Foreign Policy Vietnam’s traditional diplomacy during their history of national building and defense for thousands of years, the Vietnamese people have always been confronted with natural calamities and foreign aggressors. Through all ups and downs, Vietnam’s diplomacy has step by step taken shape and developed with a combination of national identities and the quintessence of mankind, giving Vietnam’s diplomacy a distinctive identity.

Information for The Overseas Vietnamese Protection of citizens: On the basis of Vietnamese laws and international conventions that Vietnam accedes to, the Vietnamese State exercises the protection of all legitimate rights of overseas Vietnamese. Diplomatic Representative Missions and Consulate Generals abroad are responsible for exercising the protection of the Vietnamese community living in that country. To ensure that the protection of citizens conform to the host country’s law and international law and practices, the State of Vietnam has acceded to international conventions related to protection of citizens, such as the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In addition, Vietnam has signed Consular Agreement and Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement with a number of countries. This provides the legal basis for the effective protection of the Vietnamese citizens.

CPV Politburo’s Resolution 36/NQ-TU CPV Politburo’s resolution 36/NQ-TW on the affairs related to the overseas Vietnamese and the Government Action Plan issued by Decision No 110/2004/QD-TTg on 23/6/2004 represented a breakthrough and a fundamental transformation in guiding the implementation of the work on overseas Vietnamese. The Resolution points out that the work on overseas Vietnamese is the responsibility of the entire political system and people. To effectively implement this task, the Resolution sets out four major clusters of tasks as follows:

Contribution MADE by the Overseas Vietnamese Nowadays, together with encouraging changes in Vietnam, many positive changes can be seen in the activities of the overseas Vietnamese communities towards the motherland especially in investment and trade.

Current situation and trend The number of Vietnamese people living abroad is about 2.7 million in over 90 countries and territories; over 80% of them are now residing in developed countries.

Overseas Vietnamese The overseas Vietnamese constitute an integral part of the Vietnamese community. For a long time, due to different reasons the Vietnamese people have had to go abroad to earn a living. Therefore, Vietnamese communities have been established in many places where fine national traditions are preserved. The Vietnamese people have integrated well into the society of the host countries.

Global issues Global issues: Deeply aware that the world is now facing a range of global issues that no country can successfully address alone, Vietnam has worked closely with other countries and regional and international organizations to jointly deal with common challenges such as pandemics, poverty, transnational crimes, environment pollution and drug trafficking. Notably, since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Vietnam has actively participated in the joint efforts by various countries to strengthen cooperation to counter terrorism on bilateral and multi-lateral basis with a view to eliminating the root causes of terrorist threats to security and stability of each nation.

VIETNAM IN APEC Vietnam joined APEC in November 1998. Since then Vietnam has actively participated in cooperation programs on free trade and trade-investment facilitation as well as technical cooperation within APEC.

VIETNAM IN ASEM Vietnam has made great contribution to the process of establishing ASEM and is one of the 26 founding members of ASEM in March 1996. Since then, together with other partners in ASEM Vietnam has made efforts to help ASEM process evolve towards the set targets and bring the Asia-Europe ties to a new height with more effective and practical significance for the development of both continents. Vietnam has not only actively implemented agreements reached at four summits in three areas of political dialogue, economic partnership and cooperation in other fields, but also put forth initiatives to diversify cooperation activities in ASEM. Vietnam’s representatives in the Board of Governors of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), Asia-Europe Vision Group, ASEM Economic Taskforce, Expert Group on Investment have made active and practical contribution to ASEM cooperation.

UN membership UN membership: Vietnam officially joined the UN on 20 September 1977. Since then, the relations between Vietnam and the UN have increasingly developed. Vietnam has assumed some positions and run for various posts in the UN agencies including vice-chairman of the General Assembly in 1997, 2000 and 2003. Vietnam became member of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) – the second important agency of the UN after the Security Council in 1998-2000 term, member of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency for 1997-1999 and 2003-2005 terms, member of the Executive Council of the UNDP and UNFPA in 2000-2002 term, and member of the Human Rights Commission (2001-2003) and Social Development Commission (2001-2005).