The 9th Việt Nam-Australia diplomacy-defence dialogue was co-chaired by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Đỗ Hùng Việt and Australian Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade Michelle Chan, with the participation of Major General Vũ Cương Quyết, Director of the Việt Nam Institute for Defence Strategy, Ministry of National Defence, and Bernard Philip, First Assistant Secretary International Policy, Australian Department of Defence. — Photo from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

HÀ NỘI — Deputy Foreign Minister Đỗ Hùng Việt and Australian Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade Michelle Chan co-chaired the 9th Việt Nam-Australia diplomacy-defence dialogue in Hà Nội on Monday.

At the annual event since 2012, the two sides agreed that the Việt Nam-Australia relationship is growing strongly and comprehensively with substantial outcomes, demonstrated by the upgrade of bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership during Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính's official visit to Australia in March 2024.

They underlined that the two countries share many similarities with high political trust, which is an important foundation for them to further promote their cooperation in all fields.

Noting that they and other countries in the region are facing enormous challenges due to increasing geopolitical tensions, the two sides agreed to promote closer and more strategic cooperation within the new relationship framework to respond to common challenges. They concurred to increase exchanges and consultations to further concretise the high-level agreements reached and expand new areas of cooperation in accordance with the demands, potentials, and interests of the two countries.

They highly valued their fruitful defence cooperation through channels of dialogues, consultations, training, joint exercises, and especially effective cooperation in UN peacekeeping.

They emphasised the need to further strengthen bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation with an aim to become each other’s top 10 leading trade partners and doubling two-way investment capital as set in the Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy (EEES).

The Australia side expressed its wish to promote cooperation with Việt Nam in the fields of digital transformation, digital economy, and high-tech industries, increasing investment in wind power, diversifying supply chains, training and developing businesses, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises in line with Australia's Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040.

Việt Nam highly valued Australia’s practical programmes and projects to support it in enhancing capacity and completing socio-economic targets, and Australia’s provision of ODA in areas of gender equality, climate change response, environment, and energy transition.

The two sides agreed to bolster cooperation in education, continuing to make it a key pillar of the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership. They will create more favourable conditions for people-to-people exchange and locality-to-locality cooperation, while strengthening the promotion of each other’s culture to deepen mutual understanding between the two peoples.

Việt Nam welcomed Australia’s sharing of information on changes in its policies to attract international students, and asked for Australia’s continued favourable conditions for Vietnamese students, not allowing new policies to affect the progress of visa issuance for Vietnamese students in Australia.

The two sides also shared information and viewpoints on strategic issues as well as regional and international security matters of common concern. They held that fundamental changes in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, recent developments such as strategic competition between major countries, conflicts, socio-political crises in many countries, economic and technological separation, worsened by unpredictable fluctuations and risks to the world economy, have posed great impact on the security and development of countries, including Australia and Việt Nam.

They agreed to further promote cooperation at multilateral forums such as the UN, ASEAN and ASEAN-led mechanisms, including the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus.

Australia reaffirmed its continued close cooperation with ASEAN and support to ASEAN in promoting its central role in the regional rule-based structure, as well as support to the settlement of disputes in the East Sea (known internationally as the South China Sea) through peaceful measures with respect to international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Australia affirmed that the country is keen on and hopes to bolster effective cooperation with the Mekong Sub-region through the Mekong-Australia Partnership programme in the second phase, focusing on areas of climate change, energy transition, food security, water security, and human resources training, contributing to building a self-reliant, sustainable, and inclusive Mekong Sub-region.

Việt Nam and Australia concurred to organise the 10th edition of this dialogue in Australia at an appropriate time. — VNS