Vietnam has to date established diplomatic relations with 187 out of 193 United Nations (UN) member states, founded strategic partnerships with 15 countries, and formed comprehensive partnerships with 10 countries. These backgrounds push Vietnam to have effective measures to further enhance the fruitfulness of those relationships, mechanisms and frameworks of relations with important countries in the world, while expanding and reinforcing new relations with other countries for the sake of national interests.
This was confirmed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh at the 29th Diplomatic Conference in Hanoi.
The biennial Diplomatic Conference was attended by foreign affair agencies in the country and Vietnamese representative missions in foreign countries. The 29th assembly was seen a meeting of “determination for action” in order to contribute positively to the cause of national construction and defence.
Deputy Prime Minister Minh said, ever-changing, rapid and unpredictable developments in the region and the world require the diplomacy service to keep a close watch, take promptly reaction and have appropriate behavioural measures, and ensure supreme interests of the nation.
He added that, in the coming time when next-generation free trade agreements (FTAs) to which Vietnam is a signatory come into force, they will open up many opportunities for Vietnam to expand export markets for its goods and services and draw more foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA). Therefore, the diplomacy service will have to adopt a comprehensive change in the mindset of running external activities to accompany the business community and the people to grasp opportunities and advantages from the international integration in general and FTAs in particular.
In the international integration process, Vietnam has lifted its multilateral foreign policy from “active participation” to “proactive participation in building and shaping a common playing rule” while defending and promoting effectively the country’s strategic security and development interests. He added that it is now urgent to equip new thinking for every diplomat to make multilateral foreign affairs one of the pillars of foreign affairs in the near future.
At the meeting, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Nguyen Phu Trong said external diplomacy has been drastically and effectively translated international integration policy adopted by the 11th CPV Congress and Resolution 22 of the Politburo (11th tenure). International integration has been strongly deployed across all channels, including Party diplomacy, State diplomacy, National Assembly diplomacy and people-to-people diplomacy.
Vietnam’s efforts in foreign affairs have lifted its role on many international forums and organisations, assumed the rightful place in the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Committee, and the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Particularly, it has promoted its role as an active member in shaping the ASEAN Community.
Foreign affairs have practically helped taking advantage of external resources for socioeconomic development. In spite of unfavourable political and economic developments in the world, Vietnam continues to be an attractive destination for many foreign investors.
However, foreign affairs have posed certain limitations in the past time and foreign affairs and international economic integration are not very active and effective to a certain extent, said General Secretary Trong.
“We do not have consistent, effective measures to limit negative impacts arising from the process of advancing international integration. Thinking and guidance in practice sometimes fail to catch up with rapid-changing complicated situations. The coordination and synergy of branches and localities is still lax. Strategic research and situation forecast are not as good as expected,” he added.
Vietnam is entering a new development phase with extremely important tasks, General Secretary Trong noted. International diplomacy is not only the continuation of internal affairs policy but is also a strong driving force that plays a deserving role in carrying out two strategic tasks of building and defending the fatherland. The diplomatic sector in general and the foreign affairs in particular are standing before enormously important requirements and tasks: Mobilising maximum external resources for national development. With its quick access to many information sources about politics, world economy, science and technology and market as well as its representative missions across five continents, the diplomacy service must place a high priority and assign specific responsibility to its missions abroad and professional units under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to improve research forecasts, provide information about short-term and long-term regional and international economic developments to help leaders to have accurate assessments and take prompt actions to administer the economy in line with objective rules and common development trends.
The foreign affairs sector must coordinate closely with relevant bodies to actively expand the market, look for trade, investment and service partners of high quality to contribute to realising the policy of restructuring the economy, changing growth model and improving economic quality, performance and competitiveness.
In addition to the task of developing the nation, the diplomatic sector is also assigned to shoulder a extremely huge but complicated task of protecting the country’s independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, along with ensuring the living environment is peaceful and stable for development,” said General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
According to the General Secretary, to do so, it is important to pay attention to studying strategic forecasts, clarifying deep roots of current developments and occurrences in the world, especially cooperative competitive relations among major countries in key regions, including Asia - Pacific and East Asia, which may affect Vietnam’s interests. The diplomatic sector must cooperate with defence and security forces to carry out its tasks in these crucial areas.
Anh Mai
Vietnamese
