Vietnam’s prime minister on Tuesday backed Chinese efforts to push multilateralism, telling an international forum that China would continue playing a “crucial role” in the global economy despite its unstable recovery.
Addressing the 15th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, Pham Minh Chinh said China had made significant contributions to the global economy with its rapid growth over the past decades, and that China’s development would “inspire many opportunities” for other countries.
“Vietnam is pleased to witness China’s strong development and rise,” he told the World Economic Forum meeting.
“China is among few countries that increasingly takes on the leadership role in addressing regional and global challenges, promoting various cooperation initiatives … and occupying a pivotal position in global production and supply chains.”
China, he went on, had emerged as a front-runner in fields including science and technology, renewable energy and information technology.
“We are confident that China will continue to play a crucial role in the global economy,” he said. “A strong, self-reliant Chinese economy with fair competition and deep integration will have positive impacts on the world.”
Chinh, who is on a working visit to China until Thursday, was speaking at the conference’s opening plenary session alongside Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Polish President Andrzej Duda.
This year’s theme for the forum – also known as the “Summer Davos” – is “Next Frontiers for Growth”. The three-day event is expected to draw some 1,600 business leaders and officials to the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Dalian.
Chinh’s assessment of the Chinese economy comes amid growing concerns over a host of problems faced by the world’s second-largest economy, including slowing growth, high youth unemployment, and an ailing real estate sector.
The Vietnamese leader also devoted part of his address to the challenges facing the world, issuing a warning on growing fragmentation as well as intensifying geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry.
While the world had “predominant stability”, peace had been marred by regional tensions, he said, without naming any conflict or country.
“We are faced with issues pertaining to wars and conflicts, the ageing population, the depletion of natural resources and climate change,” he said.
“All these issues [are] on a global level … so we have to respond with a new methodology, a new approach that is global.”
That approach, he elaborated, should be rooted in multilateralism, and “people should be at the heart of the subject”.
To that end, Chinh said Vietnam “strongly [encourages] China’s continued commitment to work with the international community, to vigorously champion multilateralism … and safeguard a peaceful, stable and cooperative environment for prosperous development in the region and the entire world”.
In pushing for growth, he said countries have to address regional and global issues “based on the principles of law and ensure the harmonious interests of all parties” instead of “politicising or discriminating” things like science, technology, and innovation.
Chinh, who called China a “close neighbour bound by shared mountains and rivers”, also held up China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc as emerging “key drivers” of global economic growth.
The voices of developing nations were increasingly recognised, and the roles of those economies were “essential”, he said, while urging developed economies to work more closely with poorer, emerging ones.
Even though China and Vietnam remain at odds over territorial claims in the South China Sea, the communist neighbours maintain considerably warm ties. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vietnam in December, the two sides pledged to deepen ties and build a community with a “shared future”.
Chinh met Li, China’s No 2 official, after arriving in Dalian on Monday, with the Chinese premier calling for a boost in trade and investment, and fostering new cooperation in sectors including new energy and the digital economy.
“China is willing to deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges with Vietnam in fields such as tourism, medical education and youth to consolidate public support of the China-Vietnam friendship,” Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Li as saying.
According to the report, Chinh said that deepening long-term cooperation with China was Vietnam’s “strategic choice” and a “top priority” for its foreign policy.
