According to the tradition, today the Ministry of Foreign Affair is holding the 28th Diplomatic Conference, themed “Proactive and active diplomacy in international integration”. This is an opportunity for the Diplomatic Service to review and assess the implementation of external strategy of international integration as mapped out in the first half of the 11th Party Congress’s term, so as to take comprehensive and effective measures to successfully realize the Congress’ external strategy in the coming years.
The Conference is honored to warmly welcome Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the Party to attend and chair the Conference. The presence of Comrade Secretary-General is a major inspiration to all the working staffs of the Diplomatic Service, which shows the profound interest and the Leadership of the Party to the external field. We also warmly welcome other high-ranking leaders of the Party, the State, the National Assembly and the Government, distinguished guests representing central ministries, branches, departments and provinces, as well as more than seven hundred Heads of the Vietnamese Diplomatic Missions overseas, diplomatic officials, officials representing local foreign affairs’ offices, members of the press, mass media and a number of economic groups to the Conference. We are also glad to welcome former Ministers and leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as senior members of the Vietnamese Diplomatic Service, who have closely followed the foreign affairs, generating great inspirations to the next generations of our Diplomatic Service.
The 28th Diplomatic Conference is held at a time where many important changes are taking place both domestically and internationally.
Domestically, our country has entered a pivotal period regarding the execution of the Ten-year Socio-Economic Development Strategy of 2011-2020, the realization of the goal of industrialization and modernization by 2020 and the promotion of economic restructure being accompanied by the renovation of our growth model.
Against the backdrop of slow world economy recovery, ongoing financial and public debt crises all over the world, fierce competition among great powers in the region that have made a negative impacts on our country’s socio-economic situations, our country has attained important socio-economic achievements, stabilized the macro-economy, maintained reasonable growth, curbed inflation and ensured social security. However, our economy is still faced with many difficulties and challenges.
Globally, peace and cooperation for development continue to be a major trend, yet prominent problems still persist in an ever more complicated direction. Armed conflicts; disputes over resources, national territory, seas and islands; ethnic and religion-fueled conflicts; interventions, coups, secessions and terrorism; all are on the rise. A multipolar world is now emerging prominently. Major powers are engaged in cooperation, competition with one another, with the Asia-Pacific being the dominant region.
In addition, unconventional security challenges, especially natural disasters and internet security have increased in intensity. Multilateral politico-security challenges are directly affecting on the security and development of our country.
Achievements attained by the Diplomatic Service since the 27th Diplomatic Conference
In the last two years since the 27th Diplomatic Conference, we have actively and comprehensively carried out the 11th Party Congress’ external strategy and attained important achievements.
Political Diplomacy has been actively conducted, bringing our relations with important partners to substance, making them effective and stable and for the first time we have established relation frameworks with all important partners. In 2013 we have established five Strategic Partnerships and two Comprehensive Partnerships, bringing the total number of the former to 13 and the latter to 11, including those with the five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations; with important partners worldwide like Japan, India, Germany, the Republic of Korea; with the core members of the ASEAN like Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand; while our relations with traditional friends in Africa and Latin America have been strengthened and expanded.
In the international integration, we persistenly hold high the “national interest is the highest” principle, engaging in both cooperation and struggle. The Diplomatic Service has contributed to maintaining a peaceful, stable environment, playing an important part in building a favorable international environment for national development.
Economic Diplomacy has effectively supported the execution of the Ten-Year Socio-Economic Development Strategy of 2011-2020 and the Five-Year Plan of 2011-2015; proactively forecasting major development trends as well as learning experiences from other countries so as to recommend to the Government sound steps in managing and stabilizing the macroeconomy and restructuring the economy. We have also promoted the politico-diplomatic lobbying to facilitate the negotiations on important Free Trade Agreements, the recognition of Viet Nam as a market economy and the attraction of ODA and FDI. Over the last two years we have managed to persuade 14 more countries to recognize Viet Nam as a market economy, bringing the total number of the recognizers to 43, including eight countries in G-20. At present, we are negotiating six Free Trade Agreements with important partners in bilateral and multilateral frameworks, including such largest economies in the world as the United States, China, Japan and the EU. Apart from cooperation, we have also timely struggled against protectionism and discrimination in trade relations, partly protecting our main export products in the law suits regarding anti dumping duties and countervailing duties.
Multilateral Diplomacy has effectively implemented the international integration policy, switching from the simple participation to pro-active participation, making suggestions and contributions with responsibility to common regional and global security and development issues, thus promoting the country’s standing in the region and the world.
In the region, as a responsible member to we have contributed to promoting the building of the ASEAN Community, consolidating regional solidarity and strengthening the central role of ASEAN in regional matters, promoting the execution of the Declaration of Conduct and the joint consultation between ASEAN and China on the Code of Conduct of the Parties in the East Sea.
At the international level, our decision to take part in the United Nations Peacekeeping activities, our being elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council with the highest number of votes and as the president of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and for the first time our being elected to the Intergovernmental Committee on the 1972 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritages, have all promoted the image and the standing of our country in the world. In the long-term, we have step-by-step been building a general plan for the hosting of the APEC Summit in 2017 and a candidacy for the election into the United Nations Security Council in the 2020-2021 term.
Cultural Diplomacy has played an important part in popularizing and strengthening the national image and the standing of Viet Nam in the world, lobbying the UNESCO for the recognition of many Vietnamese material and non-material cultural heritages as world cultural heritages.
Territorial and Border work has been carried out effectively, contributing to protecting national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the country as well as to defending our sovereignty and sovereign rights in the East Sea.
Overseas Vietnamese work has been carried out to support and protect legitimate rights of overseas Vietnamese in difficulty and encourage them to maintain and promote national customs and identities and contribute to building the homeland. Resolution No 36 of the Party Politburo has been implemented with concrete methods and policies to facilitate overseas Vietnamese to return to the homeland to do business, visit relatives, so as to contribute to the construction of the homeland.
Citizen protection work has received much more attention as our country has implemented open door policy and continued to integrate in-depth into the world. We have timely protected our citizens in international hot spots and natural disaster regions. We have also actively combined cooperation and struggle to protect our citizens, fishermen and laborers’ legitimate rights overseas.
Foreign information work has seen many innovations, partly creating social consensus on complicated matters, sending accurate messages to help the international community understand and support the Party and the Government’s strategy and policy while strongly opposing the violations of our maritime sovereign rights and slanderous allegations regarding democracy, human rights and religious matters.
These achievements would be impossible without the extremely important contribution of the work of Diplomatic Service building. Following the 27th Diplomatic Conference, the Ministry of Foreign Affair has focused on the building and training work in compliance with Comrade Secretary-General’s request in the 27th Diplomatic Conference that our army of working staffs must have “sufficient strength of will, capability and morality standards on a par with their new mission, loyalty to the national interest”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affair has implemented many programs and methods for training and retraining working staffs to provide our country with officials who are genuinely professional with high competence and firm political strength, meeting external tasks in the international integration period in an increasingly competent manner.
These achievements in external relations and international integration are attributed first of all to the sound foreign policy of the Party, the close instruction and direct participation of the Party Politburo and high-ranking leaders of the Party, the State, the National Assembly and the Government, the close and timely cooperation among the agencies working on Forreign Affairs, among State diplomacy, and Party, and Parliamentary diplomacy and people-to-people diplomacy, among the foreign service-security-defense sectors, among foreign service and external activites of ministries, branches and departments at the central levels and local governments at the provincial level all over the country, forming an united front to bring into play the combined national strength.
These achievements have been very important, yet the road ahead is full of difficulties and challenges, which demand the Diplomatic Service to continue making greater efforts on a par with the new standing of the country.
In the coming years, the international and regional picture will be changing more dramatically, creating for us both great opportunities and challenges. However, we have a very basic strength in our patriotism, a stable socio-political background, and the fact that after nearly 30 years of Doi Moi our national strength and standing have been much improved. The recent years’ external achievements have created new advantages; it can be said that never before in the history of the modern Viet Nam have we had such favorable conditions in our relationship with other countries in the world as nowadays.
Issues to be discussed in depth in the 28th Diplomatic Conference
In order to continue to accomplish successfully the policies of the 11th Congress, the 28th Diplomatic Conference themed “Proactive and active diplomacy in international intgration” will concentrate on the following points:
First, concerning the regional and global situation, forecasting accurately development trends in the short term and within the next five to ten years; improving further research and consultative quality, more assessing and forecasting policy adjustments of neighboring countries and major powers and their impacts on our security and development environment.
Second, concerning political diplomacy, on the basis of partnership framework networks, we need to identify priorities and key methods to bring our relationships with key partners into depth, substance and efficiency.
Third, concerning international integration and multilateral diplomacy, we need to find sound methods and ways to better bring into play our current standing among nations as well as mechanisms and forums to serve the country’s security and development goals; we are not just participating actively but also contributing to the building of mechanisms and frameworks in regional and international organizations in which we have stakes, with the goal of further improving the country’s standing both regionally and internationally.
While we have seven more years to realize the goals of industrialization and modernization and two years to build the ASEAN Community by 2015, economic diplomacy needs to become deeply involved in aspects vital to the country’s development demands, supporting effectively the implementation of the goals of the Socio-Economic Development Strategy until 2020.
Fourth, we need to continue researching and suggesting methods to promote comprehensive, uniform deployment of external activities on the fields of culture, information-propaganda, overseas Vietnamese works, citizen protection works; strengthening close cooperation among foreign-defense-security services to successfully realize the main goal of maintaining peace, stability and development.
Equally important is the building of the Diplomatic Service. The Conference needs to devote due time to review the deployment of professional staff-building activities; there must be breakthrough solutions to improve the training of staff, so as after graduation, officials have been not only endowed with professional, multi-faceted skills but also possessing the ability to cooperate and work in an inter-professional environment in the backdrop of our deep international integration into the world, meeting increasingly high requirements of the building and defending of the motherland and improving our national standing.
It is not easy to come to actual, comprehensive assessment and pivotal solutions to the aforementioned problems within the span of one week. Yet with a deep awareness about the Diplomatic Service’s task in this most important period for the nation, with our high responsibility and dedication, the 28th Diplomatic Conference will successfully complete the agenda, according to the spirit of “Proactive and active diplomacy in international integration”.
I hereby declare the commencement of the 28th Diplomatic Conference. May I wish Comrade Secretary-General, leaders of the Party and the State and all delegates good health and many achievements in the upcoming period.
Posting granted exclusively for the Modern Diplomacy
(*)Speech delivered by HE Mr. Pham Binh Minh, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs at the 28th Diplomatic Conference (from the 16th to 20th December 2013). The title is named by the Journal of International Studies.
