By Greg Torode
SINGAPORE, May 30 (Reuters) – Strong relations between Vietnam and its giant neighbour and territorial rival China would benefit regional peace and security, although ties with the U.S. were also important, Vietnam’s top leader has said.
“We do not pick sides,” Communist Party General Secretary and President To Lam told Reuters late on Friday in his first interview with an international media outlet in his current role.
He said there was no contradiction in seeking stronger relations with China and ensuring progress in solving the long-simmering territorial disputes across the South China Sea.
“If we can maintain good relations and dialogue, then all disagreements can be resolved,” Lam said, speaking through an interpreter.
“Having good relations with China, safeguarding our sovereignty and settlement of issues in the East Sea are mutually reinforcing, not mutually exclusive,” Lam said, using Vietnam’s name for the South China Sea.
He reiterated Vietnam’s long-standing position of wanting to solve disputes on the basis of international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
China’s claims to large swathes of the South China Sea are acutely felt in Vietnam, which also claims all the Chinese-occupied Paracel islands and the entire Spratlys archipelago to the south.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan are also rival claimants to the strategic trade route where naval deployments are rising, underlining how it has become a growing regional flashpoint.
Lam’s remarks come as he moves swiftly to raise Vietnam’s diplomatic profile, attempting to simultaneously boost ties with China, the U.S. and other large powers while overseeing an ambitious high-growth economic agenda.
Lam described competition between the U.S. and China as an “objective reality”.
“We do not approach our relations with major powers through the prism of security,” he said, reflecting Vietnam’s long-standing flexible “bamboo diplomacy”.
“We need good relations with major countries so that we can jointly address essential, important issues.”
DIPLOMATS WATCHING TO LAM’S LEADERSHIP IN NEW ROLE
Newly installed as both party chief and president, Lam has emerged as the most powerful Vietnamese leader in decades and his joint mandate allows him to play a more prominent diplomatic role.
Regional diplomats say they are closely watching his leadership as he carves out a more dynamic, flexible posture for a nation once seen as diplomatically reticent and cautious given its collective leadership.
Some analysts have noted that consolidating authority in one figure could tilt the one‑party state toward greater authoritarianism, while also enabling faster decision making.
Known to be quietly spoken but firm, Lam, 68, has emerged from a career in Vietnam’s internal security apparatus, a powerful but low-profile institution not known for producing diplomats.
Lam spoke to Reuters shortly after delivering the keynote speech on Friday night to Asia’s largest defence meeting, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore – a first for a Vietnamese party chief.
Lam told the audience of global defence ministers, military and intelligence officers and academics that challenges facing the world included an erosion of international rules and law, a crisis of development models including slowing growth and climate change, and a crisis of trust among nations.
“The three crises confronting our world today are not inevitable realities that we are bound to accept,” Lam said.
He called for reinforcing international law, setting up inclusive and sustainable growth drivers, as well as initiating dialogue and transparency.
Sitting in a hotel function room after the speech, dressed in shirt-sleeves and a burgundy tie, Lam told Reuters that his leadership recognised that Vietnam’s own growth targets were “ambitious and highly challenging” but ones they were determined to achieve.
Vietnam is pushing to achieve fully developed, high-income status by 2045, setting a target of 10% GDP growth this year and double-digit rises in the years ahead, driven by science, technology and digital transformation.
“It is true that when this target was first formulated, we had not yet encountered some of the difficulties we face today,” he said, adding that they had anticipated some challenges and headwinds, and learned from other countries, so they remained optimistic.
Asked about whether the impact of the Iran crisis and other headwinds meant that the goal might have to be revised, Lam said despite challenges the core targets remained “within reach”.
“Our answer is clear: we will not adjust this objective downward.
“We believe there is no alternative path. If we fail to achieve this target, we will fall short of the broader development aspirations we have set for our country,” he said.
(Reporting By Greg Torode in Singapore; additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Hanoi, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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