Vietnam’s Proactive International Integration: Case Studies in Defence Cooperation
In January 2016,Vietnam’s Cabinet approved the Overall Strategyfor International
Integration up to2020, Vision to 2030(Chiến lược tổng thể hội nhập quốc tế đến năm 2020, tầm
nhìn 2030). This document reviewed Vietnam’s bilateral strategic and comprehensive partnerships
with twenty-five countries and concluded that more efforts had to be made to implement political
commitments and to deepen cooperation, including defence and security cooperation. This paper
focuses on Vietnam’s efforts in 2016 to step up international defence cooperation with major
strategic partners including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
(China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as India and Japan.
This paper discusses the exchange of high-level visits, strategic dialogues, defence cooperation
agreements (equipment procurement, military technology, education and training, military
medicine and maritime security), naval port visits and engagement activities, and nationaldefence
industry cooperation. This paper concludes that Vietnam seeks to use international defence
cooperation to give each strategic partner equity in Vietnam’s stability and development in order
to ensure Vietnam’s non-alignment and strategic autonomy.