Why is Russia’s Putin visiting Vietnam after North Korea? | Information

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday held talks with Vietnam’s leaders, hours after flying into Hanoi for a go to to an previous ally that has positioned itself as an more and more influential geopolitical participant, wooed by most main nations. Putin flew to Vietnam from North Korea, the place he met that nation’s chief, Kim Jong Un, on Wednesday.

The go to to Vietnam, amongst different issues, is Russia’s manner of showcasing that whereas Putin is handled as a pariah by the West, he nonetheless holds political clout within the East, specialists have mentioned. Communist-led Vietnam will welcome Putin for a two-day go to, the Kremlin mentioned.

The journey comes after the US final week imposed extra sanctions on Moscow and Western international locations reiterated their unwavering assist for Ukraine – now combating its third 12 months of warfare towards Russia – by agreeing to a $50bn mortgage for Kyiv at a Group of Seven (G7) summit. The go to additionally comes days after final weekend’s Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland.

Why Vietnam?

Whereas North Korea, the place Putin held conferences with chief Kim Jong Un on Wednesday, is itself a worldwide outcast, closely sanctioned by the United Nations over its nuclear and missile programmes, Vietnam is a nation that different main international locations need shut ties with.

A rising economic system and a number one exporter of clothes, Vietnam right this moment counts the US and different Western international locations as necessary companions. India is a rising defence accomplice. Vietnam can be a pillar of Southeast Asian efforts to stability ties with China, protecting sturdy financial ties with Beijing whereas pushing again towards perceived navy threats from the Asian large.

That backdrop makes Vietnam a selection vacation spot for the Russian chief. “Putin will hope his Vietnam go to alerts that Russia is way from remoted in Asia amid its latest Ukraine warfare inroads,” mentioned Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow on the Washington, DC-based Wilson Middle. “ … Although the go to has been pending for some time now and Moscow’s checklist of regional pals is sort of brief in apply,” added Parameswaran, who can be the founding father of the weekly ASEAN Wonk publication.

What’s on the agenda?

Vietnamese President To Lam welcomed Putin in Hanoi on Thursday, committing to additional strengthening ties, which he mentioned would improve peace within the area and globally.

Whereas only a few particulars can be found in the meanwhile, their dialogue is anticipated to give attention to strengthening their strategic partnership. In 2001, Russia grew to become the primary nation to signal a strategic partnership with Vietnam.

Regional and world points may also characteristic on the agenda, the Russian state information company TASS reported. Following the assembly, a joint assertion will probably be adopted and quite a lot of bilateral paperwork will probably be signed, it added.

Russia is Vietnam’s greatest weapons provider, and navy and safety relations are anticipated to determine in talks.

How sturdy are Vietnam-Russia ties? 

Ties between the 2 international locations date again to the Soviet Union, which was Hanoi’s greatest weapons provider – a place that Russia right this moment nonetheless occupies.

The Soviet Union’s navy assist was vital to the Communist Occasion of Vietnam throughout key historic occasions, together with the First and Second Indochina Wars towards France and the US.

Nevertheless, the connection between the 2 goes past its navy scope.

“They have been as soon as on the identical aspect of historical past, they shared the identical ideology towards Western capitalism and imperialism. And the legacy of shared ideology remains to be there,” mentioned Huong Le Thu, Worldwide Disaster Group’s deputy programme director for Asia.

The Soviet Union used to host tens of 1000’s of Vietnamese college students throughout the Chilly Conflict, together with the present head of the Communist Occasion, Nguyen Phu Trong.

Hanoi’s structure additionally has a Soviet contact, such because the museum of contemporary Vietnam’s founding father Ho Chi Minh, and an imposing Vietnam-Soviet Friendship Cultural Palace, constructed within the late Nineteen Seventies.

What’s Vietnam’s place on Ukraine?

Since the beginning of the warfare in 2022, Vietnam has formally taken a impartial stance.

“Vietnam has tried to domesticate a cautious stability within the Ukraine warfare between not disrupting ties with Russia as a conventional accomplice whereas additionally signalling that it takes ideas like territorial integrity significantly,” mentioned Parameswaran.

As a sufferer of huge occupying or invading powers – the US, France, Japan and China – over the previous 80 years, Vietnam holds a rustic’s sovereignty and territorial integrity being inviolable as a sacrosanct precept.

The centrality of these ideas is one thing that Vietnam has repeatedly underscored at world conferences discussing the Ukraine warfare, in veiled criticisms of Russia’s warfare – despite the fact that it has not condemned Moscow.

There’s additionally a shared historical past, and a level of sympathy, between Vietnam and Ukraine, which was additionally a part of the Soviet Union, say analysts. Ukraine too used to produce weapons to Hanoi and cultural ties meant that many Vietnamese studied in Ukraine forming a big diaspora. Vietnam has provided humanitarian assist to Ukraine by worldwide organisations throughout the warfare.

But, Vietnam skipped the Ukraine peace summit final week and abstained on 4 resolutions on the UN Basic Meeting condemning Russia’s invasion of its neighbouring nation. It additionally voted towards eradicating Moscow from the UN Human Rights Council.

“Vietnam guides its overseas coverage based mostly on its historic legacies and its personal pursuits – it desires to showcase that it’s capable of obtain Chinese language, American and Russian leaders and that it’s OK with being pals with anybody – it’s a multidimensional diplomacy,” Le Thu added.

The height of such flexibility, which some specialists known as “bamboo diplomacy”, got here final 12 months when US President Joe Biden and Chinese language President Xi Jinping visited the nation. Bamboo, which grows extensively in Vietnam, is understood for its means to bend as wanted – with out snapping – serving as a metaphor for the nation’s overseas coverage.

What’s the US response to Putin’s go to to Vietnam?

The US is a prime commerce accomplice of Vietnam and has not taken Putin’s go to properly.

“No nation ought to give Putin a platform to advertise his warfare of aggression and in any other case enable him to normalise his atrocities,” a US embassy spokesperson in Hanoi instructed the Reuters information company. “If he is ready to journey freely, it might normalise Russia’s blatant violations of worldwide regulation,” they added.

The go to to Vietnam is a uncommon event for Putin to journey exterior Russia since the Worldwide Legal Courtroom (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged warfare crimes in Ukraine. The warrant implies that any signatory to the ICC should arrest the Russian president ought to he step into their territory. Vietnam will not be an ICC member.

What’s China’s function in all of this?

Because the warfare in Ukraine drags into a 3rd 12 months, Moscow’s political and financial dependence on China has deepened. That is related to Vietnam, which has a dispute with China within the South China Sea. Beijing claims jurisdiction rights to maritime sources on sure Vietnamese territories wealthy in oil and gasoline reserves.

That is the place Russia comes into the image. Two of its power corporations are concerned in upstream initiatives in a number of the contested zones.

“Vietnam is anxious that because of Russia’s rising dependence on China, Beijing might use its leverage with Moscow to undermine Vietnamese pursuits. This would come with elevated stress on the Kremlin to withdraw its state-owned power corporations,” Ian Storey, a fellow on the Institute of Southeast Asian Research, wrote in a analysis paper in March.