Exclusive-Better China ties can help regional peace, security, Vietnam’s top leader says
By Greg Torode
SINGAPORE, May 30 (Reuters) – Vietnam’s top leader said strong relations between Vietnam and its giant neighbor and regional rival China will benefit regional peace and security, although ties with the United States are also important.
“We are not choosing sides,” Communist Party General Secretary and Chairman To Lam told Reuters late on Friday in his first interview with an international media outlet in his current role.
He said there was no contradiction in trying to build stronger relations with China and making progress in resolving long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
“If we can maintain good relations and dialogue, all disputes can be resolved,” Lam said through a translator. he said.
“Having good relations with China, protecting our sovereignty and resolving the problems in the East Sea are not mutually exclusive, but mutually reinforcing,” Lam said, using Vietnam’s name for the South China Sea. he said.
He reiterated Vietnam’s long-standing position to resolve disputes based on international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
China’s claims to large areas of the South China Sea are also keenly felt in Vietnam, which claims all of the Chinese-occupied Paracel islands and the entire southern Spratlys archipelago.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have competing claims to the strategic trade route where naval deployments are increasing, underscoring how it has become a growing regional flashpoint.
Lam’s remarks come as Vietnam has moved quickly to raise its diplomatic profile, simultaneously seeking to strengthen ties with China, the United States and other major powers while overseeing an ambitious, high-growth economic agenda.
Lam described the rivalry between the US and China as an “objective reality”.
“We do not approach our relations with major powers through a security prism,” he said, reflecting Vietnam’s longstanding flexible “bamboo diplomacy”.
“We need good relations with major countries so that we can jointly solve fundamental and important issues.”
DIPLOMATS WATCH LAM’S LEADERSHIP IN HER NEW ROLE
Newly appointed as both party chief and president, Lam has emerged as Vietnam’s most powerful leader in decades, and her joint mandate allows her to play a more prominent diplomatic role.
Regional diplomats say they are closely watching his leadership as he adopts a more dynamic and flexible stance for a nation once seen as diplomatically reticent and cautious given its collective leadership.
Some analysts have noted that consolidating authority in a single figure could tip a one-party state toward greater authoritarianism and also enable faster decision-making.
Lam, 68, a quiet talker but determined figure, emerged from a career in Vietnam’s internal security apparatus, a powerful but low-profile institution not known for producing diplomats.
Lam spoke to Reuters shortly after giving her opening speech, a first for a Vietnamese party chief, at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s largest defense meeting, on Friday night.
Lam told the audience of global defense ministers, military and intelligence officials and academics that the challenges facing the world include “the erosion of international rules and law, slowing growth and a crisis of development patterns, including climate change, and a crisis of trust between nations.”
“The three crises facing our world today are not inevitable facts that we have to accept,” Lam said.
He called for strengthening international law, establishing elements of inclusive and sustainable growth, and initiating dialogue and transparency.
Sitting in a hotel function room after the speech, wearing a shirt and burgundy tie, Lam told Reuters his leadership acknowledged that Vietnam’s own growth targets were “ambitious and extremely challenging” but determined to be achieved.
Vietnam is striving to achieve fully developed, high-income status by 2045, setting a target of 10% GDP growth this year and double-digit increases in the coming years, driven by science, technology and digital transformation.
Asked whether the impact of the Iran crisis and other negativities would mean a revision of the target, Lam said that despite the difficulties, the key targets remained “achievable”.
“Our answer is clear: We will not lower this target.
“We believe there is no alternative path. If we cannot achieve this goal, we will not be able to achieve the broader development goals we have set for our country,” he said.
(Reporting by Greg Torode in Singapore; Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Hanoi, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
