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Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
HANOI, Vietnam — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed at least a dozen deals with his Vietnamese counterpart on Thursday and offered to supply fossil fuels, including natural gas, to Vietnam on a long-term basis during a state visit that comes as Moscow seeks to strengthen ties in Asia in response to its growing international isolation over its military actions in Ukraine.
Putin and Lam agreed to strengthen cooperation in education, research and technology, oil and gas exploration, sustainable energy, and health. The two countries agreed to collaborate on a road map for a nuclear scientific and technology center in Vietnam.
None of the 12 officially announced agreements specifically addressed defense. However, Lam stated that additional deals had not been made public.
Following their talks, Putin stated that the two countries are interested in “developing a reliable security architecture” in the Asia-Pacific region that does not allow for “closed military-political blocs.” Lam also stated that Russia and Vietnam wished to “further cooperate in defense and security to cope with non-traditional security challenges.”
Putin | AP News Image
Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
According to Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and a former British ambassador to Belarus, the agreements between Russia and Vietnam were not as significant as the pact Putin signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un the day before, which promised mutual aid in the event of an invasion.
Putin’s recent visits to China, North Korea, and Vietnam attempt to “break the international isolation,” according to Nguyen Khac Giang, an expert at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
Giang stated that Russia is vital to Vietnam for two reasons: it is the largest provider of military weapons to the Southeast Asian country, and Russian oil exploration technologies assist Vietnam in retaining its sovereignty claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Putin landed in Hanoi on Thursday morning from North Korea after signing the strategic pact. The pact comes as both nations face rising standoffs with the West and may symbolize their deepest ties since the end of the Cold War.
According to the Vietnam News Agency, Putin also met with Vietnam’s most powerful politicians, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
Putin drove to Vietnam’s Presidential Palace on Thursday afternoon, where he was met by schoolchildren waving Russian and Vietnamese flags.
Much has changed since Putin’s previous trip to Vietnam in 2017. Russia is now facing a slew of US-led sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, the Foreign Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes, making foreign travel difficult for the Russian president. The Kremlin dismissed the warrant as “null and void,” emphasizing that Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
The U.S. Embassy in Vietnam sharply criticized Putin’s trip, stating that “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities.” Allowing Putin to travel freely “could normalize Russia’s blatant violations of international law,” according to a statement.
The United States and its allies have expressed growing concern about a potential arms deal in which North Korea provides Russia with much-needed munitions for use in Ukraine in exchange for Russian economic assistance and technology transfers, which could exacerbate the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Both countries dispute claims of weapons deliveries, which would violate many U.N. Security Council sanctions that Russia has previously supported.
According to Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst with the defense intelligence business Janes, Vietnam is unlikely to give Russia major quantities of weaponry, putting at risk the progress it has made with NATO allies on military equipment, mainly the United States.
Putin | AP news Image
Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
“I would imagine Vietnam wouldn’t want to take a risk, inviting the wrath of Western countries by supplying the Russians,” Rahmat told reporters.
Hanoi and Moscow have enjoyed diplomatic relations since 1950, and this year, they celebrate the 30th anniversary of a treaty that established “friendly relations” between Vietnam and Russia. According to Prashanth Parameswaran, a Wilson Center’s Asia Program fellow, Vietnam is “reinforcing” its partnership while diversifying with newer partners.
Evidence of the lengthy relationship and its effect may be found in Vietnamese cities such as the capital, where numerous Soviet-style apartment complexes have been replaced with skyscrapers. A statue of the Soviet Union’s founder, Vladimir Lenin, stands in a park where children skateboard every evening. Many of the Communist Party’s top leaders in Vietnam, including party boss Trong, attended Soviet universities.
In an article published in Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Putin thanked “Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukrainian crisis” and praised the country as a “strong supporter of a fair world order” based on international law, equality, and geopolitical non-interference.
Vietnam’s pragmatic stance of “bamboo diplomacy” — a term coined by Trong to describe the plant’s suppleness, bending but not breaking in the shifting headwinds of global geopolitics — is under growing scrutiny.
Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse and increasingly vital in global supply networks, will host US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2023.
According to former ambassador Gould-Davies, Putin’s visit is significant diplomatically for Hanoi.
“Perhaps for Vietnam it’s a matter of just showing that it’s able to maintain this very agile balance of its bamboo diplomacy,” the foreign minister suggested. “Already in the course of a year they’ve hosted visits by the heads of state of the three most powerful countries in the world, which is pretty impressive.”
He believes Russia’s visit was more about optics than anything else, as Moscow strives to interact and influence other countries, particularly those in the so-called Global South.
“Since the war began, Putin has not been able to travel much or very far, and he’s made very few trips beyond the countries of the former Soviet space,” he told reporters.
Putin | AP News Image
Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
Vietnam has remained neutral about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But neutrality is getting difficult.
Parameswaran stated that Vietnam requires US assistance to pursue its economic objectives and diversify its defense relationships. “It has to carefully calibrate what it does with Russia in an environment of rising tensions between Washington and Moscow.”
Bilateral commerce between Russia and Vietnam was $3.6 billion in 2023, compared to $171 billion with China and $111 billion with the United States.
Since the early 2000s, Russia has supplied over 80% of Vietnam’s arms imports. This has been dropping over the years as Vietnam strives to diversify its supply. However, according to Giang, weaning itself completely from Russia would take time.
Given Putin’s international isolation, Vietnam is doing him a “huge favor and may expect favors in return,” wrote Andrew Goledzinowski, the Australian ambassador to Vietnam, on the social networking platform X.
“Vietnam will always act in Vietnam’s interests and not anyone else’s,” he said in the letter.
SOURCE – (AP)
