VN-Australia, VN-New Zealand: Mutual understanding and strategic trust

From March 17 to March 20, 2015, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung made official visits to Australia and New Zealand. During the visits, both countries agreed to lift their relations with Vietnam to new levels, looking toward strategic partnerships.

Within the framework of his visits, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had talks with the two countries’ top political leaders including Prime Ministers, Governor-Generals, Speakers of the Parliaments, States’ Governors, and leaders of opposite parties. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung also received and met with leading businessmen, representatives of political, social, friendship and students’ organisations as well as Vietnamese communities there.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and the two countries’ leaders concurred that the Vietnam-Australia and Vietnam-New Zealand comprehensive partnerships have seen positive developments in all areas.

To improve the efficiency and practicality of cooperation to meet the new demands of the countries, Australia and New Zealand agreed on lifting relations with Vietnam to new levels towards strategic partnerships. This is an important milestone in Vietnam’s relations with these two Oceania countries, establishing the political and legal framework for boosting cooperation in fields of strategic significance.

Politically, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand see eye to eye about enhancing high-level exchanges. The Australian Governor-General and Prime Minister both confirmed to visit Vietnam in the near future while New Zealand’s Prime Minister is supposed to visit Vietnam this September. The two countries’ parliamentary leaders will attend the 132nd Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU-132) Assembly held in Hanoi from March 28 to April 1, 2015.

Regarding economic cooperation, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand have reached many specific agreements to strengthen cooperation on areas of Australia’s and New Zealand’s advantages and Vietnam’s demands such as agriculture, mining, science-technology and human resources development; facilitating the exchange of goods and services between the two countries and Vietnam, including paving the way for Vietnam’s agricultural and aqua-cultural products to access both markets.

Both countries were keen on promoting defence and security cooperation with Vietnam, agreeing on several issues such as English and professional skills training to increase Vietnam’s capacity to participate in the UN Peacekeeping missions, law enforcement at sea, submarine rescue, wartime bomb and mine clearance, trans-national and hi-tech crime fighting, terrorism fighting, and cyber security. New Zealand’s Minister of Defence will visit Vietnam this year.

Besides bilateral collaboration, the three countries’ views also coincided on maintaining coordination at regional and international multilateral forums as well as providing support and assistance to each other in negotiations and implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

The countries affirmed the necessity of peace and security in Asia-Pacific, accordingly recognising the importance of peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and aviation in the East Sea; refraining from using force or the threat of using force; and peaceful settlement of disputes at sea in accordance with international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982).