Mr. Vu Khoan: "I still remember the feeling of isolation and heavy pressure"

“When we were politically isolated and economically besieged, it was very difficult for diplomats to attend international conferences because they were completely isolated. I still remember how it felt to be isolated at the conference and under such heavy pressure,” former Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan still vividly recalls a difficult time.

2016 marks the 30-year journey of RENEWAL and development of the country. From a low-income, underdeveloped country, Vietnam is now a middle-income country, from a country under embargo, it has normalized relations with most countries, participated deeply in international organizations, and has an increasingly important position in the international arena. To achieve these achievements, there is a positive contribution from foreign affairs activities.

Foreign affairs have been a great help to domestic affairs.

2016 marks the 30-year journey of RENEWAL and development of the country. As someone who has made great contributions to the country's foreign affairs, what do you think is the practical basis of the RENEWAL (in the foreign affairs)? Do you remember what the country's context was like at that time?

Former Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan: "I still remember how isolated I felt at the conference and how much pressure I felt."

Mr. Vu Khoan:Foreign policies and guidelines always originate from the interests and needs of the country as well as the world situation and major trends in the world. For our country, in the late 80s of the last century, 3 stories emerged.

Firstly, our country was in a very deep economic and social crisis. At that time, our country was experiencing hyperinflation, in 1986 alone the price index increased by nearly 800%. At that time, I worked at the Vietnamese Embassy in the Soviet Union and bought a bicycle and sold it to save money for emergencies. However, when the currency was changed, the value of the bicycle was only enough to buy ten eggs. I use this example to understand how difficult life was at that time.

At that time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered contributing to curbing inflation an important task. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nguyen Co Thach, assigned us the task of researching the experiences of countries around the world in fighting inflation in order to contribute to handling inflation in Vietnam.

Second, since 1979, our country has been politically isolated and economically besieged under the pretext that “Vietnam sent troops to invade Cambodia”. In fact, that was a fabricated pretext because Vietnamese volunteer soldiers sacrificed their blood and bones to help the Cambodian people escape genocide.

At that time, diplomatic staff attending international conferences suffered greatly because they were completely isolated. Especially our colleagues working at the United Nations suffered because at every meeting they raised the issue of Cambodia to attack us.

I was assigned to deal with the issue of people leaving by boat, so I led a delegation to attend the Conference in Kuala Lumpur on this subject. To this day, I still remember how isolated I felt at the conference and how much pressure I felt.

Third, our country's main allies at that time were the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. In the late 1980s, these countries fell into an increasingly deep crisis. In 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed, and in 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The dissolution of the socialist community had a serious impact on our country because in terms of economy alone, aid from these countries accounted for about 70% of our country's budget.

I still remember that at that time, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Do Muoi convened an urgent meeting to discuss economic policies. Comrade Do Muoi said that the country's economic situation was very difficult, with key commodities such as iron and steel, gasoline, fertilizer, etc. almost running out and asked all sectors to find every measure to salvage the situation.

I mentioned the three characteristics above to show how urgent the domestic situation was at that time. People say foreign policy is a continuation of domestic policy. In my opinion, saying so is correct but not enough, but it is necessary to understand that foreign policy is an assistant to domestic policy.

The 6th Congress was held at a time when the above characteristics were present and brought out very new and groundbreaking viewpoints, called innovative thinking. Regarding foreign affairs, for the first time, the Party document mentioned the process of internationalization and assessed that the world was forming a market economy, in which economies both cooperated and competed with each other. Such INNOVATIVE ideas are very important, without them there could not be an open-door policy, which we later called international economic integration.

After the 6th Congress, the world situation became very complicated and the leaders of our Party and State made many very important decisions. For example, our Party and State emphasized that the highest interest of the country is to take advantage of peaceful conditions for development, and from there decided to withdraw volunteer troops from Cambodia, promote the process of finding a peaceful solution to the Cambodian problem, normalize relations with China, the US and ASEAN countries, etc.

Such decisions have laid the foundation for foreign policy over the past 30 years.

We can understand that the 6th Congress was just a budding idea, while the 7th Congress was the real turning point in forming foreign policy in the DOI MOI period, is that right, sir?

Mr. Vu Khoan:That's right. The 6th Party Congress launched a comprehensive INNOVATION both domestically and internationally. However, in terms of foreign affairs, the Congress only introduced a number of new approaches but did not form a comprehensive policy. It was not until the 7th Congress that a foreign policy line based on the INNOVATION spirit was formed. In particular, the 3rd Central Conference of the 7th tenure passed a Resolution on both political and economic foreign policies. Thus, it can be said that the 7th Congress is an important milestone in the INNOVATION cause in foreign affairs.

The ideas of the 6th Congress are pioneering, removing dogmatic and backward thinking.

Boldly step onto the right path

Can you analyze in more detail the new points in foreign policy during the DOI MOI period that we have experienced?

Mr. Vu Khoan:Foreign policy in the period of RENOVATION contains many new things.

Any country from ancient times to the present, from East to West, pursues three foreign policy goals: maintaining independence and sovereignty, taking advantage of favorable international conditions for economic development, and improving the position of its country. In the period of RENOVATION, we also identify these three main goals. They are linked together, interacting with each other, in which the task of taking advantage of favorable international conditions for economic development is the central task because in domestic policy, socio-economic development is considered the central task.

Saying so does not mean relaxing the goal of protecting the country's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity and enhancing its position. The issue is only to prioritize and orient foreign affairs activities in practice.

To achieve the above objectives, the foreign policy must define the main ideology. Our Party and State have defined the main ideology that considers national interests as paramount. That does not mean that we pursue narrow nationalism, but consistently recognize our international responsibility to contribute to the cause of peace, national independence, democracy and social progress in the world.

Following the above guiding ideology, we always persevere in the goal of national independence and socialism; as for how to achieve that goal, we apply Uncle Ho's ideology of using the unchanging to respond to the ever-changing, applying ever-changing and flexible strategies. Nowadays, these things have become very familiar, but 30 years ago, it was not simple because we lived and operated during the Cold War when the world was divided into two poles.

Along with determining goals and guiding ideology, the Party has proposed a series of guiding ideological principles.

If before we followed the motto of standing firmly on the side of the socialist community, then in the period of RENOVATION, when the socialist community no longer exists, we advocate pursuing a policy of diversifying and multilateralizing international relations. This is also consistent with the general trend of the world after the Cold War.

Senior leaders vote at the 6th Congress.

Another principle is that we advocate that international relations always have two sides: cooperation and struggle. In fact, in today's world, each country pursues its own interests; sometimes those interests overlap, but there are also many times when national interests differ. In the future, we will clarify the relationship between "partners" and "objects".

That means, while being partners, there are still differences that need to be resolved; although sometimes there are subjects of dispute, there are still points of overlapping interests. Therefore, we need to have a dialectical attitude in international relations. Our common spirit is to cooperate as much as possible without dependence; when there are differences and conflicts, we seek to resolve them mainly through diplomatic methods and peaceful negotiations, avoiding the breakdown of international relations.

Another motto we pursue is “more friends, less enemies”. That is why, from the 7th Congress onwards, we have put forward the idea that Vietnam wants to be friends and partners with countries around the world and we have built strategic and comprehensive partnerships with many countries, including all major countries in the world. This idea was stated by Uncle Ho in 1946 when he affirmed: Vietnam wants to be friends with democratic countries, not to create enmity with anyone.

In international relations, we have made important adjustments in the direction of giving top priority to cooperation with neighboring countries in the Southeast Asian region in particular and the Asia-Pacific region in general, while attaching importance to relations with major countries in the world. This does not mean that we have forgotten our relations with traditional friends, with independent nations and with forces that favor peace and justice in the world.

A major policy in the DOI MOI period is the policy of international integration. In fact, the phrase “international economic integration” only appeared in 1995 at the 8th Congress and since the 10th Congress we have raised the policy of international integration in general, not just international economic integration.

As everyone knows today, our country is entering an unprecedented period of deep international integration with a series of free trade agreements with 55 countries, while Vietnam is actively participating in the world's political, security, cultural and social institutions.

Policy is indeed very important, but in diplomacy, sometimes the steps decide success or failure, not just the policy. What diplomatic steps have we taken in the context of national RENOVATION, sir?

Mr. Vu Khoan:That's right, for a policy to be successfully implemented, in diplomacy "steps" are very important.

Since the 6th Congress, without waiting for the 7th Congress, our Party and State have decided to prioritize solving the Cambodian problem.

In that direction, we proactively decided to soon complete the withdrawal of troops from Cambodia, paving the way for the Paris Conference on the Cambodian issue. That was the breakthrough to push back the policy of encirclement and isolation of Vietnam.

Taking advantage of that breakthrough, we normalized relations with countries around the world.

I remember that at that time, the Politburo decided to conduct a series of high-level visits to various countries. The only question was which country to visit first and which country to visit later. In a meeting at that time, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vo Van Kiet called me to a corner of the room to discuss what the itinerary should be.

Implementing the decision of the Politburo, our Government delegation led by Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet visited a series of Southeast Asian countries; the high-ranking delegation led by General Secretary Do Muoi and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vo Van Kiet visited China, followed by visits to Japan, Australia, New Zealand and then to Europe.

In that situation, the United States gradually removed the embargo policy against Vietnam. In 1995, it officially established diplomatic relations with our country.

These are important milestones marking the push back of the policy of besieging and isolating Vietnam.

In the process of international integration, we also went step by step from low to high: normalizing relations with international monetary organizations, joining ASEAN in 1995, joining ASEM in 1996; joining APEC in 1998; signing a bilateral trade agreement with the United States in 2000; joining the WTO in 2006….

According to Vietnamnet