. The Future of US-Vietnam Relations

What past lessons may have value for the future? How do theories of international relations predict the future evolution of the relationship? Will the two countries ever fully overcome political differences and past hostilities? Will the two countries ever enter a formal alliance? What are the conditions for that to happen? Is that what the U.S. or Vietnam really needs or wants? If it is, how to make that happen sooner if not later?

Conference Program

Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA,September 18-19, 2025

First day, Thursday, September 18, 2025

8:30 am - 9:00 am

Welcome addresses

  • Penny Edwards, Professor & Director, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

  • Peter Zinoman, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

  • Tuong Vu, Professor & Director, US-Vietnam Research Center, University of Oregon

9:00 am - 10:30 am

Panel 1: Looking Forward and Backward: Lessons from a Past Partnership

  • Moderator: Tuong Vu, Professor & Director, US-Vietnam Research Center

  • Hoang Duc Nha, former Private Secretary to President Nguyen Van Thieu, and Minister of Mass Mobilization & Open Arms, Republic of Vietnam

  • Amb. John Negroponte, Vice-Chair, McLarty Associates, former Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Adviser 

  • Bui Kien Thanh, adviser to President Ngo Dinh Diem, Republic of Vietnam, and adviser to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's government (participating virtually from Vietnam)

10:30 am - 10:45 am

Coffee break

10:45 am - 12:15 pm

Panel 2: Collaboration and Normalization

  • Moderator & discussant: Edward Miller, Associate Professor, Dartmouth College

  • Thanh Nguyen, PhD candidate, Yale University: "US Civil Society and the Reconstruction of Vietnam: The Case of Scientific Cooperation"

  • Zachary Tayler, PhD candidate, Ohio University: "US-Vietnamese Normalization: Linkage Diplomacy during the 1980s"

  • Ha Tien-Dung, PhD candidate, Stanford University: "The transnational power of identification: How human remains from war elevate US-Vietnam political ties"

12:15 pm - 1:15 pm 

Lunch

1:15 pm - 2:45 pm

Panel 3: Challenges to Reconciliation

  • Moderator & discussant: Lien-Hang Nguyen, Associate Professor, Columbia University

  • Y Thien Nguyen, Assistant Professor, California State University-Dominguez Hills: "Contextualizing the Challenges of Reconciliation within Vietnamese Anticommunist politics"

  • Pham Thi Hong Ha, PhD, Senior Researcher, Institute of History, Hanoi: "The Evolution of Vietnam's Policy toward Overseas Vietnamese"

  • Vincent Tran, PhD student, University of California, Berkeley: "Divided Transnational Vietnamese Anti-Communism: The Question of Reconciliation and Harmony"

2:45 pm - 4:15 pm

Panel 4: Bilateral Relations from Cultural and Individual Perspectives

  • Moderator & discussant: Y Thien Nguyen, Assistant Professor, California State University-Dominguez Hills 

  • Christina Schwenkel, Professor, University of California, Riverside: "Walking in Hanoi: The Cultural Dynamics of an Elevated Friendship"

  • Alisa Freedman, Professor, University of Oregon: "Telling the Stories of Vietnamese Women Educators and Their New Academic Fields”

  • Thi Nguyen, PhD candidate, University of Minnesota: "Transnational identities and post-graduation trajectories of Vietnamese international students in the US"

4:15 pm - 4:30 pm

Coffee break

4:30 pm - 5:30 pm

Keynote Panel

Moderator: Peter Zinoman, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

Keynote speaker: Elizabeth Phu, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, US government (in personal capacity)

7:00 pm

Dinner (location TBA)

Second day, Friday, September 19, 2025

8:30 am - 10:30 am

Panel 5: Politics of Economic and Defense Relations 

  • Moderator & discussant: Duyen Bui, PhD, Lecturer, Hawaii Pacific University

  • Nguyen Duc Thanh, PhD, Founder, Vietnam Center for Economic and Strategic Studies, Hanoi: "Political Determinants of US-Vietnamse Economic Relations"

  • Khang Vu, PhD candidate, Boston College: "Unlikely Comrades: The Limits of US-Vietnam Security Cooperation"

  • Nhu Truong, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison: "Party to Party, Heart to Heart: Communist Legacies and Prerogatives in Southeast Asia"

  • Bang Tran, PhD candidate, University of Paris 2 Pantheon: "Vietnam defense thinking and its impact on US-Vietnam defense and security cooperation"

10:30 am - 10:45 am

Coffee break

10:45 am - 12:15 pm

Panel 6: Ideology, Discourse, and Understanding

  • Moderator & discussant: Nhu Truong, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison 

  • Nguyen Khac Giang, PhD, Visiting Fellow, Ishak-Yusof Institute, ISEAS, Singapore: "From Communism to Pragmatism: Tracing the Ideological Roots of Vietnam’s Bamboo Diplomacy"

  • Thuy Nguyen, PhD, US-Vietnam Research Center: "How Vietnamese Youth Today Understand the Vietnam War: A Semantic Analysis of Reddit Discussions"

  • Nguyen Thuc Cuong, PhD candidate, McGill University & Hoang Cam Thanh, PhD, Lecturer, USSH-HCMC: "The Evolving Legitimation Discourse in Vietnam: Impacts on Regime Preservation and US-Vietnam Relations"

12:15 pm - 1:15 pm

Lunch

1:15 pm - 2:45 pm

Panel 7: Civil Society, Activism, and Bilateral Relations

  • Moderator & discussant: Thuy Nguyen, PhD, US-Vietnam Research Center

  • Mark Sidel, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Vietnam’s Policies toward Civil Society and Impact on US-Vietnam Relations"

  • Hoang Thi Minh Hong, Founder, Centre of Hands-on Actions and Networking for Growth and Environment (CHANGE), Hanoi: (Title TBA)

  • Dinh Phuong Thao, PhD student, University of Michigan: (Title TBA)

2:45 pm - 3:00 pm

Coffee break

3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Panel 8: Hopes from Cultural Trends for Bilateral Relations

  • Moderator & discussant: Alex-Thai Vo, Assistant Research Professor, Texas Tech

  • Andrew Wells-Dang, formerly Senior Expert, US Institute of Peace: "Overcoming Consequences of War? A Journey of Cultural and Political (Mis)Understandings with the War Remnants Museum"

  • Napakadol Kittisenee, PhD candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison: "Locating ‘Little Hue’: Finding Common Ground around Bifurcated Politics"

  • Vinh Phu Pham, Assistant Professor, Bard HSEC: "The Literature of Peace: Cultural Power and the Future Politics of Vietnamese-American Writing Beyond the War on a new type of Vietnamese American literature"

5:30- 7:00 pm

Reception at Sutardja Hall, UC-Berkeley campus