After seeking help from Japan to no avail, Vietnam took the initiative to turn to China, and in front of Vietnam, Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly confessed to China. Why did Vietnam's Minister of Planning and Investment approach China, and how did Foreign Minister Wang Yi explain China-Vietnam relations?
According to a number of media reports, Vietnam's Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung recently visited Beijing, Shanghai and other places, held talks with officials from the Ministry of Commerce and the railway construction department of China, as well as senior executives of the Railway Construction Group, and exchanged views with the Chinese side on further deepening China-Vietnam railway cooperation.
According to the news, during the talks with Minister of Commerce Wang Van Tao, Nguyen Chi Dung expressed his admiration for China's achievements in development, saying that Vietnam is willing to work with China to promote the development of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and strengthen cooperation between the two countries in the fields of transportation infrastructure, new energy, and new materials.
If the Vietnamese representative spoke rather tactfully during the talks with Minister Wang Van Tao, then when meeting with Fei Dongbin, director of the State Railway Administration, the real purpose of Nguyen Zhiyong and his entourage was clear, that is, they wanted to learn from the successful development experience of China's railways and promote the progress of practical railway cooperation between the two countries.
When we talk about the construction of railways in Vietnam, we have to mention Japan, which has played an important role in it. You must know that as early as 2006, the Vietnamese government proposed a plan to build a high-speed railway running between the north and the south, and at that time, the Vietnamese side chose to cooperate with Japan. However, the high-speed rail project, which was originally scheduled to start in 2014, has not been able to start due to financial and other reasons, and the Japanese government, which originally said that it would "help" Vietnam, has also "changed".
Until the end of last year, under the framework of the ASEAN-Japan summit, the Vietnamese side once again asked Japan for help in helping Vietnam build a north-south high-speed railway, but the Kishida government still did not give the answer that Vietnam wanted most. In other words, the Japanese government and companies do not intend to accept Vietnam's request to lower prices.
Now, the problem facing the Vietnamese government has become Japan's reluctance to "generously solve problems", but the high-speed rail must be repaired, so the Vietnamese side has turned its attention to China, which has made rapid progress in high-speed rail construction in recent years, and took the initiative to seek help from China. It is reported that the Vietnamese government is actually more inclined to start construction in sections and "contract" the north-south high-speed rail construction project to China and Japan respectively, because this can better grasp the initiative of the high-speed rail project, reduce the maintenance cost in the later stage, and avoid being "handled" by either China and Japan.
From this point of view, it is true that the Vietnamese side wants to ask China for something, and it is also true that it wants to take advantage of the Chinese side. After all, Vietnam's "small abacus" has been clearly displayed in front of China and Japan, and easily taking over this project with little profit and no small trouble will also bring a lot of challenges to China.
Of course, from the perspective of Sino-Vietnamese friendship, the reply given by the Chinese side is quite pertinent. Wang Lixin, President of China Railway Construction, pointed out that China Railway Construction is willing to give full play to its professional advantages and carry out extensive cooperation with Vietnam in railways and other fields, so as to inject new vitality into Vietnam's development, because China and Vietnam are "good neighbors, good friends, good comrades and good partners." ”
At the same time, on April 4, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who held talks with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son, also made an open statement on China-Vietnam relations. Wang Yi pointed out that China has always regarded Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy, and is ready to work with Vietnam to implement the consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties, plan bilateral exchanges and cooperation, and jointly promote the solid development of the China-Vietnam community with a shared future and continue to move to a new level.
Through these sincere remarks, it is not difficult to see that the Chinese side is willing to deepen cooperation with Vietnam. From China's view, working together to promote cooperation in various fields, strengthen high-level strategic communication, and accelerate the synergy of development strategies are conducive to the stable and in-depth development of bilateral relations, as well as maintaining regional stability and practicing true multilateralism.
To put it simply, as long as Vietnam shows sincerity, China is willing to support each other on issues of major interest of mutual concern, and is also willing to contribute to Vietnam's railway construction. Of course, the premise of all this is that the Vietnamese side stops vacillating and faces up to the importance of China-Vietnam railway cooperation.