How do I parse and write XML using Python’s ElementTree without moving namespaces around?

As far as I know the solution that better suits your needs is to write a pure Python custom rendering using the features exposed by xml.etree.ElementTree. Here is one possible solution:

from xml.etree import ElementTree as ET
from re import findall, sub

def render(root, buffer="", namespaces=None, level=0, indent_size=2, encoding='utf-8'):
    buffer += f'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="{encoding}" ?>\n' if not level else ''
    root = root.getroot() if isinstance(root, ET.ElementTree) else root
    _, namespaces = ET._namespaces(root) if not level else (None, namespaces)
    for element in root.iter():
        indent=" " * indent_size * level
        tag = sub(r'({[^}]+}\s*)*', '', element.tag)
        buffer += f'{indent}<{tag}'
        for ns in findall(r'{[^}]+}', element.tag):
            ns_key = ns[1:-1]
            if ns_key not in namespaces: continue
            buffer += ' xmlns' + (f':{namespaces[ns_key]}' if namespaces[ns_key] != '' else '') + f'="{ns_key}"'
            del namespaces[ns_key]
        for k, v in element.attrib.items():
            buffer += f' {k}="{v}"'
        buffer += '>' + element.text.strip() if element.text else '>'
        children = list(element)
        for child in children:
            sep = '\n' if buffer[-1] != '\n' else ''
            buffer += sep + render(child, level=level+1, indent_size=indent_size, namespaces=namespaces)
        buffer += f'{indent}</{tag}>\n' if 0 != len(children) else f'</{tag}>\n'
    return buffer

By issuing theXML data you gave, to the above render function as show below:

data=\
'''<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="Newtonsoft.Json" publicKeyToken="30ad4fe6b2a6aeed" culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-6.0.0.0" newVersion="7.0.0.0" />
      </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
  </runtime>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="foo" value="default" />
  </appSettings>
</configuration>'''

e = ET.fromstring(data)
ET.register_namespace('', "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1")
r = ET.ElementTree(e)

You’ll get the following resulting XML having the properties you stated you are looking for:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="Newtonsoft.Json" publicKeyToken="30ad4fe6b2a6aeed" culture="neutral"></assemblyIdentity>
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-6.0.0.0" newVersion="7.0.0.0"></bindingRedirect>
      </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
  </runtime>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="foo" value="default"></add>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

I know I came late to the party.. Anyway hoping this will help you and many other having the same issue, here it is a good solution. Happy coding!