Читать книгу Регионы в современном мире: глобализация и Азия. Зарубежное регионоведение - Коллектив авторов, Ю. Д. Земенков, Koostaja: Ajakiri New Scientist - Страница 33

Since 2010, Vietnam has been one of the most active ASEAN member countries in promoting the maintenance of ASEAN’s internal solidarity, regional resilience, common values, standards of conduct, as well as strengthening its central role in the Asia-Pacific multilateralism.

Beside the already discussed expansion of the EAS and the launch of ADMM Plus, Hanoi continued to engage non-regional partners in the dialogue in order to keep the Southeast Asian security challenges manageable. For example, Vietnam promoted ASEAN joint maritime drills with China in 2018 and with the United States in 2019. In the same strain, Hanoi is likely to make efforts to conduct similar drills with Russia in the year of its chairmanship51.

On the South China Sea issue, Vietnam’s policy aimed to achieve a consensus within ASEAN, as well as between ASEAN and its extra-regional partners. As a result, in May 2014, the foreign ministers of ASEAN issued a separate Statement on the South China Sea, for the first time since 199252.

The results of Vietnam’s involvement in the economic regionalism are dubious. In line with creating a network of free trade agreements with partners around the world, Hanoi, although it has markedly increased the volume of trade with nine partners in the Association, in percentage terms the ASEAN contribution to Vietnam’s foreign trade decreased from 18.1% to 11.3%, while the share of the East Asia Summit countries increased from 71.6% to 75% (See Table 1). But as practice demonstrates, for extra-regional states an FTA regime with Vietnam often becomes the first step for launching negotiations between non-regional partners with other ASEAN states and eventually for concluding an FTA with the Association.

Table 1. VIETNAM’S TRADE WITH EAS STATES IN 2009 AND 201953

Increased investment from both ASEAN and EAS members in Vietnam’s economy deserves mentioning. While in 2009 the USA ($9.8 billion), Cayman Islands ($2.2 billion) and Samoa ($1.7 billion) were leaders in terms of registered FDI, ten years later the list of major investors looked like this: the Republic of Korea ($7.9 billion), Hong Kong ($7.9 billion), Singapore ($4.5 billion), Japan ($4.1 billion), China ($ 4.1 billion)54.

In general, Vietnam’s contribution to ASEAN is more conspicuous in the political rather than in the economic sphere. Primarily, this is predetermined by objective constraints, mainly in the infrastructure development and the institutional spheres, the ASEAN connectivity narrative is encountering. Also, in the short-term perspective for Vietnam to promote economic cooperation with non-ASEAN partners is likely to be more profitable than within ASEAN. At the same time, the Association will remain the key SRV’s foreign policy direction as it finds the strongest resonance with Vietnam’s long-term interests.