Vietnam - Turning on diplomatic charm

Vietnam has forged a strategic partnership with Italy and deepened its strategic partnership with the United Kingdom.

During the Party’s General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s official visit to Italy on January 20-22, Trong had talks with Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano and met with Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti.

This year is for the two countries to celebrate the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations. The two sides issued a joint statement on raising the existing comprehensive cooperation to a strategic partnership to boost the bilateral relationship in all areas.

In terms of strengthening the political-diplomatic cooperation, the two sides agreed to continue expanding the exchange of high-level delegations. They also agreed to promote cooperation between regions and localities of the two countries, particularly in the areas of economy, trade and investment, education and training, culture and tourism.

Regarding economic relations, Italy will support Vietnam’s economic development through sharing technologies and experiences of Italian enterprises, in the fields of infrastructure like roads, railways, urban transportation, ports and airports, mechanical engineering industry - particularly for textile and garment, leather footwear, wooden furniture, food and foodstuff processing and preservation, and processing industry.

The two sides also promoted specific public-private partnerships (PPP) and initiatives, in such fields as infrastructure, energy, metallurgy, telecommunications, tourism, environment, healthcare, fashion. Vietnam promised to create favourable conditions for Italy’s investment projects in oil and gas extraction.

To facilitate the activities of the two sides’ businesses and promote bilateral trade and investment, Vietnam and Italy agreed to establish a Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation, coordinated by Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade and Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development and convened yearly on rotational basis.

According to the statement, the two sides agreed to conclude a new protocol for the development assistance to Vietnam for 2013-2015 through grants and concessional credits to support Vietnam’s economic and social infrastructure. These efforts will focus on water and environment, healthcare, human resources development and support for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The two sides will consider gradual shifting from traditional cooperation areas towards new ones, such as climate change response, scientific training and research and green/clean energy.

Besides establishing the Vietnam-Italy strategic partnership, the two countries also clinched a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the Italy House project and an action programme on educational cooperation between the two governments in 2013-2016. The other inked MoUs cover cooperation between the two defence ministries, cooperation and administrative assistance in the customs sector, and cooperation between PetroVietnam and Italian National Oil and Gas Group. The Italian side granted an oil and gas exploration and exploitation licence to PetroVietnam.

Meanwhile, during his visit to the UK during January 22-23 Trong had talks with Prime Minister David Cameron, in order to further sharpen the two countries’ bilateral strategic partnership forged in 2010. This year will see Vietnam and the UK celebrate their 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties.

The two sides issued a joint statement, further underlining their continued commitment to achieving the targets of increasing bilateral trade to $4 billion and British investment in Vietnam to $3 billion this year.

Particularly, the UK pledged to support the process of negotiation and signing of the Vietnam- EU Free Trade Agreement, and early recognition of the Vietnamese economy’s market status, while Vietnam vowed to further improve its investment environment, thus enabling British businesses to operate more effectively in Vietnam. Both sides welcomed Rolls-Royce’s intention to bid to supply engines for Vietnam Airlines’ fleet of Boeing in 2013.

This visit was also used by Vietnam and the UK to sign the Vietnam–UK Plan of Action for 2013, the first MoU on PPP, an agreement on establishing the bilateral defence working group between the two ministries of Defence.

Both sides also clinched an MoU on exchange of migration information between Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and the UK’s Home Office, and an MoU on measures to promote the establishment of the UK-Vietnam International University in Vietnam’s central Danang city.

Also last week, during her official visit to Vietnam during January 18-21, 2013, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez had talks with Vietnam’s State President Truong Tan Sang and met with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung.

The leaders from both countries vowed to further cement cooperation in trade, investment, agriculture, energy, science-technology, health, and education and training. This year Vietnam and Argentina will celebrate their 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

Thanh Dat | vir.com.vn

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China - China’s multi-billion dollar charm offensive

Beijing bids to offset negative press with global soft power initiative. But is its positive message abroad at odds with the reality at home? asks Michele Penna

On November 2, Xinhua News Agency issued its first digital interactive e-magazine in Arabic, called China Panorama. The new service will focus on in-depth financial reporting and will target Arab elites and professionals. Its aim is to provide a “better and deeper understanding of China and Chinese economy”. Xinhua will thus add another piece to its expanding media network, which already boasts 142 overseas branches.

In recent years, Chinese media have rapidly expanded their coverage and improved their products. State support has played an important role in financing operations. The New York Times has reported that in 2009 Beijing announced plans to spend billions of dollars to develop global media and invested $8.9 billion in external publicity.

To understand why Beijing is keen on financing its media outlets, one has to look at China’s rise in the last 30 years. The The Chinese economy has been growing at breakneck speed and is now the world’s second largest. Its military strength has been rising fast, too, with double-digit increases in year-on-year spending. But the country’s appeal has not followed suit. On the contrary, the latter has actually declined: while the leftist youth around the world has long forgotten Maoist slogans, many Asian countries are now worried that Beijing may use its renewed strength against their interest (for example in the South China Sea dispute).

The Chinese government has realized the importance of reducing the gap between its hard and soft power and since 2007 has begun to take soft power development as part of the national development strategy. In this sense, having a friendly media is the first step in building a narrative based on “peace”, “harmony” and “win-win situation” which can reassure others of China’s good intentions.

The authorities speak openly about this program. According to the People’s Daily, “China needs to take all kinds of measures to educate the world about China so they can love it.” Nor is a feeling of cultural competition absent. In January 2012, former President Hu Jintao stated that “we must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of Westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration.”

Various media are involved in the soft power push, including television stations such as CCTV and web-based CNTV, as well as newspapers like The China Daily and The Global Times. Many are available in English and open to international readers.

Entertainment plays a role, too. China’s movie market – which grew by more than 22 per cent in 2011 – is now the second biggest in the world and in May 2012 the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda bought AMC for $2.6 billion, creating the world’s biggest cinema chain.

Perhaps not surprisingly, though, Beijing is not a fan of mainstream social media. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are banned on the mainland and their Chinese equivalents – RenRen and Weibo – are used mainly inside the country and are closely monitored.

When it comes to languages, Chinese media products are increasingly sophisticated. China Network Television (CNTV), for one, provides news in Chinese, Arabic, English, French, Korean, Russian and Spanish.

The authorities’ strategy to make inroads abroad couples media expansion with the promotion of China’s ancient culture. The 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party discussed the topic in 2011 and came up with a guideline to improve the nation’s cultural soft power. According to the final statement, “China is facing a difficult task in protecting ‘cultural security’ and feeling the urgency of enhancing its soft power and the international influence of its own culture.”

In February this year, the Ministry of culture announced a development plan to double the culture industry’s output by 2015. Authorities backed it with cash: in the first five months of 2012 the government has spent 18.5 billion USD in the cultural sector, up 28.2 percent year-on-year.

A particular beneficiary of the renewed interest in ancient traditions has been Confucianism, which was strongly condemned as counter-revolutionary during the Mao era, but has recently undergone a big revival. The philosopher’s ideas – including respect for authorities and morality – are being reinstated as principles for a fair society.

Perhaps the most evident tools of state-sponsored cultural expansion are the Confucius Institutes, organizations that provide lessons in Chinese language and culture around the world. According to China.org.cn, an official Party media, Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms had reached 691 by October 2010 and were scattered around 96 countries.

As these numbers seem to confirm, Beijing is trying to improve its image pretty much everywhere. According to a paper published by Georgetown University’s Institute For The Study Of Diplomacy, however, there are differences between China’s soft power aims in the United States, Europe and in developing countries: “in regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, where China has been particularly active, soft power initiatives tend to be tied to key resources, such as energy resources. Soft power initiatives are also aimed at persuading countries to re­nounce official diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and hew to China’s ‘one China’ policy”.

In the West, instead, “China’s soft power efforts tend toward subtler and less specifically targeted efforts, such as producing international culture and history exhibits and participating in international events (such as the Olympics) while directly engaging foreign publics through lan­guage institutes and media”, says the research.

There is little doubt that China’s soft power reach is still limited as compared to that of the West, which remains the cultural center of the world. There is equally little doubt, however, that the Chinese government has made huge efforts to improve its position and that China’s credibility is on the rise. The question is: will it work in the end?

Joseph Nye, the Harvard professor who first came up with the term “soft power”, is pessimistic. In two articles published on The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, he claims that the Chinese Communist Party will face difficulties in catching up with the West in terms of appeal because – to put it bluntly – it does not stick to what it preaches. He argues that internal repression of dissent hardly fits the benign image that officials strive to portray.

According to Professor Nye, “what China seems not to appreciate is that using culture and narrative to create soft power is not easy when they are inconsistent with domestic realities.” The fact that in China the word “harmonized” is used by netizens as a synonym for “censored” may signal that there is some truth behind his argument.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/

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