From March 9 to 13, 2025, General Secretary To Lam and his wife, along with a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation, paid an official visit to the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta (Indonesia) on March 10, 2025.
During his visit to Southeast Asian countries from March 9 to 13, 2025, General Secretary To Lam and his wife, along with the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation, paid an official visit to the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta (Indonesia) on March 10, 2025 at the invitation of ASEAN Secretary General Kao Kim Hourn.
The visit takes place in 2025, marking the 30th anniversary of Vietnam joining and accompanying ASEAN (July 28, 1995 - July 28, 2025), contributing to further demonstrating Vietnam's proactive, responsible and creative spirit with practical contributions, joining hands to realize ASEAN's future aspirations.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established on August 8, 1967, and currently includes 10 member countries: Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia (Timor-Leste is on track to be admitted as an official member).
Vietnam officially joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on July 28, 1995. During nearly 30 years of accompanying ASEAN, Vietnam has always strived to proactively, positively and responsibly contribute to a strong, united ASEAN with a role and position in the region and the world.
Since joining the “common house” until now, as a member, as well as when taking on important responsibilities of the Association, Vietnam has always affirmed its core role, leading and making a strong contribution to the development of ASEAN.
In a proactive, positive and responsible spirit, Vietnam stands side by side with member countries to make practical contributions to the efforts to build a strong ASEAN Community, maintain solidarity, unity and promote the central role of the Association, for peace, stability, cooperation and development of the region. The policy and direction of participating in ASEAN cooperation has become an important part of Vietnam's foreign policy in the new period, a strategic focus of Vietnam's multilateral diplomacy.
Promoting its role as a nucleus promoting solidarity and unity, immediately after joining ASEAN, Vietnam actively promoted the admission of Laos, Myanmar (in 1997) and Cambodia (in 1999) into the Association. This effort contributed to realizing the idea of an ASEAN including all 10 Southeast Asian countries, creating a new qualitative change for ASEAN and the regional situation at that time.
Vietnam's outstanding contributions include its three times assuming the role of ASEAN Chair (1998, 2010 and 2020). In December 1998, Vietnam successfully organized the 6th ASEAN Summit, adopting the Hanoi Action Plan, making an important contribution to strengthening solidarity, promoting cooperation, and orienting the development and cooperation of the Association to realize the ASEAN Vision 2020.
Then, as ASEAN Chair in 2010, with the goal of accelerating the realization of the ASEAN Vision into action, Vietnam's Chairmanship marked important decisions such as the adoption of the first Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC 2015); expanding the East Asia Summit (EAS) mechanism to include Russia and the US; and forming a defense cooperation framework between ASEAN and its Partners through the ADMM+ mechanism.
In its 2020 ASEAN Chairmanship, in an unprecedented context, Vietnam has promoted the ASEAN Community to unite and respond effectively and promptly to the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, maintain solidarity, maintain ASEAN's connectivity, support people's stable lives, and promote recovery efforts. Initiatives proposed by Vietnam in this context, including the online meeting format, continue to be promoted by member countries, contributing to enhancing ASEAN's adaptability and self-reliance, as well as accelerating the region's post-pandemic recovery process.
In addition to actively fulfilling its role as ASEAN's rotating Chair, Vietnam has also made important contributions to decisions to guide ASEAN's development, such as promoting the completion of the ASEAN-10 idea, adopting the 1998 Hanoi Action Plan, ASEAN Vision 2020 (in 1997), the Declaration of ASEAN Concord on ASEAN Community Building (in 2003), the ASEAN Charter (in 2007), the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 (in 2015), and in the current period, building the ASEAN Community Vision to 2045. These are important documents that help guide ASEAN's development path.
In particular, in the context of ASEAN preparing to enter a new development stage, Vietnam has proposed the initiative and hosted the ASEAN Future Forum to supplement the Association's official forums and mechanisms, creating opportunities for broad exchange of ideas and initiatives on regional cooperation, contributing to building a self-reliant and sustainable ASEAN Community in the future.
After two successful events in Hanoi (April 2024 and February 2025), the ASEAN Future Forum (AFF) has gradually become a model of a true forum of ASEAN, for ASEAN, thereby affirming Vietnam's leading role in shaping the strategic vision of the region.
Through the AFF forum, Vietnam has contributed practical solutions to enhance ASEAN's adaptability to global challenges, with proposals to enhance regional cooperation capacity, create flexible response mechanisms to global geopolitical fluctuations, as well as encourage the proactive spirit of each member country in the common development process.
In addition, along with efforts to promote intra-bloc and regional connectivity, Vietnam has also effectively promoted its bridging role in expanding ASEAN's external relations with other countries and regions, thereby bringing ASEAN into deeper and deeper participation in global processes, promoting multilateral cooperation and raising ASEAN's voice at international forums.
In its role as coordinator of relations between ASEAN and partners such as China, India, Japan, South Korea, the UK and New Zealand, Vietnam has left a deep impression of sincerity and trust.
In particular, recommendations and proposals at the 2024 AFF will be conveyed to the United Nations Future Summit, contributing to linking ASEAN's common vision with the world, reaffirming the value of multilateral cooperation in responding to common world issues, towards the goal of peace and sustainable development.
It can be affirmed that, during the 30-year journey of joining ASEAN, Vietnam has quickly integrated and participated deeply in all areas of ASEAN cooperation and made positive contributions to maintaining solidarity within the bloc, strengthening cooperation between member countries as well as between ASEAN and external partners, contributing significantly to the development and success of ASEAN.
Assessing Vietnam's contributions, Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), affirmed that Vietnam is an important piece in politics, diplomacy, security, economy, culture and society, thereby helping ASEAN become stronger, more self-reliant and more dynamic.
The year 2025 is of great significance to ASEAN and Vietnam, marking the entry into a new phase of the ASEAN Community building process, in which intra-bloc solidarity and self-reliance are two decisive factors for ASEAN’s central role and the results of the ASEAN Community building process. ASEAN and its partners will review and evaluate the implementation of the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty in 2026.
For Vietnam, 2025 also marks the 30th anniversary of Vietnam's official accession to ASEAN. Let's look back at the results of the past 30 years and discuss Vietnam's future direction of ASEAN participation.
These events took place in the context of ASEAN's gradual development and innovation, and has now become a successful regional organization in the world, contributing effectively to dialogue and cooperation for peace, stability, development and prosperity of Asia-Pacific in general and Southeast Asia in particular, and participating responsibly with the international community in responding to challenges.
In that context, the State visit of General Secretary To Lam and his wife along with the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation to the Republic of Indonesia, the official visit to the ASEAN Secretariat and the Republic of Singapore from March 9 to 13, 2025 continues to demonstrate the consistent implementation of the foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, cooperation and development, multilateralization and diversification of foreign relations, and the importance of relations with neighboring countries in the region of our Party and State, including two important partners, Indonesia and Singapore; further demonstrating Vietnam's spirit of initiative, responsibility and creativity with practical contributions, joining hands to realize ASEAN's future aspirations.
According to Member of the Party Central Committee, Permanent Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Manh Cuong, General Secretary To Lam's visit to the ASEAN Secretariat this time has clearly affirmed the strategic importance of ASEAN in Vietnam's foreign policy, further demonstrating Vietnam's proactive, responsible, and creative spirit, with practical contributions, joining hands to realize ASEAN's future aspirations.
Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cuong emphasized that as members of the ASEAN family, strengthening bilateral relations between Vietnam and Indonesia and Singapore, sharing a common voice on regional and international issues, will also contribute to the overall development of ASEAN, for a united, self-reliant, and developed ASEAN.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Ton Thi Ngoc Huong, Head of the Vietnamese Delegation to ASEAN, emphasized that General Secretary To Lam's visit to the ASEAN Secretariat this time is considered a historic visit, because this is the first time the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the highest leader of Vietnam, has visited the ASEAN Headquarters and the ASEAN Secretariat. The visit is an affirmation of Vietnam's importance and strong commitment to ASEAN.
According to Ambassador Ton Thi Ngoc Huong, the visit contributes to opening up new cooperation spaces between Vietnam and ASEAN member countries, between Vietnam and ASEAN member countries and partners, and together contribute to building towards the goal of forming a strong, dynamic and prosperous ASEAN Community as a common home for 670 million people of countries in the region.
During the visit, General Secretary To Lam attended the ceremony to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Vietnam's accession to ASEAN and delivered an important policy speech to officials of the ASEAN Secretariat, Ambassadors, Heads of Permanent Missions of member countries to ASEAN, Ambassadors of dialogue partners, sectoral dialogue partners, development partners and other external partners represented in ASEAN, as well as business leaders.
ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn said this is of unprecedented significance because Vietnam has always played a very active and proactive role; Vietnam has placed ASEAN as one of the top priorities in its foreign policy.
Source: https://daidoanket.vn/chung-tay-xay-dung-cong-dong-asean-gan-ket-tu-cuong-va-ben-vung-10301279.html
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