WASHINGTON, March 27 — Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son said the resignation of the communist-ruled country’s second president in little over a year had not affected Hanoi’s foreign and economic policies, given its collective leadership and policymaking.
Speaking to the think tank Brookings Institution about Vo Van Thuong’s resignation last week during a visit to the United States (US) yesterday, he said Vietnam is undergoing an anti-corruption campaign, which the international community and businesses have welcomed.
“The resignation of the president, I think, in Vietnam has not affected our foreign policy as well as our own policies of economic development.
“If you look at the situation in Vietnam, we have collective leadership, we have collective foreign policy. We have collective-decided economic development,” Son said.
He cited the Communist Party congresses held every five years, where economic development plans are set out and agreed upon among party leaders.
“And I think (if) one or two figures in the leadership have resigned, (it) does not change this situation,” Son said.
The minister, who held talks in Washington on Monday (March 25) with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and USAID Administrator Samantha Power, said Vietnam hopes Washington will soon recognise it as a market economy.
The US currently considers Vietnam a ‘non-market economy’ in import injury cases, which can lead to significantly higher anti-dumping duties.
Earlier this year, Hanoi’s ambassador to Washington warned that maintaining the resulting punitive duties on Vietnamese goods is bad for increasingly close bilateral ties.
Son said the US and Vietnam should boost economic trade and investment cooperation after agreeing to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership last year.
“We should focus on supply chain resilience, infrastructure connectivity, the digital economy, energy, the green economy, and logistics,” he said.
Thuong’s resignation raised questions about stability in Vietnam, given that he was elected only last year after the sudden dismissal of his predecessor.
With accumulated foreign direct investment higher than its gross domestic product, Vietnam’s stability is crucial to multinationals with large operations in the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub, including US firm Apple, which has many key suppliers in the country.
Analysts say that stability, which has been guaranteed for decades by a state tightly controlled by the Communist Party, now looks less certain, although they agree the current leadership changes will not impact the country’s key policies, including its “bamboo diplomacy” aimed at keeping good relations with the US and China simultaneously.
Son said Vietnam sought good relations with all major powers and welcomed ongoing efforts to stabilize relations between the US and China.
— Reuters
