After North Korea, place in Vietnam. On Thursday, June 20, Vladimir Putin is making a state visit to this long-time ally and loyal buyer of Russian arms. L’Express takes stock of the reasons for this agreement between Moscow and Hanoi, a new stage in the Russian president’s diplomatic tour.
Why do they get along well?
The proximity between Hanoi and Moscow has its roots in Soviet times. For decades, the USSR trained cadres of the Vietnamese Communist Party (CPV), including Ho Chi Minh, the father of independence, who visited the country for the first time in 1923. During the Vietnam War , Soviet power provided weapons, fighter planes, tanks and thousands of soldiers to its Northern ally, in response to the direct intervention of Washington which supported the capitalist South.
Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia continues to enjoy a positive image in Vietnam, which took the turn towards a market economy in the 1980s. In 2012, Hanoi elevated Moscow to the rank of partner. special strategic”, i.e. the highest degree of cooperation after China (2008), but before the United States (2023).
What is Vladimir Putin going to do?
Vietnam is the third country visited by Vladimir Putin since his re-election last March, after China and North Korea. The last trip of the master of the Kremlin to the Southeast Asian country dates back to 2017, on the occasion of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. This is an opportunity for the Russian president to show that he has an “economic and political ally increasingly courted by the West”, explains Huong Le Thu, deputy director of the Central Asia program of reflection International Crisis Group.
Vietnam, with one hundred million inhabitants, represents a market with strong potential for Russia, under Western sanctions, especially since the volume of trade between the two countries (3.5 billion dollars in 2022) remains much lower than the levels observed between Vietnam and China (175 billion USD) or the United States (123 billion USD).
Vladimir Putin’s visit should improve cooperation in the areas of investment, technology, energy and security, the Russian ambassador to Hanoi said on Wednesday, quoted by Vietnamese state media.
Vietnam is a long-standing customer for Russian military equipment: arms imports from Russia reached $7.6 billion between 1995 and 2023, or more than 80% of the total arms purchased by the Vietnam abroad, according to figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). If since 2020, we have seen a slowdown, the two countries have a “mutual interest in resuming arms sales”, estimated Carl Thayer, professor emeritus at the Australian University of New South Wales, in a context of tensions in the South China Sea. “But Vietnam is paralyzed by the threat of American sanctions,” he added.
What does Hanoi risk?
By welcoming Vladimir Putin, the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hanoi – which does not recognize the ICC – risks the disapproval of its Western partners whom the communist regime is also trying to pamper. The regime’s foreign policy is governed by the flexible principles of “bamboo diplomacy”, seeking to avoid too close association with any great power, defined by the communist regime’s strongman, Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the PCV.
Both the US president and his Chinese counterpart visited Vietnam last year. Against a backdrop of rivalries between China and the United States in Asia, Hanoi is playing the card of pragmatism and caution, seen as beneficial for the economy. But the war in Ukraine has made this balancing act difficult, experts say.
Vietnam did not participate in the first peace summit in Ukraine, organized in Switzerland in mid-June. Vladimir Putin praised Hanoi’s “balanced” approach to the Ukrainian question, in an article published Wednesday by the PCV newspaper. Hanoi could also seek support from Moscow to join the Brics group, analysts say.