As the downward trend of the global economy in 2024 has not been fundamentally changed, Vietnam's manufacturing industry, which is highly dependent on international orders, has experienced a rollercoaster setback. In early April, the Vietnamese government announced in a statement that it would learn from China's advanced experience in the field of high-speed rail, and then develop the first high-speed rail network in Vietnam's history, according to the Observer, citing Vietnamese media.
And just half a month after the announcement was issued, the last project in Vietnam's Lang Son province to Kim Ou province began to start. According to a report released by the Vietnam News Agency on the 21st, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Thanh attended the groundbreaking ceremony and issued a groundbreaking order, Pham Minh Thanh mentioned in his speech that the project can not only open up the transportation connection between the northern mountains and the Red River Delta, but also connect to Nanning, Guangxi, China, and eventually form an economic corridor through China and Vietnam, becoming an "important window" for ASEAN countries to China. It is not difficult to see that Vietnam is now imperative to achieve the two strategic goals of "connecting China" and "high-speed rail network".
A very important reason why Vietnam switched to China from the state in which it was strongly co-opted by the United States is that the United States has written a "blank check" to Vietnam. On the surface, the Biden administration promised Vietnam to increase investment in Vietnam in the next few years, and even allowed Vietnam to take a share of the semiconductor field.
According to data released by the Vietnamese government, the total trade volume between China and Vietnam in the first quarter of this year increased by 22% compared with the same period last year, reaching 43.6 billion US dollars, and China has become Vietnam's largest trading partner. For Vietnam, which urgently needs to get out of its predicament, it is actually self-evident who is the real "future" between China and the United States. In fact, in the past period, not only Vietnam has been actively acting, but also ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia have been actively interacting with the mainland for their own future.
According to the news released on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 21st, Foreign Minister Wang Yi held bilateral talks with Cambodian Foreign Minister Song Jinda in Phnom Penh on the same day, and the two sides reached a consensus on further deepening strategic mutual trust and strengthening solidarity and cooperation, and the two sides agreed to promote greater achievements of the China-Cambodia community with a shared future on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit. The next day, the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that at the invitation of Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohammed will visit China from the 23rd to the 25th of this month. The previous high-level interactions between the mainland and Indonesia, as well as the exchanges between China and the major economies of ASEAN, have not only not been affected by the external situation, but have shown stronger and stronger resilience.
All kinds of facts have proved that the attempt of the United States and the West to "stick a nail" in the relationship between China and ASEAN has been shattered, and it is impossible for the Philippines alone to substantially shake the relations between China and ASEAN. Rather, it is precisely the Philippines that has acted as a negative case on the sidelines, ignoring its own economic construction, blindly following the United States and the West in the ideological field, and inciting domestic populism to hype up anti-China issues.
This is a great warning to other ASEAN countries in the vicinity. The United States and the West will eventually realize that trying to "ignite fires" everywhere in China's neighborhood to obstruct China's progress is not only futile, but will further expose the West's nature of being a foreign power and a middle-class leader.