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| Indian Air Force Chief Arup Raha ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Shaw Knowledge) |
Source- The Diplomat
Author- Ankit Panda
The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) chief marshall, Arup Raha, arrived in Vietnam on Thursday, where he was received by Vietnam’s minister of defense, General Phùng Quang Thanh. Raha is in Vietnam for a three-day visit where he will meet with a range of senior Vietnamese defense officials and discuss military cooperation between the two countries. Raha’s visit emphasizes the ongoing strategic convergence between Hanoi and New Delhi. Both India and Vietnam have expanded their defense cooperation in recent months, with high-level discussions about security cooperation becoming relatively routine.
Thanh, according to a report in Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre, “hailed Raha’s visit, considering it a boost to the traditional friendship, mutual understanding and trust between the two countries and peoples, particularly in defense ties.” To date, India and Vietnam haven’t focused specifically on air force cooperation, preferring instead to build their security ties around maritime security. The specifics of Raha’s agenda in Hanoi remain obscure for the moment. In broad terms, Vietnamese reports notes that the Indian air chief’s agenda will be broad enough to address strategic security cooperation between the two countries.
In under a year, India and Vietnam have generated considerable energy in moving their strategic partnership forward. Part of this is due to Hanoi’s growing perceptions of a threat from China after last summer’s oil rig stand-off in the South China Sea. As of 2015, Vietnam is also the country coordinator for relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India, a position it will hold for three years, up to 2018 (Carl Thayer has discussed that in more detail in The Diplomat, here). For New Delhi, Vietnam has always been an important node in the country’s long-stated “Look East” policy, which the new Indian government has recast as as the more energetic “Act East” policy.
As I wrote in these pages in May, General Thanh visited India for three days. His time in New Delhi was productive, resulting in a range of memorandums of understanding (MoU) between the two countries. Thanh’s time meeting with Indian officials, including his counterpart, Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar, was focused on maritime security in particular. Thanh’s trip resulted in a Joint Vision Statement, which set out a road map for Indo-Vietnamese cooperation on defense cooperation. Thanh and Parrikar signed an MoU on defense and another on coast guard cooperation. Thanh’s visit carried on the momentum generated during Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s October 2014 visit to ndia. During that visit, New Delhi agreed to supply four patrol vessels to Vietnam (incidentally mirroring similar initiatives to bolster Vietnamese maritime security by Vietnam and the United States).
About the author- Ankit Panda is a foreign affairs analyst, writer, and editor with expertise in international relations, political economy, international security, and crisis diplomacy. He has been an editor at The Diplomat since 2013. His analysis and reports have been widely cited and reprinted, including in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, Reuters blogs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, International Business Times, Lowy Interpreter, Newsweek, RealClearWorld, RealClearDefense, Slate, the Daily Dish, the Daily Beast, Business Insider, and Vice, among others. His articles have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Urdu, Thai, and Russian. Panda has additionally provided expert commentary for the BBC, Voice of America, SiriusXM radio, and CCTV, among others. He hosts and produces a popular podcast on geopolitics for The Diplomat. Panda’s work as a policy researcher has been presented to the European Union, the United States Department of State, the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, among others. His work is widely cited by academics and think-tank researchers. He maintains involvement in track-two exchanges in North America, Europe, India, and Japan. He has lived or worked in India, Belgium, Jordan, France, Malaysia, the United States, Sweden, and Japan, and traveled.
Original link to the article- http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/indian-air-force-chief-visits-vietnam/
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