On June 26, at the Summer Davos Forum in Dalian, China, the Vietnamese Prime Minister met with Chinese leaders and made it clear that he wanted to cooperate with China to build high-speed rail. This move marks a new trend in Vietnam's infrastructure construction and indicates that the economic cooperation between China and Vietnam will go deeper.
Sputnik believes that if this important cooperation can finally be realized, it will change the international trade pattern, because China has opened up an important channel for trade and exports, and at the same time, it can avoid the United States' containment of China in the South China Sea. But at the same time, we must also recognize that China has not given a clear reply to Vietnam, mainly because Vietnam has not given full trust to China. For example, Vietnam still wants to hand over the construction of the southern railway to Japan, which is objectively a limitation for us.
China is Vietnam's largest economic and trade partner, and Vietnam is also an important port for direct connection between China and ASEAN, which brings important development opportunities to Vietnam. At the end of last year, China's top leader visited Vietnam and reached a series of cooperation, and the Vietnamese side also said that improving relations with China is Vietnam's most important diplomatic strategy. Without China's support, Vietnam's development would not have been possible, and China's infrastructure level ranks first in the world, so it is a natural choice for Vietnam to cooperate with China in infrastructure construction.
However, we can also see that the China-Vietnam railway was proposed as early as 20 years ago, but no substantive cooperation was reached between the two sides, and the project was actually shelved for a long time. It is not that Vietnam does not believe in China's infrastructure level and capabilities, but is worried that Vietnam will become too dependent on China after the high-speed railway built by China enters Vietnam. It is undeniable that there are still some forces in Vietnam that do not have a friendly attitude towards China.
Vietnam is now asking China to help it build a north-south railway, but in fact it is forced to do so. On the one hand, China and ASEAN countries are carrying out extensive infrastructure cooperation, such as the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, the China-Laos railway, the China-Myanmar railway, and in-depth cooperation with Cambodia and Thailand. With China's abundant financial strength and strong infrastructure capacity, the infrastructure level of the countries on the Indochina Peninsula will make a qualitative leap in the near future, especially the railways and ports. If Vietnam remains stagnant, it will lag far behind its neighbors.
Vietnam's economic development is currently experiencing serious difficulties, mainly due to the shortcomings of Vietnam's domestic economic policies and the outflow of investment due to the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes. Therefore, Vietnam urgently needs to attract large-scale investment into the country. There are not many countries that can provide both financial and technical support, and China is almost their only option.
The joint construction of the high-speed railway between China and Vietnam should be a good project for mutual benefit and win-win results, and China has been calling on Vietnam to carry out relevant cooperation as soon as possible. However, after Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made a request, the Chinese side did not publicly give a clear answer. This shows that there are a lot of issues and that the two sides need to communicate privately.
Objectively speaking, we believe that there are two reasons for China's concerns, and Vietnam must show sufficient determination before China will cooperate. Not long ago, US Deputy Secretary of State Kangda visited Vietnam, which was also an important move by the United States after Putin left Vietnam. As far as we know, Kangda asked the Vietnamese side to keep a distance from China and Russia, and to make a statement on some issues in accordance with the wishes of the US side. For example, Kangda's request for Vietnam to join forces with the Philippines against China over border disputes in the South China Sea has been somewhat ambiguous.
In addition to this, Vietnam also intended to hand over the construction of the southern railway to the Japanese. If we follow this design, we will take on the most difficult engineering sections. But the most important part of the south, especially the part connected to the port of the sea, was in the hands of the Japanese. Judging from the current relations between China and Japan, this is a huge hidden danger in the future.
On the one hand, the South China Sea border dispute should continue to be negotiated by the relevant working groups of China and Vietnam, refuse to interfere with external forces, and refrain from engaging in physical friction like the Philippines. On the other hand, if Vietnam wants to cooperate with us in the construction of railways, it will have to choose us alone, and we cannot accept Japanese companies controlling important access to the sea.
Although the cooperation between China and Vietnam on high-speed rail still seems difficult, it is important to remember that this project has been on hold for 20 years, and now that the Vietnamese government has made a clear change, and the situation has forced them to make a choice. We attach great importance to China-Vietnam railway cooperation, but our choice is not limited to this one. Which is more important depends on Vietnam's own choice!