If one has a narrow vision to superficially look at only those popular/famous ancient architectures, as well as the classic style of calligraphy, but nothing apart from those two, then Yes, it is easy to find Hanoi and Hue to be representing “China”, but not for the rest of the entire Vietnam, and once again, even for Hanoi and Hue, you have to narrow your own vision to an extent of those impressions, very superficially, and you have to only count in these two ancient capitals to be “Vietnam”, so that you can have a Vietnam which’s “little China”.
In terms of the people’s mindset , you could ask a straightforward question to yourself, how much of Confucianism and Chinese civil standards are there in the Vietnamese mindset? My observation is? It has the least in that area of Asia, even the Thai society got a better idea and follow those heavy norms of sinosphere than, let’s say the Korean society is still doing. Perhaps it is also under the influences of a general impression of Thai architectural styles, it is not that as obvious for people to count in Thailand as a member of “sinosphere”, or another “little China”.
And then about “the Chinese civilization” itself, which’s the foundation of “sinosphere”, its disposition is not as clear as it seems to be, on a different question, I share my view about this concern. The question is, what is it to be qualified as “Chinese civilization”, and thus a society can be qualified as “China”(in the sense of 中華, whether it is a big one or a little one) :
Vietnam is not that, although there were feudal intellectuals in the past who also looked up to 中華 ideology, to advocated the Confucianist norms, and impacted the feudal governments, but to the Vietnam as a nation itself till these days, it is a culturally pluralistic model, it fail to fit a sole type of cultural sphere, as a result, there are also various “impressions” about Vietnam, I.e. what comes to your mind when you heard of the word “Vietnam”?
When growing up, back then my first impression of Vietnam is :
And then later I learned that Vietnam used to be a French colony, other visions came to my mind, then my impression of Vietnam is the following :
And after I learned the superficial vision of these Sinospheric supporters, then I could also wear their shoes and apply the following “impression” to Vietnam as well: