Resolving disputes by peaceful means - Vietnam's correct defense policy

Correct perception of international disputes and settlement measures

In practice, although there are many different concepts, there is a common consensus on international disputes, which is: There is a lack of unity, contradiction, and conflict in legal views and interests between sovereign states or other subjects of international law.

International disputes can occur in all areas of international activities, of which disputes over sovereignty on land, islands, at sea, in the air and in cyberspace are prominent, persistent, difficult to resolve and have the potential to lead to conflict and war.

General Phan Van Giang speaks at the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 11, 2022. Illustration photo: qdnd.vn

Resolving international disputes is not only important for maintaining world peace, stability and security, but also contributes to promoting countries to comply more thoroughly with international law. International law has agreed on the basic principles when resolving international disputes, which are: By peaceful means, negotiation; not using or threatening to use force; maintaining the status quo until reaching a final agreement; the disputing parties must exercise self-restraint and not conduct any activities that worsen the situation.

In recent times, hostile, reactionary, opportunistic political forces and extremists have made many comments and opinions with the intention of distorting and plotting to incite us to "take strong action and declare resolute war" against forces that violate national territorial sovereignty, especially Vietnam's sovereignty over seas and islands. Deeply aware of this issue, our Party and State have determined that resolving disputes by peaceful means is the best policy to protect Vietnam's country, especially in the current context of complex and unpredictable international developments.

Vietnam's best defense policy and correct national defense policy

In resolving disputes, Vietnam consistently uses peaceful measures in accordance with international law - this is a strategic policy, solution, and effective defense policy that has been proven to be appropriate and correct in practice. This is reflected in the following aspects.

Firstly, it demonstrates the culture of defending the country, being just, peaceful, and loving peace of the Vietnamese people.

In the history of thousands of years of building and defending the country, nearly two-thirds of the time the Vietnamese people had to stand up and wage wars and uprisings to gain and maintain independence, autonomy and development. The outstanding cultural feature in the Vietnamese people's national defense is always clearly aware that any war that does not bring peace and, more importantly, does not bring friendship to nations is a meaningless war. And there is no nation in the world that does not desire peace, stability, independence, autonomy...

History shows that countless efforts and blood of generations of Vietnamese people have been shed, seeping into every inch of land throughout Vietnam, precisely to keep our country's territorial integrity, independence, freedom and peace. With peace, we will move forward to building friendship, living in peace with neighboring countries, other countries in the world, to bring benefits to our people, the people of countries that have waged war against our country and other peoples in the world.

Peace-loving countries consider the victory of the Vietnamese people in the cause of national liberation and defense as a just victory, a source of encouragement and motivation, so they are ready to support Vietnam. In the past wars of national defense, especially the wars of national liberation and defense in the Ho Chi Minh era, Vietnam received strong and great support from peace-loving friends around the world... Therefore, Vietnam's victory has reached a new height, of the stature of the times.

Second, concretize policies and strategic solutions to protect the Fatherland early and from afar.

Currently, our entire Party, people and army are striving to achieve the goal of becoming a developed country with a socialist orientation by the middle of the 21st century, in a situation where the world and domestic situation have both advantages, opportunities and difficulties, and challenges intertwined, posing many new problems and new, more serious and complicated requirements for the cause of building and defending the Fatherland.

Based on practical requirements, with strategic thinking and vision, our Party has inherited and creatively applied and developed the nation's strategy of "defending the country before it is in danger" into a method and strategic guiding ideology to proactively protect the Fatherland early and from afar. Therefore, defending the country without having to wage war has become the basic and ultimate goal of our country's defense and security policy today.

To realize that guiding ideology and strategic goal, it is necessary to comprehensively and synchronously deploy strategic tasks and solutions to ensure a strong Party, a rich country, peaceful people, a strong army, more friends, fewer enemies. In particular, the policy of promoting the settlement of disputes in international relations, especially border, sea and island issues by peaceful means is a key solution, aiming to successfully carry out the task that the 13th National Party Congress has identified: "Strive to prevent conflicts and wars and resolve disputes by peaceful means in accordance with international law... maintain a peaceful and stable environment for development".

Third, create the basis for combining national strength with the strength of the times in building and defending the Fatherland.

Globalization and international integration are objective trends and continue to develop strongly. However, international integration in the current conditions requires each country to take internal strength as the foundation, long-term strategy and decisive factor; external strength is an important and necessary factor. In other words, it is necessary to know how to mobilize national strength in combination with the strength of the times in an appropriate and effective manner.

The viewpoint of the Vietnamese State is that peace, stability, cooperation and development are organically linked. The peace, stability and development of a country have an impact on neighboring countries, the region and the world. The interests of each country and nation need to be in harmony and respect the legitimate and legal interests of other countries and nations, on the basis of international law.

At the same time, international cooperation is an inevitable trend to jointly maintain peace, stability, promote development and friendship among nations; no single nation, no matter how large and powerful, can solve all problems, especially global problems, but requires cooperation from other countries, the international community and the people. Solving global problems requires a global approach, international solidarity and cooperation, and promoting multilateralism.

The Party and State of Vietnam advocate resolving international disputes by peaceful means, which not only respects international law and follows the trend of the times, but also makes an important contribution to maintaining a peaceful, stable, secure, safe, and national-interest environment for other countries. The consensus of the people in the country, the sympathy, support, recognition, and appreciation of the international community for the peaceful solutions that Vietnam is implementing are the basis for realizing the goal of "Promoting the highest combined strength of the entire nation and the entire political system combined with the strength of the times, maximizing the sympathy and support of the international community to firmly protect the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of the Fatherland" as determined by the 13th National Party Congress.

Fourth, the optimal solution in the context of the current complicated world situation.

Over the years, Vietnam and its neighboring countries have made great efforts to effectively apply international law and practices to resolve disagreements and disputes. In the process of resolving disagreements and disputes between Vietnam and other countries, including the issue of sovereignty in the East Sea, Vietnam always advocates resolving disagreements and disputes by peaceful means, through dialogue, on the basis of respect for international law; effectively and fully implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) to maintain peace, stability, ensure security, safety, freedom of navigation and aviation; and respect the legitimate rights and interests of the parties.

This clearly demonstrates that Vietnam not only strives to creatively apply and enrich international law, but also actively fights to protect international law, especially when Vietnam persists in the principle of "respecting international law, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea" and strives to include this principle in ASEAN documents and bilateral agreements such as: DOC, Statement on "ASEAN's 6-point Principles on the East Sea" dated July 20, 2012; Agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of maritime issues between Vietnam and China, signed on October 11, 2011 and the draft Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

These are vivid practical examples that not only clearly demonstrate goodwill, commitment and determination, but also clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of peaceful measures in resolving international disputes that our State has implemented. The consistency and efforts of our State have firmly protected sovereignty and national interests, prevented and repelled conflicts and wars, maintained national security, and a peaceful and stable environment to carry out the country's renovation cause over the past nearly four decades, achieving many great and historically significant achievements.

Thus, it can be seen that resolving international disagreements and disputes by peaceful means is a strategic and consistent policy and a correct and creative defense policy, suitable for the current situation and an effective solution of our Party and State. This policy needs to be thoroughly grasped, fully, comprehensively, deeply understood and concretized by the entire Party, people and army, and implemented through specific and practical activities in the coming time.

On the other hand, our Party and State's awareness and proper implementation of resolving international disagreements and disputes by peaceful means is an important basis for proactively identifying and resolutely fighting against the distorted and provocative arguments of hostile forces regarding Vietnam's current defense policy.

According to People's Army Newspaper

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/giai-quyet-tranh-chap-bang-bien-phap-hoa-binh-chinh-sach-quoc-phong-dung-dan-cua-viet-nam-post386175.html