Putin's global pivot from west to east
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00:00Now, it's been a busy few days for the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
00:05From getting the red carpet treatment in North Korea, he's gotten a warm reception in Vietnam.
00:10Putin signed a series of deals earlier today from Hanoi.
00:13The visit will no doubt be used to demonstrate that he isn't the pariah the West deems him
00:18to be.
00:19We can now bring in Trans24's Andrew Hillyer from our International Affairs desk.
00:23Andrew, great to see you.
00:25Vladimir Putin has more to gain from this visit than Vietnam, doesn't he?
00:28He does.
00:29I mean, at least a dozen deals signed from education to science, technology and energy.
00:36But the importance of this trip for Vladimir Putin, it's less about trade, even though
00:40Moscow clearly wants to boost trade.
00:43You know, Vietnam is a comparatively small trading partner for Moscow.
00:46Trade between Vietnam and Russia totaled around $3.5 billion in 2022.
00:52In the same period between the U.S. and Vietnam, it was $123 billion.
00:58So what this is about for Russia and for Vladimir Putin, it's about Putin's global pivot
01:03away from the West towards the East.
01:05And to illustrate that, I can just show you a map and you can see it shows you the countries
01:09that Vladimir Putin has visited since 2022.
01:13So as you can see, of course, since he launched his full scale invasion of Ukraine, he's pretty
01:20much been seen as a pariah in Western countries.
01:22So no Western countries on that list, of course.
01:25It's a good indicator of what Vladimir Putin's priorities are now.
01:28He's done three visits to China since 2022.
01:32Of course, Moscow increasingly reliant on Beijing in his visit to Vietnam needs to be
01:37seen as part of this within as part of this trend.
01:42You know, Vladimir Putin wants to show the world that there is an alternative to the
01:47Western dominated international order.
01:50He's basically saying that even when you're ostracized by Western governments, when you're
01:56sanctioned and even despite having an ICC arrest warrant, you can still go on state
02:01visits as he's done in Vietnam and as he did in North Korea as well.
02:05I mean, North Korea is a pariah state for most of the world, but Vietnam is a different
02:09story.
02:10Let's talk about obviously the U.S. has criticized this visit to Hanoi.
02:16What is Vietnam hoping to get out of it?
02:18Well, first, I think we need to put this context, put this visit into the context of Vietnamese
02:25foreign policy, and it can be encapsulated with the four nos.
02:30So that is a foreign policy that originated in a series of Ministry of Defense, Vietnamese
02:38Ministry of Defense white papers from 1998 to 2019.
02:41And here they are.
02:42No military alliances, no siding with one country against another, no hosting foreign
02:46military bases.
02:47And the latest one, no using force or threat of force in international relations.
02:52And this, I think, encapsulates the idea of so-called bamboo diplomacy.
02:59This is Vietnam's concept of diplomacy, whereby it sways with the geopolitical currents without
03:04ever getting swept away by them.
03:06So hosting Vladimir Putin is important for Vietnam because it's a reflection of the historical
03:11ties between the two nations.
03:14Vietnam and Russia, when it was the Soviet Union, were once on the same side of history,
03:19of course.
03:20This is also about Vietnam showing that it can host anyone, whether it's the Chinese
03:25leader, the Russian leader or the American leader.
03:28We saw the pinnacle of that bamboo diplomacy last year when Vietnam hosted President Joe
03:33Biden and Xi Jinping within three months of one another.
03:38So that said, the visit has provoked an angry response from the U.S.
03:42I can just bring you that response now.
03:44A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Hanoi saying that no country should give Putin a
03:49platform to promote his war of aggression.
03:54Interesting statement there.
03:55That brings us to Ukraine.
03:57Where does Vietnam stand on Russia's actions in Ukraine?
04:00Yes.
04:01So Vietnam has officially taken a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine.
04:05It has never condemned Moscow's invasion.
04:09It has also abstained on four U.N. resolutions condemning Moscow's full-scale invasion of
04:16Ukraine.
04:17And that's despite the fact, Delano, that Vietnam takes the principle of territorial
04:21sovereignty very seriously.
04:23You know, you have to remember, this is a country whose territorial sovereignty has
04:27been violated by no less than four countries in the last 80 years, by China, Japan, France
04:33and the U.S.
04:36Vietnam and Ukraine also have a lot of shared history.
04:39This goes back to when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
04:43So what Vietnam has done is, short of showing outright support for Ukraine, it has supplied
04:52Ukraine with humanitarian aid via international organizations.
04:58But it does, I think, the issue of the war in Ukraine epitomize Vietnam's concept of
05:02bamboo diplomacy and the fine line it has to tread.