New Delhi: Taking aim at China, Narendra Modi said Thursday that India encouraged development and not expansionism, while lauding Vietnam’s role as an “important partner” in New Delhi’s Act East policy and its vision for the Indo-Pacific region.
At a joint media interaction in New Delhi with Vietnamese premier Pham Minh Chinh, the prime minister said both countries had convergent views on the Indo-Pacific. “We support development, not expansionism in the region. We believe in a free, open, rule-based and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Modi’s comments come at a time when countries such as the Philippines have seen a series of confrontations with China in the South China Sea. In June, Manila claimed that a Filipino sailor was injured in a high-speed ramming incident by the Chinese coast guard.
While China has repudiated the claim, tensions remain high in the area surrounding the Second Thomas Shoal, which is a part of Spratly Islands.
In 2016, a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague had decided that Beijing had no claim to the area and that it was within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Philippines. China rejected the arbitral award.
Chinh, who is in India for a three-day state visit between 30 July and 1 August, also urged for the settlement of disputes in the South China Sea based on international law, especially the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).
“The two sides redoubled the importance of ensuring peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation over the East China Sea and the South China Sea and a peaceful settlement of disputes based on respecting international law, especially UNCLOS 1982,” said Chinh after wide-ranging talks with Modi.
He added: “We agreed to share information and work together to make the South China Sea into the waters of peace, stability, friendship, cooperation, where the safety and freedom of navigation is upheld.”
The merging of interests comes as India continues to attempt to deepen its footprint in Southeast Asia. In the past few months, India has publicly backed the position of the Philippines in its dispute with China. Manila’s envoy to India, Josel F. Ignacio, told ThePrint last month that India was considered a “reliable friend” in the region.
Both Hanoi and New Delhi in recent years have also intensified defence ties, with India handing over the fully-operational corvette INS Kirpan to the Southeast Asian country in 2023. This was the first time India gave an operational naval ship to another country.
The Vietnamese prime minister’s visit to India is the first from Hanoi since the two countries established a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2016, when Modi visited the country. Since the agreement, bilateral trade in goods between the two countries has grown to $14.8 billion in 2023-2024 from $10.1 billion in 2016-17 .
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In a meeting with Indian businesses on Wednesday, Chinh set an ambitious goal of $20 billion as soon as possible.
9 agreements, 2 announcements
New Delhi and Hanoi signed a raft of agreements, including two for lines of credit worth $300 million between the Vietnamese government and India’s finance ministry and the Export Import Bank of India. A total of nine agreements and two announcements were made by the two countries, according to a statement published by the Ministry of External Affairs.
Modi and Chinh also agreed to a joint action plan for the implementation of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership from 2024 to 2028, as well as on capacity building for customs officials.
Other agreements included cooperation in areas of agriculture, law, media, conservation, traditional medicine and the development of the National Maritime Heritage Complex in Lothal, Gujarat.
There was also a virtual inauguration of the Army Software Park at the Telecommunications University in Nha Trang, Vietnam, for which New Delhi provided a grant of $5 million, which was announced in December 2020.
Vietnam also announced it would be joining the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), which was launched by India in 2019, consisting of 39 members — 31 countries and eight organisations such as the World Bank and other multilateral institutions.
Modi also announced that cooperation between the two countries on counter-terrorism and cyber security would expand.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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