Vietnam stands at a crossroads between the rooted resilience of bamboo and the global standardization of barcodes. In “The Bamboo and the Barcode,” Jay Nguyen offers strategic insights into preserving Vietnamese cultural identity while embracing digital innovation and globalization.
As U.S. global influence wanes and China asserts its regional vision, Southeast Asia must confront the limits of its long-standing strategy of ambiguity. Can ASEAN maintain autonomy without choosing sides?
Xi Jinping’s 2025 visit to Vietnam wasn’t just a photo op. Behind the press releases and smiles lies a calculated shift in Southeast Asia’s geopolitical order. This is a story of infrastructure, ideology—and long-term strategic influence cloaked in “cooperation.”
Bamboo bends. it does not break. Vietnam’s foreign policy, in one sentence.
“While we wait for strangers to go live on TikTok, the real world burns quietly in the background. This is more than distraction—it’s a new form of digital control. Who profits from our attention, and what are we losing in return?”
When the world sees Vietnam as a battleground, but we see something else entirely.
Why being Vietnamese sometimes means being alone.
What it means to be Vietnamese when you’re not quite here nor there.
On growing up in the space between war stories and silence.
Modernity, ambition, and the cost of forgetting who we were.
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