Ambassador Nguyen Phuong Nga, President of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (Photo: VNA)
Draft documents submitted to the 13th National Party Congress have identified people-to-people diplomacy as one of the three pillars in Vietnam’s diplomatic efforts, thus ensuring its diplomacy is comprehensive and reflects the role of forces engaged in the task, Ambassador Nguyen Phuong Nga has said.
Nga, who is President of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO), told the Vietnam News Agency that over the last five years, people-to-people diplomatic activities, together with the Party and State’s diplomacy, have consistently complied with the diplomatic guidelines issued at the 12th National Party Congress, which are independence, self-reliance, peace, cooperation, and development; diversification and multilateralisation of foreign relations; proactive and active integration into the world; being a friend and trustworthy partner and a responsible member of the international community; and ensuring the nation and people’s supreme interests on the basis of the fundamental principles of international law, equality, and mutual benefit.
As the leading organisation in people-to-people diplomacy, VUFO and its members have exerted efforts to fulfil its assigned political tasks, greatly helping to carry out the resolution from the 12th National Party Congress and contribute to common diplomatic achievements, she noted.
The draft documents submitted to the congress, aside from important content inherited from the documents of the 12th congress, have also been supplemented by significant new content that demonstrates the development of a new and creative diplomatic mindset that adapts to new and complex changes in the global and regional situation and the reality of domestic development.
“Ensuring the country and people’s interests on the basis of the fundamental principles of international law, equality, and mutually beneficial cooperation”, as stated in the draft documents, is highly important and principled. Meanwhile, the drafts’ determination of a “vanguard” role for diplomacy in creating and firmly maintaining a peaceful and stable environment is new and precisely exhibits the crucial role and position of external activities, she went on.
VUFO and agencies actively and responsibly contributed ideas to the draft documents, the official said, stressing that important content on the Party’s diplomacy and people-to-people diplomacy has been added to the drafts, which emphasises the task of “building modern diplomacy with the three pillars of the Party’s diplomacy, the State’s diplomacy, and people-to-people diplomacy”, thus ensuring the comprehensiveness of Vietnam’s diplomacy and reflecting the role and tasks of the forces involved in this work.
Discussing the difficulties and challenges in people-to-people diplomacy, Nga pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic is still developing, the scope of relations and the network of partners in some regions remain limited, the approaches to some new issues haven’t been reformed strongly, and the role of experienced specialists in diplomacy has yet to be fully capitalised on.
With regard to advantages, people-to-people diplomatic activities now have many conditions to be promoted in a comprehensive manner, she said, elaborating that the Party and State have paid great attention to people-to-people diplomacy and consider it a task of the entire political system and the people as a whole. The Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee have issued practical directions to help VUFO bring into play the role of people-to-people diplomacy.
Vietnam’s achievements in the COVID-19 fight, the country’s socio-economic development successes, and its improved prestige and stature also form a solid foundation for people-to-people diplomacy.
Another advantage is that in recent years, the forces engaged in people-to-people diplomacy have been increasingly promoted in terms of both quantity and quality, including leaders of the Party, State, Government, National Assembly, ministries, and central agencies, as well as entrepreneurs, artists, and ordinary citizens.
As a result, she said, people’s awareness about diplomacy, with the motto “each person is an ambassador of the country”, has been increased considerably./.
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