alternatehistory.com

Historically, Vietnam defined itself with struggles of national liberation, since at least (Western) Medieval times (against Chinese and later Mongols and Chinese again) and up to its licking of the French first, and Americans after that.
The shape the country's territory assumed has been determined by its crushing of the historical Malay kingdom of the Champas, and the absorption of the previously ethnically Khmer Mekong delta.

Let's here assume that things develop in a different way, since the inception of the nation. Its foundation as a more or less continuous and coherent unit takes place about a century before Christ (for useless this calendar may be in those distant lands), by a renegade Han "Chinese" general (actually a tribal from the south). In time, the kingdom, started in what is OTL Guangxi, develops and absorps most neighbouring populations, also building a trading and fighting fleet. China has often to defend its remote outlier in Guangdong against these "southern barbarians" who soon will have to be recognized as a legitimate, but unruly part of the Sinosphere. Due to assorted butterflies, the Yue (or Viet, depends on he pronunciation) kingdom, through its successionc risis, is always able to exploit Chinese periods of fragmentation to fend off any serious prospect of incorporation under the power of the would-be-God who is entrusted the Mandate of Heaven. The Yue/Viet will worship THEIR sovereigns -and no other ruler, for powerful he/she may be.

A growing population, and a century of difficult wars with Song China, push the Yue/Viet south, to conquer parts of Annam. They won't even go south from there. Contrary to what happened OTL, their interests keep them cused North, in the long struggles with China that eventually will see them retaining Guangxi plus Hainan island. In the meantime population pressure mounts again, but pushes west, across the mountains, into OTL Laos. Prince Fa Ngum will fall in battle against the invaders in 1354, failing to establish Lan Xang. It's the Yue/Viet who'll impose slowly, and never completely, their language and ways over the Laos and the mountain tribes. From there, multiple incursions in the centuries, either from the central kingodm or from the sub-kingdom that will characterize a long phase of Yue/Viet history (about XVI-XVIIIth century), will hit Isan, Cambodia, southern Yunnan and even the present Burma (a sack of Toungoo is registered in 1657, their westernmost venture). The Yue/Vuet work out a quite stable relation, with many royal marriages, with the Champas, at least till when these last become Muslim, from the XV-XVIth century onwards. Subsequent wars don't really move the borders, since the Champas by this time are a considerable naval power and enjoy the alliance of Malay and Indonesian kingdoms. The Viet, who won't convert to Christianity in great numbers but accept the useful gifts of alphabet and cannon, have established strong trading links with Taiwan and the Philippines, where they give a hard time to European colonialists. When they're reduced to the mainland plus Hainan their kingdom is reconsolidated and proclaimed an empire in 1731, a direct slap in the face to the Manchus. With some French help they repulse the immensely powerful enemy in a round of vicious wars, even snatching some border provinces in Yunnan, but have to renounce Isan to placate the dogged Thais and fight off Champa piracy as well. When the colonial era reaches its apogee, YueGuo/VietNam, Jekko for Westerners, remains uncolonized and relatively free, as Siam/Thailand, whereas Cambodia and Champa have to suffer the indignity of French conquest and colonization.

During WWII, after some hesitation, the country in 1939 enters the war on the side of China, the eternal enemy, against Japan, with British encouragement. A couple years later the Thais try to backstab it in the Mekong valley, but are in for their biggest defeat since the sack of Ayutthaya. Forced to withdraw their forces from Guangdong, the Yue/Viet thrash the Thai army and enforce an uneasy truce while occupying the Isan. In spring-summer 1942 the Japanese Army, after putting hands on the main oilfields in the Soutch China seas from their bases in the French colonies, technically neutral territory, deal with the obnoxious mainlanders occupying almost the entire country, as strong units of the army, with the Emperor, withdraw in the northern highlands and a nasty guerrilla begins. The Japanese won't ever enter Burma beyond the Salween river, giving the Indo-British, and the Chinese they and the Americans help, a much easier time. In 1944 a massive and well-coordinated general offensive of the SE asian War Theater directed by lord Mountbatten with Stillwell as vice crushes Thailand out of the war and frees northern YueGuo/VietNam from occupation, opening the ports at Haiphong and *Kwangchowang. For the country, the war is over, after almost a million dead due to fighting, bombings over cities and occupation.

During the Cold War, the country aligns with the US, albeit reluctantly, accepting aid, but not direct military presence or formal alliance; even when China falls to Communism, which isn't very popular in the empire. It will however send limited forces (an infantry regiment) to South Korea in 1951-52. Confrontation with Mao's China will force the empire to adhere the ASEAN in 1954, conceding basing rights at Hainan for the US navy and USAAF.
The local theater of the Cold War is actually quite hot, from 1959 onwards, with the deafeat of the Thai Communist insurgence from 1962, and on the contrary its powerful rise in Cambodia afte the fall of the kingdom and the proclamation of the republic in that same year. When in 1967 a coup by officers of Marxist leanings overthrows the kingdom of Champa, up to then obstinately neutral and isolationist, he Yue/Viet army reluctantly takes part in the lightining invasion of the country with US and Philippine forces, a walkover since the local Muslims actually welcome the move, and exploit it to impose a stricter religious state with Western benediction. In Cambodia only considerable direct US involvement will eventuly doom the Communist insurgence to peter out by 1973; only Burma, in SE Asia, will remain (from 1954) an uncompromising, ferocious and isolationist hereditary Communist dictatorship, strictly shadowing North Korea's path to madness and widely reviled as on the worst abusers of human rights in the world - even when South America was giving its worst.

After repeated grave crises just short of actual shooting war (1957-58, 1965, 1972, 1979, 1983-4, 1988) and the 1989 Hague court division of the Spratly islands, relations with China get noticeably more peaceful and trade soars. In the present moment, relations couldn't possibily be better. The growth of the Chinese mammoth has benefited the empire, but still the Yue/Viet watch warily to their northern neighbor, now again a powerful voice on world scene.
Top