×
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

A message to China: India and Vietnam vow to work for rules-based Indo-Pacific

Last Updated 03 March 2018, 16:32 IST

Sending out a message to China, India and Vietnam on Saturday vowed to work together to build an open, transparent, inclusive and rule-based regional architecture in Indo-Pacific.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang on Saturday witnessed exchange of three pacts, including a Memorandum of Understanding for expanding technical cooperation in nuclear energy. They also agreed to step up cooperation in defence production and maritime security.

"We are fully committed to expanding our maritime cooperation as well as working together to build an open, transparent, inclusive and rules-based regional architecture," the prime minister said as he and the Vietnam President addressed media after meeting at the Hyderabad House. "We will work together for a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific, where sovereignty of the nations and adherence to international rules will be respected and where disputes will be settled through talks," said Modi.

Quang, who is on a visit to New Delhi, said that Vietnam reaffirmed its support to India to "further its relations and multi-faceted connectivity with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) attaching high importance to the maintenance of security, maritime safety and freedom of navigation and over-flight, settlement of disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law, including United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS".

China has often been accused by the US, Japan, ASEAN nations and others of undermining the "rules-based order" in the region. The communist country's territorial disputes with some of the ASEAN nations and its other maritime neighbours in East and South China Sea as well as its reluctance to resolve the disputes in accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS) often prompted the other nations to not only criticise Beijing for not adhering to international laws, but also call for "rules-based order" in the region.

The South China Sea has been at the centre of China's escalating territorial dispute with Vietnam, as well as its other maritime neighbours - Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan. India on Thursday joined Vietnam to tacitly ask China to adhere to the UNCLOS as well as the relevant standards and recommended practices by the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the International Maritime Organisation.

Modi and Quang on Saturday also discussed ways to step up bilateral defence cooperation.

"We will explore possibilities of transfer of technology and co-production in defence sector," said Modi.

They reviewed implementation of India's credit lines to Vietnam for defence sector. Hanoi already moved ahead for implementing the $100 million Line of Credit India offered to Vietnam and awarded the contract to L&T for manufacturing offshore patrol vessels, which would be used by Vietnam Coast Guard and Vietnam People's Navy. The two leaders also agreed that the other $500 million Line of Credit for defence procurement would also be implemented expeditiously.

New Delhi and Hanoi have also been discussing a deal for India to supply BrahMos missiles to Vietnam, which has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents to China's expansionist aspiration in Indo-Pacific.

The BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles are produced by a joint venture of the Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia's NPO Mashinostroeyenia. Moscow has already given its nod to New Delhi to proceed with talks with Hanoi on the proposed deal.

ADVERTISEMENT
(Published 03 March 2018, 09:38 IST)

Follow us on

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT