After successive talks with Russia, the United States, and China, Vietnam finally figured it out, and the major event of China's high-speed rail crossing the friendship barrier and going straight to Hanoi began to enter the substantive stage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Assistant Secretary of State Konda have visited Vietnam, while Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son have visited China.
Vietnam, China, the United States, and Russia seem to have finally figured it out after a circle of talks: Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh explicitly asked China to help Vietnam build a "north-south high-speed railway" during the World Economic Forum in Dalian, including a high-speed railway connecting Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City, the commercial center of the south. In this way, China's high-speed rail will cross the Friendship Pass on the Sino-Vietnamese border and go all the way south, directly to Vietnam's capital and the number one economic center in the south.
(Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the World Economic Forum in Dalian)
It was only after in-depth dialogue and consultation with China, the United States, and Russia that Vietnam made the decision to ask China for help in building the North-South Railway. This shows that Vietnam is beginning to let down its "guard" after years of entanglement. The reason for this result is that the cooperation mechanism of the "Belt and Road" initiative, which China has vigorously promoted in Southeast Asia, has played a huge positive effect, and Vietnam has seen tangible benefits. Moreover, China's sincerity in its dealings with ASEAN countries is not adulterated in the slightest extent that China adheres to non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and makes every effort to promote the formation of a "community with a shared future".
In addition, the success of China's railway projects in several Southeast Asian countries has also set a good example for Vietnam. For example, the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project in Indonesia, with a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour, has greatly changed the travel mode of people along the line and promoted economic development since its completion and opening to traffic. The China-Laos Express Railway project, built by China, has a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour, which can be used for both passengers and goods, transforming Laos from a closed landlocked country into a "land-connected country" and almost changing the country's fortunes.
(Vietnam's North-South High-Speed Railway)
Vietnam's land is long and narrow from north to south, which is very suitable for the construction of a north-south railway. In fact, there is now a slow railway between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which was built during the French colonial period, with a monorail and an average speed of only about 50 kilometers per hour, and it takes more than 30 hours to run more than 1,500 kilometers from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. Few Vietnamese are willing to use such a backward railway. Vietnam has been planning to build a north-south high-speed railway since the beginning of this century. Out of "distrust" of China, Vietnam initially looked to Japan.
(Vietnam initially chose Japan's Shinkansen high-speed rail technology)
In April 2010, Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Sumitomo Corporation and some other Japanese companies jointly submitted an offer for Vietnam's north-south high-speed railway, with a total contract price of 56 billion US dollars, which was almost half of Vietnam's GDP that year, and was finally rejected by the Vietnamese National Assembly. A few years later, in 2013, Vietnam began planning for the second North-South high-speed rail project, with a pre-feasibility study to be submitted to the government in 2019 and submitted to the National Assembly for approval, with the first phase of construction activities expected to begin in 2020 and the entire project scheduled to be completed by 2050.
But this time, Vietnam chose Japan again, and the overall offer of the project proposed by Japan rose to 70 billion US dollars, and the project was once again stranded. Until 2023, the Vietnamese government is still undecided on several plans for the North-South high-speed railway, mainly for passenger high-speed rail (350 km/h) and mixed passenger and freight high-speed rail (200-250 km/h). Obviously, this is a choice between the two plans of Indonesia's Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and China-Laos high-speed railway, which are being built by China.
(China's construction of Indonesia's Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway has been a great success)
Compared with the help that China can provide to Vietnam, Russia is now powerless because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and although the Russian government also places great emphasis on developing close relations with Vietnam, there are few places that can help Vietnam. The United States, on the other hand, has sinister intentions, and although it has also offered some tempting conditions to Vietnam, including shifting the supply chain, upgrading US-Vietnam relations, and increasing investment, it has never given up interfering in the internal affairs of other countries at every turn, and has even secretly supported the policy of the opposition in Vietnam to carry out "color revolutions."
As a matter of fact, the main goal of the US policy toward Vietnam is to turn Vietnam into another "anti-China bridgehead" in Southeast Asia, to mess up the situation in the South China Sea like the Philippines, and to undermine China's relations with ASEAN. Therefore, after repeated comparisons and arguments, Vietnam finally chose to put China in the "top priority" position of diplomacy.
However, Vietnam's North-South high-speed rail project is huge, and even if China's offer is low, it is unlikely to be much cheaper than Japan's $70 billion. Vietnam's GDP in 2023 will reach 430 billion US dollars, and this high-speed rail project will account for one-sixth of Vietnam's GDP, and the risks need to be carefully assessed by China. How to undertake this project will certainly be considered by the Chinese side in an all-round way.