Diplomatic achievements bring about new opportunities for Vietnam: RoK expert

Vietnam’s diplomatic sector has reaped positive results in 2023, stated Assistant Professor Beak Yong-Hun from the School of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies under the Republic of Korea (RoK)’s Dankook University.

Talking to Vietnam News Agency, Beak highlighted Vietnam’s upgrade of its ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership level with the US in September and Japan in November.

Along with the previously established comprehensive strategic partnership frameworks with China, Russia, and the RoK Korea, new developments in 2023 show that Vietnam is continuing to pursue a balanced foreign policy, imbued with the identity of "bamboo diplomacy".

According to the expert on Vietnamese studies, strengthening diplomatic relations with the US and Japan helps Vietnam promote cooperation in various fields such as trade and technology, and exchange culture and human resources, thus opening up new opportunities and boosting the country’s economic growth.

In the context of US-China trade competition, Vietnam's strategic role as an important link in the global supply chain is being further promoted, and the country is also considered a good destination attracting foreign investment into Southeast Asia, Beak stated.

He said that an important result in upgrading relations between Vietnam and the US is that the two sides agreed to cooperate in developing science and technology and the semiconductor industry. As a result, Vietnam will have favourable conditions to develop training of highly skilled human resources, digital economy and green economy, and to focus on artificial intelligence (AI), energy transition and health care.

As for its relations with Japan, cooperating with Vietnam helps Japan diversify its supply chain, and reduce dependence on China, while Vietnam can also diversify markets and supply sources, and reduce excessive dependence on one partner.

Regarding the RoK-Vietnam relations, it is necessary to establish a cooperation roadmap that the two countries can share, focusing on promoting future cooperation such as green growth and the development of high value-added industries such as information technology. To that end, upgrading and transferring technology based on the RoK's advanced technological capabilities will be one of the important fields.

It is necessary to have official information exchange channels to help minimise false and negative information related to economic issues and multicultural families, and increase positive information to enhance mutual understanding, he said.

In cooperation towards the future, the role of the young generation of the two countries is very important, contributing to promoting the bilateral relationship. Therefore, supporting the development of the Vietnamese language and Vietnamese studies is also important in promoting further interest in this language and Vietnamese people in the RoK, Beak added.