On September 10, US President Joe Biden came to Hanoi for an official visit to Vietnam. This is a State-level visit, at the invitation of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong.
The purpose of the visit is to upgrade the Vietnam-US diplomatic relationship to the level of “comprehensive strategic partnership.” For unknown reasons, the day before, September 9, The New York Times revealed information saying, “Hanoi flirts with the US, but still goes through the back door to buy Russian weapons.”
The article said that Vietnam is getting closer to the US than ever before, and Hanoi hopes to rely on Washington in the confrontation with China. Yet, even in this context, Hanoi’s leaders secretly bought $8 billion in weapons from the Russian Federation, despite previously announced US sanctions.
The New York Times revealed a document from the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance released in March 2023, but without a specific date. The content of the report said that Vietnamese officials confirmed that the Vietnamese Defense Ministry had quietly and secretly procured defense weapons to modernize the country’s military, through a Vietnamese oil and gas joint venture and Russia. The leaked document was signed by a Deputy Minister of Finance of Vietnam. The document clearly states that at that time (March 2023), the Vietnamese side negotiated a new arms purchase agreement from Russia to “strengthen strategic trust” regardless of whether it was the time when “Russia are being embargoed in all aspects by Western countries.”
According to The New York Times, Vietnam used to be one of the top 10 arms importing countries in the world, and has long been dependent on Russian weapons sources. Obviously, the US announcement to punish countries that buy Russian weapons has affected the military reform plan of the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense, in the context that Vietnam’s sovereignty over the islands in the East Sea (South China Sea) is always threatened, in the face of China’s dominance. Therefore, despite the US embargo, officials in the Vietnamese Defense Ministry have to find every way to manage and circumvent to continue buying weapons from Russia. But Hanoi’s pursuit of arms deals with Russia will certainly affect US support for Vietnam.
The New York Times article also revealed that documents from the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance also showed details on how the Vietnamese Defense Ministry nal paid for secret Russian weapons deals. Accordingly, to avoid US supervision, the money to buy weapons from Russia will go through the accounting system of a Russian-Vietnamese oil and gas exploitation joint venture, named Rusvietpetro. This is a company with oil and natural gas exploitation activities in Northern Russia. The document of Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance also clearly affirms, “Our Party and state still identify Russia as the most important strategic partner in defense and security.”
The terms of the memorandum of understanding and new arms sales contracts with Russia are valued at about $8 billion over a period of 20 years. Two months after the proposal of the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance, former Russian Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev, Vice Chairman of the Russian Security Council, quietly came to Hanoi to sign this agreement with senior Vietnamese leaders. This is the reason why Vietnam always avoids criticizing Russia for invading Ukraine, as well as Vietnam always voting against United Nations resolutions that are disadvantageous to Russia.
Before the war in Ukraine broke out, because the quality of some Russian military equipment was not as good as advertised, Hanoi began looking for other sources of weapons, from Israel, the Czech Republic and some other countries. For its part, the United States also knows that it should try to pull Vietnam out of Russia’s orbit. In 2016, Washington lifted the arms embargo on Hanoi.
However, The New York Times said that the Vietnamese military is still deeply tied to Russia – and changing that could take decades. Most of the generation of top generals of the Vietnamese army were trained in the former Soviet Union and later in Russia.
In addition, there is another reason for Hanoi to want to do business with Russia, because doing business with Russia always involves “putting hands under the table” while Vietnamese generals are corrupt. Buying and selling weapons with Russia is a big corruption opportunity for top generals in Vietnam’s Defense Ministry./.
Tra My – Thoibao.de
