As Hue moves toward its goal of becoming a distinctive heritage city and a major cultural and tourism hub for Vietnam and Southeast Asia by 2030, external relations, particularly cultural diplomacy, are taking on a strategic role. This is what Vice Chairman of Hue City People’s Committee Tran Huu Thuy Giang announced about how Hue can turn its cultural ‘soft power’ into a driving force for sustainable socio-economic development.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Te (Editor-in-Chief of the Van Lang University Journal of Science) believes that Hue is standing at a major institutional turning point, where heritage is no longer viewed simply as an object of preservation but as an endogenous resource and a source of soft power for development.