Foreign relations of Vietnam
From the Hồng Bàng dynasty to many feudal dynasties like the Ngô, Đinh, Early Lê, Lý, Trần, Later Lê, Tây Sơn and Nguyễn, Vietnam's main diplomatic relationships were with neighboring Imperial China, Kingdom of Champa, Khmer Empire, Lan Xang kingdom and Siam.
[3] Later, alliances were formed with Cambodia and Laos to make anti-French campaigns, building the friendship with the anti-colonial countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia and India.
In 1964, Zhou Enlai, worried about the escalation of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, made an informal agreement with the North.
[3] By 1975, tension began to grow as Beijing increasingly viewed Vietnam as a potential Soviet instrument to encircle China.
Meanwhile, Beijing's increasing support for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge sparked Vietnamese suspicions of China's motives.
Vietnamese-Chinese relations deteriorated significantly after Hanoi instituted a ban in March 1978 on private trade, a move that particularly affected the Sino-Vietnamese sector of the population.
Faced with severance of Chinese aid and strained international relations, Vietnam established even closer ties with the Soviet Union and its allies in the Comecon member states.
Throughout the 1980s, Vietnam received nearly US$3 billion a year in economic and military aid from the Soviet Union and conducted most of its trade with the U.S.S.R. and Comecon countries.
Within months of the 1991 Paris Agreements, Vietnam established diplomatic and economic relations with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states and also with most countries of Western Europe and Asia's Far East.
Vietnam has stepped up its efforts to attract foreign capital from the West and regularize relations with the world financial system.
Vietnam joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) in November 1998 and also hosted the ASEAN summit the following month.
Develop relations with countries and territories in the world, as well as international organizations, while showing: respect for each other's independence; sovereignty and territorial integrity; non-interference in each other's international affairs; non-use or threat of force; settlement of disagreements and disputes by means of peaceful negotiations; mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.
Vietnam and Russia declared a strategic partnership in March 2001 during the first visit ever to Hanoi of a Russian head of state, largely as an attempt to counterbalance China's growing profile in Southeast Asia.
Illicit drugs: minor producer of opium poppy with 21 km2 cultivated in 1999, capable of producing 11 metric tons of opium; probably minor transit point for Southeast Asian heroin destined for the US and Europe; growing opium/heroin addiction; possible small-scale heroin production List of countries which Vietnam maintains diplomatic relations with: Both countries established diplomatic relations on 8 July 1975.
[35] Over the past ten years, the two countries have witnessed new developments in various fields, including politics, economics, culture and society, particularly in the oil and gas industry.
[36] Vietnamese President Nguyễn Minh Triết arrived in Caracas on 18 November for a two-day official visit on an invitation from Hugo Chávez.
[37] Triet hailed Vietnam's friendship with Venezuela as he sought to focus on tying up oil and gas deals, including a joint development fund.
On the 2008 visit Triết returned similar comments as he lauded a group of Venezuelans who captured a US soldier during the Vietnam war in an unsuccessful bid to prevent the execution of a Vietnamese revolutionary.
Vietnam has supported India's bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and join the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
[49] In the 2003 joint declaration, India and Vietnam envisaged creating an "Arc of Advantage and Prosperity" in Southeast Asia;[50] to this end, Vietnam has backed a more important relationship and role between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its negotiation of an Indo-ASEAN free trade agreement.
[50][51] India and Vietnam have also built strategic partnerships, including extensive cooperation on developing nuclear power, enhancing regional security and fighting terrorism, transnational crime and drug trafficking.
Laos might have reached the same point of normalization in following Vietnam's economic and diplomatic change, but by moving ahead resolutely and responding to Thai and Chinese gestures, Laos has broadened its range of donors, trading partners, and investors independent of Vietnam's attempts to accomplish the same goal.
Thus, Vietnam remains in the shadows as a mentor and emergency ally, and the tutelage of Laos has shifted dramatically to development banks and international entrepreneurs.
In January 2010, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Vietnam bourse "for mutual collaboration and communication of information and experience" to facilitate the development and efficient operations of both securities markets.
France-Vietnam relations started as early as the 17th century with the mission of the Jesuit father Alexandre de Rhodes.
Various traders would visit Vietnam during the 18th century, until the major involvement of French forces under Pigneau de Béhaine to help establish the Nguyễn dynasty from 1787 to 1789.
France was heavily involved in Vietnam in the 19th century under the pretext of protecting the work of Catholic missionaries in the country.
Marxism and communism officially promoted atheism, causing Roman Catholics and other Christians to be associated with the anti-communist South Vietnam region.
