Hanoi’s $75 Billion Question: Why Vietnam’s Rail Gamble Is Really About Beijing

Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary and President To Lam wrapped a four-day state visit to China that put high-speed rail, not South China Sea tensions, at the center of the bilateral agenda. The trip produced signed cooperation deals on railways, public security, technology, and inter-party exchanges, and it set the terms under which Chinese engineering firms will likely compete for a slice of Vietnam’s rail megaproject pipeline.

The symbolism was unsubtle. Lam rode Chinese bullet trains from Beijing to Nanning...