Fresh impetus to Vietnam – Australia Strategic Partnership

Australia is one of the first Western countries to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam in February 26, 1973, one month after the Paris Accord on Ending the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was signed. Immediately after establishing diplomatic relations with Vietnam, 39 Australian MPs set up a parliamentary committee that lobbied Australia to recognise the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, with their efforts paying off in May 1975.

Over the past nearly half a century, bilateral relations have continued to grow from strength to strength, especially since the relationship was upgraded to a level of Strategic Partnership in March 2018. Cooperation between the National Assembly of Vietnam and the Australian Parliament have therefore always been a channel of fundamental significance for bilateral relations.

Australia welcomed Vietnamese National Assembly Chairman Le Quang Dao on an official visit in May 1990, becoming the first Western country to receive a senior Vietnamese official. This historic trip ushered in a string of important visits undertaken by Vietnamese Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet in May 1993, and Party General Secretary Do Muoi in July 1995, among others.

According to Ambassador Thanh, during the past 30 years, the National Assembly of Vietnam and the Australian Parliament have regularly exchanged reciprocal visits, opening up new frameworks for bilateral ties. This was most notable during the COVID-19 pandemic when NA Chairman Hue held online talks with Australian House of Representatives Speaker Tony Smith in June 2021, to promote practical cooperation between the two countries across various fields, especially health and vaccine support.

The two legislatures also established parliamentary friendship groups, a move which demonstrated their determination to maintain and develop the fine friendship and relationship cultivated between the two sides over decades. In addition, the two legislatures also worked closely to create favourable conditions for their respective governments to implement bilateral cooperation agreements.

Hue’s trip to Australia from November 30 to December 3 marks the first visit to Australia by a senior Vietnamese leader during the past five years and is also the fifth visit by a leader of the Vietnamese National Assembly leader to Australia since the two countries first established diplomatic relations. Ambassador Thanh expressed his belief that Hue’s visit will contribute to bringing the strategic partnership between the two sides to new heights.

The diplomat stated that, with due attention undertaken by the leaders of the two countries, ties between the two legislatures are anticipated to bear fruit as both sides plan to boost increasingly substantive cooperation in their prioritised fields, including education - training, digital transformation, and climate change response. MPs of the parliamentary friendship groups of both sides will also have the opportunity to meet face-to-face for the first time in order to discuss future cooperation moving into the new context.

During his stay, Hue is scheduled to hold talks and meet with senior Australian leaders. He is therefore expected to hold a number of activities, including delivering a keynote speech on the Vietnamese policy and chairing forums on economic and education cooperation between the two countries.

According to the Ambassador, the Strategic Partnership between the two countries enjoyed substantial development since its establishment in 2018. The action programme to implement the Strategic Partnership for the 2020 - 2023 period has been extensively implemented on all three pillars of economic, security – defense, and innovation cooperation. The Australia-Vietnam Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy which was launched in November 2021, has yielded initial results, thereby facilitating the expansion of bilateral ties to new fields such as digital economy, natural resources, and energy, a factor which has helped to increase trade turnover between the two countries. In line with this, the initial nine months of the year witnessed Australia become Vietnam’s seventh largest trading partner, and the latter become the former’s 10th largest trading partner.

Ambassador Thanh said he believes that the Strategic Partnership between Vietnam and Australia is now entering a new period of development with a higher level of trust and efficiency, meeting the aspirations of both peoples, and actively contributing to peace and cooperation in the region and throughout the wider world.