Following a rare meeting with his counterpart Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in the Vietnamese city of Hanoi on Wednesday. During the meeting, the two leaders decided to forge a new strategic partnership, motivated by Moscow’s desire for weaponry for its fight in Ukraine.
Putin, who is viewed as a pariah by the West, wants to strengthen economic connections with favourable nations and demonstrate that the isolation of the West is ineffective.Communist-controlled With its non-alignment foreign policy and strong historical links to Moscow, Vietnam seems like an obvious candidate. Few nations can host the presidents of China, Russia, and the United States with as much pomp as Vietnam can.Putin’s two-day visit to Vietnam has rankled the United States, with a State Department spokesperson saying, “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities.”
“If he is able to travel freely, it could normalize Russia’s blatant violations of international law and inadvertently send the message that atrocities can be committed in Ukraine and elsewhere with impunity,” the spokesperson added.The Russian leader met with Vietnamese leadership including Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and new President To Lam, according to Russian state-run news agency TASS, citing the Kremlin.
Putin told Lam on Thursday that “strengthening a comprehensive strategic partnership with Vietnam is always one of our priorities,” TASS reported.At the start of his talks with Lam, Putin invited him to Victory Day celebrations in Moscow next year. “We will be glad to welcome you to the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War in Moscow,” TASS quoted Putin as saying.Much like his visit to Pyongyang, Putin’s trip to Hanoi could signal deepening relations between the two nations as the Russian leader looks to garner concrete support amid international sanctions over his grinding war in Ukraine.
Ahead of the visit, Putin thanked Vietnam for its “balanced position” on Russia’s war in Ukraine in an article for the Vietnamese Communist Party’s official newspaper, according to the Kremlin.“We are grateful to our Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukraine crisis and their desire to facilitate the search for practical ways to settle it peacefully. All of this is fully in line with the spirit and nature of our relations,” Putin said.Moscow has been a major supplier of weapons to Vietnam since the Soviet era and analysts say arms and energy talks could feature on the agenda.
The visit also showcases Vietnam’s foreign policy balancing act, which like India, enables the country to be on friendly terms with rival major powers including Russia, the United States and China – all vital trading partners. Last year, Vietnam hosted both Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden.That trip resulted in the US and Vietnam upgrading diplomatic ties to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” in a historic sign of improving relations between the former foes. The two nations have accelerated trade in recent years and the US is currently reviewing an upgrade to Vietnam’s market economy status that would allow Hanoi to benefit from lower tariffs on goods imported into the US.
Vietnam is center to US efforts to counter rising Chinese influence in the region and a key part of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Vietnam in turn is keen to benefit from American efforts to diversify supply chains outside of China as well as US concern over China’s military build-up in the South China Sea.
Source: Here