HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed at least a dozen agreements with his Vietnamese counterpart on Thursday and offered to supply Vietnam with fossil fuels, including natural gas, during his state visit. which is trying to strengthen relations between Moscow. Asia to overcome its growing international isolation Its war in Ukraine.
Putin and President Tu Lam agreed to further cooperation in education, science and technology, oil and gas exploration and clean energy. The two countries also agreed to work on a roadmap for a nuclear science and technology center in Vietnam.
None of the 12 publicly announced contracts were explicitly defense-related, but Lam said there were other contracts that had not been made public.
Both countries are interested in “a reliable security architecture” in the Asia-Pacific region that has no room for “closed military-political blocs,” Putin said. Lam added that both Russia and Vietnam “want to further cooperate in defense and security to deal with non-traditional security challenges.”
The agreements between Russia and Vietnam were not as important as Putin made a deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. On Wednesday, which pledged mutual assistance in the event of an attack, said Nigel Gold-Davis, senior fellow on Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and former British ambassador to Belarus.
Putin's recent visit to China And now North Korea and Vietnam are “trying to break international isolation,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore's ISEAS-Yosef Isaac Institute.
AP Correspondent Karen Chimas reports on Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Vietnam.
Giang said Russia is important to Vietnam for two reasons: it is the Southeast Asian nation's largest supplier of military equipment, and Russia's oil exploration technologies are competing with Vietnam's sovereignty claims. They help. South China Sea.
Vietnam has also granted a license to Russia's state-controlled oil company Zarubezhneft to develop an offshore block off its southeast coast.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, Vietnam, Thursday, June. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Min Huang)
According to official Vietnamese media, regarding the South China Sea, Lam said the two sides support “safety, security, freedom of navigation and aviation” and a peaceful resolution of disputes without the use of force in accordance with international law. Will make sure.
Putin arrived in Hanoi on Thursday morning After North Korea signed the strategic agreementwhich comes as the two countries face a growing standoff with the West and could mark their strongest relationship since the end of the Cold War.
In Hanoi, Putin also met with Vietnam's most powerful politician, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, according to Vietnam's state-run news agency.
Putin arrived at Vietnam's presidential palace on Thursday afternoon, where he was greeted by schoolchildren waving Russian and Vietnamese flags.
Much has changed since Putin's last visit to Vietnam in 2017. Now facing Russia. A raft of US-led sanctions For his invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued a Putin's arrest warrant Alleged war crimes make it difficult for the Russian leader to travel internationally. The Kremlin rejected the warrant as null and void, stressing that Moscow does not recognize the court's jurisdiction.
Putin's trip resulted in a sharp rebuke from the US Embassy in Vietnam, which stated that “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to continue his atrocities.” should not be allowed to normalize.” It said in a statement that if Putin was allowed to travel freely, it could “normalize Russia's flagrant violations of international law.”
The United States and its allies have expressed their views. A growing concern A possible arms arrangement in which North Korea provides Russia with much-needed military equipment for use in Ukraine in exchange for Russian economic aid and technology transfers could increase the threat posed by Kim's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Both countries deny allegations of the arms transfer, which violates a number of UN Security Council sanctions that Russia has previously ratified.
Rizwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst at defense intelligence company Jane's, said it was unlikely that Vietnam would supply Russia with large quantities of weapons and jeopardize the progress it has made with NATO members. Military equipment, especially with the United States.
“I would imagine that Vietnam would not want to take any risks, which would invite the ire of the West by supplying the Russians,” Rahmat said.
Hanoi and Moscow have had diplomatic relations since the 1950s, and this year marks 30 years since the treaty establishing “friendly relations” between Vietnam and Russia. Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow in the Wilson Center's Asia program, said Vietnam was “strengthening” the relationship even as it diversified with new partners.
Evidence of the long relationship and its influence can be seen in cities like the Vietnamese capital, where many Soviet-style apartment blocks are now dwarfed by skyscrapers. A statue of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, stands in a park where kids skateboard every evening. Many of the top leadership of the Communist Party in Vietnam studied at Soviet universities, including party chief Truong.
In an article written for Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Putin thanked “Vietnamese friends for their balanced stance on the Ukraine crisis” and called the country “a strong member of a just world order” based on international law. Supporter”. Equality and geopolitical non-intervention.
Vietnam's practical policy of “bamboo diplomacy” — a phrase coined by Truong to refer to the plant's resilience, bending but not breaking to the changing tides of global geopolitics — is increasingly being tested.
A manufacturing powerhouse and an increasingly important player in global supply chains, Vietnam has hosted both US presidents Joe Biden And the Chinese leader Xi Jinping In 2023
Former ambassador Gold Davis said that Putin's visit is diplomatically important for Hanoi.
“Maybe it's just a matter of Vietnam showing that it's able to maintain that delicate balance of its bamboo diplomacy,” he said. “Already in one year they have hosted visits from the heads of state of the three most powerful countries in the world, which is quite impressive.”
For Russia, he said, the visit appears to be more about optics than anything else, as Moscow seeks to engage and influence other countries, particularly in the so-called Global South.
Putin has not been able to travel much or much since the start of the war, he said, and has made few trips outside of the former Soviet bloc.
Vietnam has remained neutral on Russia's attack on Ukraine. But neutrality is becoming increasingly difficult.
Parameswaran said Vietnam needs US support to advance its economic ambitions and diversify its defense ties. What he does with Russia in an environment of rising tensions between Washington and Moscow will have to be carefully scrutinized.
Bilateral trade 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 accounted for nearly 80 percent of Vietnam's arms imports. It has been declining over the years due to efforts by the Vietnamese to diversify their supply. But Giang said it will take time to completely wean ourselves off Russia.
Given Putin's international isolation, Vietnam is “doing the Russian leader a huge favor and can expect favors in return,” Australia's ambassador to Vietnam Andrew Goldzinovsky wrote on social media platform X.
“Vietnam will always act in the interests of Vietnam and no one else,” he wrote.
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AP writer David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this report.