Vietnam, Australia hold 8th diplomatic – defence strategic dialogue

Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Do Hung Viet and Major General Vu Cuong Quyet, Director of the Ministry of National Defence's Institute for Defence Strategy co-hosted the event alongside Australia’s Deputy Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs Michelle Chan and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defence Hugh Jeffrey.

At the dialogue, both sides noted with satisfaction that the two countries have recorded fruitful development in the bilateral ties since they established their diplomatic ties 50 years ago, especially after the relationship was upgraded to a strategic partnership in March 2018. They reaffirmed their countries’ importance in each other’s  external policies.

Participants reviewed and agreed on major directions to reinforce the strategic partnership in a practical, effective and comprehensive manner in the coming time, especially in pillar areas such as politics, security - defence, economy - trade - investment, science - technology, and emerging and potential fields of common concern, including climate change response, energy transition and digital transformation.

They consented to continue intensifying the exchange of delegations and meetings at all levels; implementing activities to celebrate the 50th founding anniversary of the  diplomatic relations in both countries, especially those to strengthen people-to-people exchanges, culture, cooperation connection; as well as effectively maintaining cooperation mechanisms in order to further strengthen political trust and seek more cooperation opportunities.

The two sides also shared information and compared notes on strategic issues, and regional and global situations, including Asia-Pacific regional architecture, Mekong sub-regional cooperation.

They concurred to step up cooperation at multilateral forums such as the United Nations, ASEAN and ASEAN-led mechanisms, including the East Asia Summit (EAS), the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).

Australia affirmed that it will keep working hand in hand with ASEAN and supporting the bloc’s efforts in reinforcing intra-bloc solidarity, narrowing the development gap, and enhancing ASEAN's central role in the rules-based regional architecture.

With regard to the East Sea issue, Australia reaffirmed its support for settling disputes in the sea by peaceful measures in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), stressing that relevant parties should maintain security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation in the sea, seriously carry out the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and accelerate negotiations on building an effective, practical and legally-binding Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

Both sides agreed to hold the 9th diplomatic – defence strategic dialogue at the deputy ministerial level at an appropriate time in Australia.