Vietnam walks thin line between China and US

PRESIDENT Lyndon B Johnson used the "Goldilocks Principle" in strategic policymaking during the Vietnam War. Now, Vietnam favours the same formula to manage its foreign relations with the United States and China in order to derive maximum benefit from both sides.

The Goldilocks principle draws upon a children's story, The Three Bears, in which a little girl named Goldilocks tastes three different bowls of porridge, and she finds that she likes her porridge neither too hot nor too cold, but at just the right temperature.

Vietnam prefers the "Goldilocks" formula of "not too hot, not too cold" in managing its bilateral relations with the US and China. Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, argues that Vietnam worries that if its relationship with those two major powers becomes "too hot" or too close, then the two countries will collude at the expense of Vietnam's autonomy.