{"id":41176,"date":"2023-11-27T21:12:05","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T05:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sweet-pascal.52-27-215-206.plesk.page\/vietnam-japan-upgrade-relations-to-highest-level\/"},"modified":"2023-11-27T21:36:22","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T05:36:22","slug":"vietnam-japan-upgrade-relations-to-highest-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/vietnam-japan-upgrade-relations-to-highest-level\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam, Japan upgrade relations to highest level"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vietnam and Japan have officially upgraded relations to a \u201ccomprehensive strategic partnership\u201d during a visit by the Vietnamese president to Tokyo.<\/span><\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s agreement came during talks between President Vo Van Thuong and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The two said they would cooperate more closely on security issues, work on defense equipment and technology transfers and start discussing a new Japanese aid program for militaries of like-minded developing countries in the region, the Associated Press reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an important event, opening a new chapter in Vietnam-Japan relations,\u201d Thuong said in a speech broadcast on national television.<\/span><\/p>\n

The deal follows a similar move between Vietnam and the United States last month when American President Joe Biden visited Hanoi. Four other countries: China, India, Russia and South Korea have raised their relationship with Vietnam to the highest level.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe upgrade is commensurate with the level of Japan\u2019s engagement with Vietnam, especially in trade, investment, infrastructure development, human resources development, and recently maritime security,\u201d Hanh Nguyen, a Yokosuka Council on Asia Pacific Studies (YCAPS) Research Fellow, told Radio Free Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt sends a signal to both China and the U.S. that Vietnam is not going to take sides in the great power competition and will continue to pursue its traditional strategy of hedging and multilateralization of foreign affairs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Japan is the third-largest overseas investor in Vietnam and the fourth-biggest trading partner. Bilateral trade reached US$47.6 billion last year and neared $37 billion in the first 10 months of 2023 according to <\/span>the Center for WTO and International Trade of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Japan and Vietnam both have territorial disputes with China, Tokyo arguing with Beijing over sovereignty of islands in the East China Sea and Hanoi clashing with the Chinese government over shoals and <\/span>land reclamation<\/span><\/a> in the South China Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2020, Tokyo agreed to a $348 million loan agreement for Vietnam to build six maritime patrol vessels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI expect that with the upgrade in partnership, it will open up opportunities for further maritime security cooperation, especially capacity building activities for Vietnam\u2019s Coast Guards and Navy, which have been going on for a few years now,\u201d Nguyen said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaritime security equipment transfers, and arms transfer might see more developments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cVietnam in general is more comfortable with Japan as a partner of security cooperation due to Hanoi\u2019s perceptions of Tokyo as a reliable and trustworthy partner, who is also less likely to criticize Vietnam’s human rights record.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch\u2019s Asia Division Deputy Director Phil Robertson was more skeptical about the agreement between Japan and Vietnam.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone becomes comprehensive & strategic allies, doesn\u2019t that denigrate the meaning of Vietnam\u2019s upgrades?\u201d <\/span>he wrote on X<\/span><\/a>, formerly known as Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thoung is on a four-day visit to Japan, to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vietnam and Japan have officially upgraded relations to a \u201ccomprehensive strategic partnership\u201d during a visit by the Vietnamese president to Tokyo. Monday\u2019s agreement came during talks between President Vo Van Thuong and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The two said they would cooperate more closely on security issues, work on defense equipment and technology transfers and …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,254,242,239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-english","category-world-news","category-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}