Vietnam should run for non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key told his host Nguyen Tan Dung at a meeting Monday.

The suggestion was made as the prime ministers of both nations held talks in Hanoi during Key"s official visit on July 10-12 to the country at Dung"s invitation.

The two leaders agreed to improve bilateral cooperation in various fields like national defense, economics and technology.

New Zealand will provide  NZD10 million NZD (US$7.1 million) in aid to Vietnam during the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Key said.

The New Zealand premier also met with Vietnam’s President Nguyen Minh Triet and Politburo member Truong Tan Sang during his visit.

A prominent legislator hopes the move is a sign the National Assembly is focusing on the needy

People relax on train tracks in Hanoi in January 2010. The National Assembly made a surprise move in rejecting a government proposal to build a US$56-billion bullet train linking Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, with representatives arguing that more time would be needed to study the feasibility of the project.

The surprise rejection of a proposed US$56 billion express railway project last weekend could be more than a “rare decision,” a lawmaker says, arguing it could be an indicator that the National Assembly is steering its priorities more toward the needs of Vietnam’s poor.

A June 19 plenary session of the National Assembly, Vietnam’s legislature, voted against a government plan to construct a high-speed railway project traversing the country from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City.

Only 37 percent of 427 legislators voted for the project while nearly 7 percent abstained. Those who voted against the plan said they did so because it was economically unsound. They asked the government to further study the feasibility of the project.

The $56 billion mega-project would have built a 1,570-kilometer (975-mile) track that would cut HCMC-Hanoi travel time to six hours from the current 29 hours. The first phase was slated for completion in 2020 and the second 15 years later.

“This surprising outcome [of the vote] was in fact an inevitable conclusion for an economically ill-equipped major project,” said Nguyen Minh Thuyet, a deputy from the northern mountainous province of Lang Son.

“A country that is still poor like Vietnam cannot afford to construct a bullet train that would eat up around 50 percent of its annual gross domestic product [GDP] and would cost 2.5 times more than the annual national budget,” Thuyet told Thanh Nien Weekly via phone.

Half of all Vietnamese still depend on agriculture as their meal ticket. Per capita income is about $1,000 and the minimum government salary is VND730,000 ($38) per month. The World Bank has also said that Vietnam’s budget deficit was “very high” at 8.4 percent of GDP in 2009.

Thuyet said the rejection of the major government proposal, the first decision of its kind by the legislative body, was a landmark move and he hoped it was not the last.

“I am hopeful that when the National Assembly debates other major issues of national importance in the future, the same debate atmosphere will continue.”

Thuyet said different decisions could have been made in regards to other controversial projects had debate been as energetic as it was with regards to the railway project.

At a biannual National Assembly meeting in October 2009, lawmakers pointed out that the government had divided projects into smaller ones of less than VND20 trillion (US$1.12 billion) to bypass the assembly’s approval process. According to a National Assembly resolution passed in 2006, only key national investment projects valued at VND20 trillion or above required approval of the legislature.

The government shrugged off the allegation, saying it was best that the projects were implemented separately.

Flow of funds

Experts also pointed out that investment priorities should be turned to other pressing needs of the country.

Jonathan Pincus, a HCMC-based economist with the Vietnam program at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the government should focus on the most pressing infrastructure bottlenecks that can be addressed at relatively low cost, and that are not too heavily reliant on imported machinery and material.

“For example a major north-south, limited access expressway would move goods and people quickly along the densely populated coastline. Or perhaps a freight rail system that could move goods cheaply and quickly along the coast,” Pincus said.

Representative Thuyet, who is also vice chair for the parliamentary Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children, said mountainous areas should be among the first benefactors of increased infrastructure investment.

“Many children in the mountainous areas still go to school by transportation means tantamount to those their ancestors used centuries ago. That is unacceptable.”

At the month-long assembly session that wrapped up on June 19, Thuyet also grilled Transport Minister Ho Nghia Dung on the lack of appropriate infrastructure investment in rural and mountainous areas.

“We can clearly see that people in many places are facing great difficulties, including those in Kon Tum Province [in the Central Highlands] who have to cross the Po Ko River by zip-line,” Thuyet said.

Minister Dung responded that local authorities had not informed him of the situation.

“Turning to the cable to cross the river was a creative idea cooked up by local residents. We would have never imagined that idea,” Dung said.

Construction of two bridges across the river has begun after the zip-line received major media coverage last month. They are set for completion this September.

Deputy Nguyen Dinh Xuan of the southern Tay Ninh Province also concurred that Vietnam had many other things in desperate need of increased investment that should obviously take priority over a bullet train.

“We need to pump more money into projects tackling climate change, as well as drainage system upgrades, education, and healthcare,” Xuan told Thanh Nien Weekly.

‘A few more decades’

The Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency reported on June 22 that Japan’s Transport Minister Seiji Maehara said he would push on with efforts to sell bullet train technology to Vietnam despite the project’s rejection.

“We hope Vietnam will introduce Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train system,” Maehara was quoted by AFP as saying.

“Japan will try to help Vietnam introduce the Japanese system by cooperating with the Vietnamese government to draw up a feasible plan so that the National Assembly will approve it.”

At the assembly’s plenary sessions, Vietnamese lawmakers asked the government to be patient and thorough before starting a bullet train project.

Representative Xuan from Tay Ninh Province said the project should not commence before 2020, but Thuyet was even more cautious.

“It would not be too late if the house comes back to debate the project after a few more decades,” Thuyet said.

“Yes, Vietnam should have a high-speed rail system. But only once the economy is full-grown.”

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States, AmCham will host a luncheon with US congressmen on Wednesday July 7 at Movenpick Hotel Hanoi, 83A Ly Thuong Kiet Street.

Led by Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa, the delegation also includes Senator Jeff Merkley (Oregon), Senator Al Franken (Minnesota), Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont), and Representative Lynn Woolsey (California).

The US delegation is visiting Vietnam to discuss US-Vietnam bilateral relations, trade relations, human rights, and progress on governance and development efforts. The lunch will be an opportunity to hear the legislator’s views on politics, foreign policy, trade policy, and the expanding bilateral relationship with Vietnam.

Following an internal inspection, a group of senior Communist Party members were found to be in violation of Party regulations.

The involved individuals were told to “seriously learn from their mistakes.”

According to the statement issued on July 5th by the Central Inspection Commission, Party officials at the Quang Ninh People’s Committee exerted lax management over provincial coal mining and trading from 2004 to 2008. The lapse led to wide scale coal smuggling that has damaged both the economy and the environment, inspectors said.

Three officials of the Tra Vinh People’s Committee and the Tra Vinh Party Unit’s Standing Committee were found to have wrongly granted land and home titles. Inspectors also found that the trio had inaccurately declared their assets.

In the Dien Bien Province, inspectors found that four officials had mismanaged the construction of the Dien Bien Phu Victory Monument. Inspectors found that the violations occurred in degrees undeserving of disciplinary measures.

The chairman of the Bac Lieu People’s Committee, who also serves as deputy secretary of the town Party Unit, was officially rebuked for financial mismanagement dating back to his time as secretary of the provincial Youth Union. Inspectors also found that he had breached regulations in his current roles.

The Party Central Committee did uncover actions that, they said, will merit discipline. This list included: the general director of Vietnam Television; the director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics; the Secretary of the Tien Giang Party Unit, the Chairman of the Thai Binh People’s Committee; the Party unit secretary, the chairman and the general director of Vietnam’s National Shipping Lines (VINALINES); the Party unit secretary, the chairman, the general director, and the deputy general director of Vietnam Construction Industry Group; the Party unit secretary (and two deputies), the chairman, the deputy chairman and a member or the Standing Committee of provincial People’s Committee of Ca Mau Province.

Vietnam has agreed that the Vatican names a non-resident representative to the country in a sign of positive development in bilateral relations.

The agreement was reached in talks between senior government officials and church representatives of the Vietnam-Vatican Joint Working Group held in Vatican on June 23-24.

The meeting was co-chaired by Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Cuong and the Vatican"s Undersecretary for Relations with States Ettore Balestrero, according to a government statement.

Both sides agreed that positive developments have taken place in various areas of Catholic life in Vietnam, especially in the Holy Year of 2010. They also hailed recent improvements in bilateral relations, highlighted by talks between Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet and Pope Benedict in December last year.

They also agreed that the next meeting of the working group will be held in Vietnam at a date to be announced later.

Three bilateral agreements on borders and landmarks between Vietnam and China took effect Wednesday (July 7), eight months after they were signed last year.

The agreements are contained in the Protocol on Border Demarcation and landmark planting, the Agreement on Border Management Regulations, and the Agreement on Border-gates and their management regulations.

Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ho Xuan Son, and his Chinese counterpart, Zhang Zhijun, had said then that with the new agreements, all matters relating to the land border between the two countries over the past 36 years had been closed, finally.

Together with 1,921 land markers planted along the 1,499.6-kilometer-long border line, the agreements will also form a solid legal base for the peaceful, friendly and long-lasting development of border areas between Vietnam and China, they said.

The two high-ranking representatives also agreed to establish a Vietnam – China Joint Committee on land borders as well as a mechanism to manage agreements signed on November 18 last year.

The government has expressed strong opposition to China’s tourism development plan which incorporates Vietnam’s Spratly and Paracel archipelagos, reiterating Vietnamese sovereignty over the islands.

Vietnam opposes the 2010-2020 plan to develop Hainan Island for tourism, which specifies that a tourist complex managed by Hainan Province covers the Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagos, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga said in a statement carried on the government website.

“Vietnam has indisputable sovereignty over the Truong Sa and Hoang Sa archipelagos,” Nga stressed.

China also plans to promote air and sea routes to the Hoang Sa archipelago and encourage registration for the right to use “uninhabited islands,” she noted, adding these actions violate Vietnam’s sovereignty.

China"s actions also go against the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and Vietnam demands these actions are stopped, she said.

The government statement mentioned that officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs met Chinese embassy officials on Tuesday to record opposition to the plan.

China’s recently announced tourism development plan has been slammed as a Machiavellian ploy to claim sovereignty over Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos.

“This trick is very clever, taking the name of a totally civil and peaceful activity combining culture and tourism to cover an intricate strategy that had been carefully considered,” said Tran Cong Truc, former head of Vietnam’s Government Border Committee.

Truc was speaking with Thanh Nien about the passage by the State Development and Reform Commission of China of the “2010- 2020 Grand Plan for Construction and Development of International Tourism Island of Hainan.”

Under the plan, Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagos will be incorporated in an oceanic multi-purpose complex under the management of the province of Hainan. Also, Hoang Sa-bound tourism by air and sea lanes will be promoted and registration for right to use uninhabited islands encouraged.

However, Truc said the archipelagos offer little or no conditions for tourism and China was using it as a ruse to illegally claim sovereignty over the areas.

“We can see that Hoang Sa and Truong Sa do not have favorable conditions for tourism at present. The two archipelagos are far from inland areas. Hoang Sa is 220 kilometers from Vietnam’s inshore island of Ly Son and 260 kilometers from China’s Hainan Island.”

VIETNAM OPPOSES CHINA’S TOURISM PLAN IN HOANG SA AND TRUONG SA

On June 24, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga reaffirmed Vietnam’s “indisputable” sovereignty over the two archipelagos and strongly protested the passage of China’s plan.

“Such an action seriously violates Vietnam’s sovereignty, runs counter to the common views of Vietnamese and Chinese leaders, and goes against the spirit of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which China and ASEAN member states signed in 2002,” she said.

Under Provision Five of the DOC, the parties undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.

“Vietnam demands that China immediately stop actions that violate Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos, and strictly follow the DOC,” Nga said, adding that representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had logged the country’s protest with the Embassy of China in Hanoi on June 22.

“The islands are small, with the biggest one in Hoang Sa having an area of around 1.5 square kilometers and in Truong Sa, around 0.5 square kilometers. Most of the land is submerged under sea level.... These areas promise little tourism profit, not mentioning the fact that they are under territorial dispute, extremely sensitive and unsuitable for tourism,” he said.

Truc said that under the tourism plan, international tourists visiting the archipelagos have to ask for permission from Chinese authorities. “It’s a way to claim their sovereignty over the area,” he said.

Method to the madness

Professor Carlyle A. Thayer at the Australian Defense Force Academy’s University of New South Wales explained China’s actual purpose behind the tourism plan at length.

“China is not developing tourism for tourism’s sake but is trying to assert sovereignty over the features in the [East] Sea.

“By developing tourism China is trying to lay the foundations to claim features as islands. In this case Chinese domestic law would regulate the behavior of foreigners using the Exclusive Economic Zone. Second, China is trying to demonstrate that it has sovereignty over the ‘islands’ because it administers them on the basis of continuous occupation,” he told Thanh Nien Weekly via email.

“There are two aspects of international law that are important to understand. The first is that a feature (rocks, sand banks, reefs etc.) in the [East] Sea may be considered an ‘island’ if it is completely surrounded by water, uninhabited, and has an economic function. Under the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea an island can generate its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles. A state has the right to use resources in the EEZ and regulate the behavior of other states.”

“The second point is that in cases of a territorial dispute at sea, international law favors the state that can demonstrate continuous occupation or administration.”

Le Van Thinh, former deputy head of Vietnam’s Government Border Committee, said China’s plan threatened other countries as well as the safety of international sea transport and it has violated the Declaration of Conducts, further complicating situations on the East Sea.

Step by step

Truc said China tourism plan was actually a step in a series of actions that aims to claim its sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa that it had partially taken from Vietnam by military force.

“China has taken a series of illegal actions [hidden] in a common plan on East Sea being conducted cleverly, including establishing an administrative agency in Hainan Province to manage Vietnam’s Hoang Sa and Truong Sa, issuing an annual fishing ban, sending fishing patrol ships to East Sea and detaining Vietnamese fishermen and fining them,” he said.

Truc said China had also taken advantage of “international channels” in its strategy, including requesting the World Meteorological Organization to recognize a Chinese meteorological station replacing a Vietnamese one in Hoang Sa in 1975; submitting a report to the 26th International Geological Congress in Paris in 1980 stating that Hoang Sa and Truong Sa as extended parts of Chinese continent shelf; and presenting a map illegally depicting its sovereignty over most of the East Sea at a Asia Pacific Aviation Summit in 1983.

“Vietnam has officially opposed all these acts by China,” he said. “All islands in the archipelagos occupied by China are through military forces, and that is illegal in international law.

VIETNAM URGED MORE ACTION OVER EAST SEA

Tran Cong Truc, former head of Vietnam’s Government Border Committee, said Vietnam has never changed its stand on resolving East Sea disputes, seeking negotiation based on international laws, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, as well as the 2002 Declaration of Conduct (DOC) in a bid to maintain peace and stability on East Seas and in the region.

However, he said, Vietnam should make relevant information more widely known about the purpose of China’s plan and warn international tourists against unwittingly joining an apparently benign activity like tourism that is a violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty.

Professor Carlyle A. Thayer of the Australian Defense Force Academy also advised more action by Vietnam as he slammed China’s so-called tourism plan.

“China is acting unilaterally and its actions violate the spirit and letter of the DOC of Parties in the [East] Sea. China’s actions definitely complicate matters because they make it more difficult for sovereignty disputes to be adjudicated by an international court. China is taking pre-emptive action.

“If Vietnam takes no action, this is viewed in international law as evidence that Vietnam has abandoned its sovereignty claim. Vietnam must protest each and every time China takes a unilateral action to advance its sovereignty claims,” Thayer stressed.

He warned further: “Chinese unilateral assertiveness and Vietnamese diplomatic protests are a game Vietnam cannot win. China will step by step assert control – continuous occupation – and put itself in a strong position under international law.

“Vietnam must get its fellow ASEAN states to agree on a common stand and raise the matter in their discussions with China... In short, Vietnam must use diplomatic means to convince the international community that Chinese unilateral actions are in violation of an agreement already reached and undermine regional security.

“China [states that it] stands for a harmonious world and win-win solutions, and Vietnamese diplomacy must be aimed at getting China to match words with deeds.”

In an effort to improve bilateral cooperation, a hotline linking high-ranking leaders of Vietnam and China will be established, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday.

The ministry added that leaders from both countries will plan to offer joint trainings for officials and organize activities for the Vietnam – China Friendship Year 2010.

The solutions were agreed at a four-day meeting in China began on June 29th and was co-chaired by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo.

During the trip, Khiem also met with China’s Vice President Xi Jinping and other officials, and visited several cultural and economic organizations in Beijing and Tianjin.

A United Nations independent expert on minority issues is currently visiting Vietnam to examine the human rights situation of the country’s various ethnic groups.

Gay McDougall, who is here on a 10-day visit at the invitation of the Vietnamese government, said she will try to assist the country meet its obligations with respect to the rights of minorities.

“Vietnam is a country of great diversity with more than 50 distinct groups exhibiting unique ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural characteristics and identities,” McDougall said in a released statement by the UN.

“As in many countries with such diversity, challenges exist to ensure that members of minority groups can fully realize all their human rights and live in conditions of equality.”

McDougall will visit Hanoi, provinces in the Northern Highlands, the Central Highlands and the Mekong Delta. She’s expected to meet with a wide range of members, including government officials, NGOs, and those working in the field of minority issues.

She will present a report containing her findings and recommendations to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Investigators recovered the suspected remains of a US Marine listed as missing during the Vietnam War shortly before the gravesite was to become part of a resort development, an official said Tuesday.

The remains, along with others which could be linked to two separate missing-in-action cases, were flown to the United States on Tuesday after a ceremony in Da Nang city, said Ron Ward, of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hanoi.

Ward said a joint team of US and Vietnamese searchers arrived just in time to excavate the grave containing what they believe are remains of the Marine who went missing from his unit in 1966.

"There was a resort and golf course being built there and in not too much more time it probably would"ve been covered," Ward said.

The site lies just south of the central city of Da Nang, a rapidly developing area popular with tourists.

In another repatriation case, residents in the southern Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh found some remains along the coast, and reported them to officials, Ward said.

Elsewhere, a villager in central Quang Binh province handed over remains thought to be linked to the crash of an F-4 fighter-bomber in the area in 1966, he said.

All of the repatriated remains will be analyzed further at JPAC headquarters in Hawaii.

Also during their recent mission, in waters around a kilometer off Nghe An province, investigators recovered wreckage which could be linked to an F-4 which disappeared with two US Navy aviators aboard during a mission in 1966, Ward said.

"We"ve been investigating this case for many, many years," he said, but a breakthrough came when Vietnamese fishermen snagged their nets on some of the debris.

Since the end of US combat involvement in 1973, 655 Americans listed as missing during the war have been repatriated from Vietnam and identified but 1,313 remain unaccounted for, the US says.

Hanoi says about 300,000 Vietnamese soldiers of the liberation forces are also still listed as missing from the war.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will lead a Vietnamese delegation to attend the G20 summit in Canada on June 25-28 as the ASEAN president.

Vietnam will participate for the first time at the international meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors (G20) at the invitation of Canadian Prime Minister and summit chairman Stephen Harper.

Founded in 1999 in the wake of Asian financial crisis in 1997, the G20 first convened in 2008 in Washington D.C. and has since met regularly to discuss key issues relationg to the global economy.

The fourth G20 summit will see the participation of countries like the US, Japan and India as well as members of the European Union.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has met with leaders from Australia, Ethiopia and the Netherlands prior to the ongoing G20 Summit in Canada and discussed ways to strengthen bilateral ties.

During his meeting with Australian Deputy PM Wayne Swan on Saturday, Dung said Australia was one of the largest trade and investment partners of Vietnam.

Trade between the two countries topped US$1.2 billion in the first quarter, up 34 percent from the same period last year, the PM was cited as saying in a report published on the government’s website Sunday.

Swan said his country will continue boosting economic relations with Vietnam and providing aid for infrastructure development.

Dung told Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi that Vietnam wants to promote cooperation with East Africa via Ethiopia. At the same time, Vietnam can become a bridge for Ethiopia to reach out to other Southeast Asian countries, he said.

Also on Saturday, Dung met with his Netherlands counterpart Jan Peter Balkenende to discuss measures to boost bilateral relations. Both leaders expressed satisfaction that trade between the two countries reached $1.7 billion last year despite the economic downturn.

Leaders from the Group of 20 emerging and advanced nations kicked off two days of talks Saturday evening.

PM Dung will join all discussions on global economic issues and hold bilateral meetings with several countries’ leaders. This is the first time Vietnam is taking part in the G20 Summit,  especially as Chair of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations.