Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga held his first telephone conversation with Pham Minh Chinh, who took over as Vietnam’s prime minister in early April, and expressed strong opposition and serious concern over the Communist Party’s attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas. The two sides also expressed the same views on the “Marine Police Law” that allows the Marine Police Bureau to use weapons, and agreed to maintain close cooperation in multilateral forums such as the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
According to Kyodo News and Vietnam’s Vietnam News Agency, the teleconference was proposed by Vietnam and lasted about 30 minutes. Kan stressed that the two sides are willing to further strengthen relations in order to achieve a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and that there are many possibilities for cooperation in areas such as infrastructure, energy, environment and digitalization. The two also agreed to develop bilateral relations toward the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Vietnam in 2023, and Suga invited Pham to visit Japan.
Pham proposed that the two sides promote cooperation in five areas, including support and cooperation for Vietnam’s infrastructure (including hard and soft infrastructure such as transportation, environment, and digital transformation); assisting Vietnam in obtaining a vaccine for Wuhan pneumonia (new coronavirus disease, COVID-19) and transferring vaccine technology; encouraging and supporting Japanese companies to increase investment in Vietnam, diversifying supply chains, supporting Vietnam development of auxiliary industries, reform and innovation, and technology transfer; and increasing the number of internship and scholarship places in Vietnam to continue supporting Vietnam’s human resources development.
For his part, Kan stressed Japan’s consistent policy of attaching importance to relations with Vietnam and continuing to support Vietnam’s infrastructure development, especially in the fields of transportation, energy, environment, and aerospace cooperation. Kan pledged that Japan would provide maximum support to Vietnam and work with Vietnam to ensure the necessary number of vaccines for martial lung.
The Chinese government imposed a ban on fishing in the Vietnam-controlled Xisha Islands (known as Hoang Sa Islands in Vietnam) and the waters of Tokyo Bay from May 1 to September 16, which was unacceptable to the Vietnamese authorities, who criticized China’s unilateral fishing ban as a violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands and a breach of international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is not only against the spirit and letter of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, but also against the agreement between Vietnam and China on the basic principles of maritime conflict resolution, and “Vietnam opposes and firmly rejects China’s unilateral decision.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Triet (pictured) held his first telephone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, expressing strong opposition and serious concern over China’s attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas.
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