After seeing off Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Conda, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh paid a four-day visit to show that he was moving closer to China.
Moreover, during his attendance at the World Economic Forum, Pham Minh Chinh made it clear that Vietnam has asked China for assistance in railway design, construction and technology transfer. Pham Minh Chinh said that the Vietnamese government is willing to create favorable conditions for Chinese enterprises to invest in Vietnam and carry out mutually beneficial cooperation. He hoped that China Railway Communication and Signal Group and related enterprises would participate in the construction of Vietnam's railways, assist Vietnam in cultivating talents, transfer technology, and share its experience in railway industry development with Vietnam.
(Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh)
Pham Minh Chinh also proposed that Chinese companies and Vietnam cooperate on specific projects, such as the construction of Lao Cai-Hanoi-Haiphong; Dong Dang - Hanoi; The construction of three railways, including Mong Cai-Ha Long-Hai Phong, and the cooperation to build the China-Vietnam high-speed railway, as well as the urban rail transit project in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
This is not the first time Vietnam has expressed its desire to cooperate with China in building high-speed rail, and the government has previously said that China's railway industry is the most developed in the world, so Vietnam hopes to learn from China's experience in technology, capital mobilization and management knowledge to develop Vietnam's first high-speed rail network. In the past two years, personnel from Vietnam's railway and transportation departments have visited China intensively to learn about China's high-speed rail technology.
(Vietnam's railway system is very backward)
However, from the idea of building a high-speed railway to the real cooperation with China, Vietnam has taken a long detour. Realizing that railway construction has always been a difficult problem for Vietnam, and even affected the country's economic development, the Vietnamese government clearly proposed to build a high-speed railway from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi with a total length of about 1,570 kilometers around 2006, and found the Japanese side as foreign aid.
However, Japan, which was known as the leader in high-speed rail technology at the time, initially showed interest, but since then, due to the long construction period of the overall construction project and the reluctance of private enterprises to end the project, it has become ambiguous and has been delayed for more than ten years. Until the beginning of last year, in the face of Vietnam's repeated calls, Japan still did not come up with a clear plan.
In such a situation, Vietnam has to look for another partner to work with, and China is undoubtedly the most suitable choice for them. In recent years, not only the domestic high-speed rail industry has flourished, but also the high-speed rail technology and products have been exported to other countries, and the successful opening of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway proves China's ability to build modern railways in the jungle and mountainous terrain of Southeast Asia.
On the other hand, China is Vietnam's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching US$200 billion last year. And this year is expected to continue to grow, for Vietnam, the construction of the China-Vietnam railway is very important to boost the country's trade exports and economic development.
(Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway officially opened)
Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Biden visited Vietnam in person, announcing the upgrading of bilateral relations between the United States and Vietnam. But Vietnam's performance today shows that it has not been fooled by the United States and is well aware of the importance of cooperation with China. It seems that more and more countries have realized that whoever is creating a small circle of antagonism in the world is driving the economic development of neighboring countries in a down-to-earth manner.