Recently, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh led a delegation to visit China and attended the Davos Forum in Dalian. During the forum, Pham Minh Chinh told Lou Qi Luong, Chairman of China Railway Communication and Signal Group, that Vietnam needs more help from China in the design, construction and technology transfer of high-speed railways.
In return, the Vietnamese government also promised to create more favorable conditions for Chinese enterprises to invest in Vietnam and carry out economic and trade cooperation, hoping that Chinese companies can participate in Vietnam's railway construction, and hope that China can provide Vietnam with experience in high-speed railway development and help train railway design and construction talents.
Here, it should be noted that Vietnam's best choice was not actually China. As early as 2005, Vietnam proposed to build a railway across the north and south to connect the north and the south in order to drive the economic development of the whole country, and to solicit bids from the international community for this.
Although Chinese companies actively bid, under the influence of both historical and technical factors, Vietnam finally chose Japan's Shinkansen high-speed rail plan. But judging by the results, 20 years later, the construction of this railway is still far away. On the one hand, Vietnam's funds are not sufficient, and the investment of nearly 50 billion US dollars is enough to squeeze out the entire national treasury of Vietnam. Japan, on the other hand, was reluctant to provide such a large amount of financial loan support to Vietnam.
In addition, Vietnam itself has many mountains and few roads, although Japan's railway technology is not bad, but the geographical environment is too harsh, the technical requirements are high, and there are many problems that need to be tackled, which makes Japan a little prohibitive. So far, the railway construction cooperation that Vietnam and Japan have already reached has actually fallen into a stage of substantial failure.
Now, after many years of staggering on the high-speed rail construction project, Vietnam has made two attempts. For example, in September 2023, at the 26th ASEAN "10+3" Summit, Vietnam once again asked Japan for support, hoping that Japan could provide funds and technology to help Vietnam build a high-speed railway, but received an ambiguous answer from Japan. On another occasion, in March this year, Vietnam asked Japan for help for the last time, but Japan still did not agree to provide financial and technical support.
Vietnam and Japan
So one month later, the attitude of the Vietnamese government has changed dramatically. In April this year, Vietnam's Ministry of Planning and Investment announced that it plans to build two high-speed railways by 2030 to connect China's Yunnan and Guangxi provinces from Vietnam, respectively, to connect Vietnam and China with land transportation. To this end, Vietnam's Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thanh also asked the Chinese side for help, and said that the two railways may be officially completed and opened to traffic from 2026 to 2027. Now, we are going to Vietnam to build a high-speed railway artery with a length of more than 1,500 kilometers, hoping to get China's help.
It can be said that the change in Vietnam's attitude today is, firstly, the reality that it has asked for Japan, but it cannot ask for it, has made Vietnam sober up; Second, the development of railway cooperation between other countries in Southeast Asia and China has left Vietnam far behind, giving it a strong sense of crisis.
In October last year, the China-Laos Railway was completed and opened to traffic, and the Lao-Thailand Railway has already been completed, and the speed of China-Laos-Thailand cargo circulation has been unprecedentedly accelerated. Within 15 days, Laotian goods can be transported to Europe via China and then by the China-Europe railway, which has greatly accelerated the economic development of Laos.
Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway
In addition, Indonesia's Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway has also been completed and opened to traffic. The achievements of the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway are obvious to all, which has greatly shortened the commuting time and driven the economic development along the line. Less than a year after the completion and opening of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, Indonesia once again asked the Chinese side to extend the line, which undoubtedly shows the huge benefits brought by the high-speed rail to Indonesia.
Laos and Indonesia lag behind Vietnam in terms of railway development planning and timing, but they were completed and opened to traffic much earlier than Vietnam. This also brings a new problem, that is, the perfection of infrastructure construction, which greatly increases the possibility of Laos and Indonesia in undertaking China's industrial transfer and developing their own manufacturing industry, which is undoubtedly from Vietnam's mouth. After all, Vietnam, as a neighbor of China, has always taken the transfer of China's manufacturing capacity and the transshipment and export of foreign goods as an important driving force for its economic development.
After the success of Indonesia and Laos in railway construction, Pham Minh Chinh and a large number of senior government officials visited China, and the biggest goal of Vietnam's visit to China was to promote Sino-Vietnamese cooperation in railway construction and economic development.
Of course, for Vietnam, it has long been urgent to promote the China-Vietnam railway. According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs, the total trade volume between China and Vietnam has exceeded 200 billion US dollars last year, and in the first quarter of this year, the trade between China and Vietnam reached 43.6 billion US dollars, an increase of 22% over last year.
Therefore, Vietnam's enlisting of China's help in the construction of the North-South high-speed railway not only shows that Vietnam has become more pragmatic on the issue of the construction of the North-South railway, but also shows that Vietnam hopes to deepen trade with China and Europe, which is not only expected to further improve Sino-Vietnamese relations, but also change the international trade pattern.