Acceptance of national-level science and technology project: "Vietnam's multilateral diplomacy: Current situation, problems, and solutions"

On August 21st, 2019, at the Central Theoretical Council office, the Central Theoretical Council and the Ministry of Science and Technology, a council meeting to evaluate and accept the national science and technology topic: "Vietnam's multilateral diplomacy: Current situation, problems, and solutions" Code: KX.04.27 / 16-20 is held. The project is under the National Key Science and Technology Program "Scientific research on political theory period 2016-2020” chaired by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The subject manager is Assoc. Dr. Dang Dinh Quy, Head of the Vietnam Delegation to the United Nations; Dr. Dang Cam Tu is the scientific secretary and the main implementing members include Assoc. Dr. Nguyen Vu Tung, Dr. Do Thanh Hai, Dr. Ha Anh Tuan, Dr. Do Thi Thuy, Dr. To Minh Thu; and the main collaborators, Ma. Nguyen Nguyet Nga, Ma. Le Thi Hong Van, Ma. Nguyen Huong Tra, Ma. Thanh Tung Nguyen.

The topic’s Objectives and tasks:

- Clarify the theoretical basis, content, position, and role of multilateral diplomacy (also used through other terms such as multilateral foreign affairs, multilateralism, multilateral process ...) in foreign affairs of Vietnam, thereby contributing to perfecting the theory of Vietnamese diplomacy in general and Vietnamese multilateral diplomacy in particular.

- Clarify the development and movement of multilateral diplomacy in modern international relations, from both the foreign policy perspective of the countries and the advocacy of international and regional multilateral organizations;

- Comprehensively assess the multilateral external relations implementation process in our country since the Doi Moi period, especially in the past 10 years;

- Clarify the problems posed to Vietnam's multilateral diplomacy in the movement of the world and regional situation from now to 2030;

- Propose orientations and solutions to improve the efficiency of Vietnam's multilateral diplomacy in the medium and long term.

To achieve the above goals, the topic has focused on solving the following tasks:

- Clarify the theoretical basis of multilateral foreign relations on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh's thought, and international relations theories in the context when globalization and regionalization process continues to develop extensively and widely ;

- Study the international experience in multilateral foreign policy implementation in order to draw practical foundations and lessons about multilateral external relations for Vietnam;

- Clarify our Party's thinking development process on multilateral foreign affairs through the National Party Congress from 1986 up to now, thereby contribute to building a theoretical framework of Vietnam on multilateral foreign relations;

- Assess comprehensively and overall the process of implementing multilateral foreign relations of Vietnam from 1986 up to now, especially Vietnam's participation in the United Nations, ASEAN, and other multilateral cooperation mechanisms at the global, regional and inter-regional level;

- Identify and forecast major trends of the 21st-century multilateral diplomacy (in terms of structure, participants/subjects, content, form, ...) in the movement of the global and regional situation for the medium and long term, thereby identify new requirements and problems posed to Vietnam's multilateral diplomacy, both subjectively and objectively, from now to 2030;

- Forecast the most fundamental issues on national development goals and tasks in the first decades of the twenty-first century, serving as a basis for general foreign policy, principles, orientations, and the roadmap for Vietnam's multilateral foreign relations.

- Clarify opportunities and challenges as well as problems posed for the process of multilateral foreign relations of Vietnam in the coming time;

- Interpret and clarify the concept and content of Vietnam's policy on enhancing multilateral foreign relations in the coming time;

- Propose a set of viewpoints on Vietnam's goal, content, scope, principles, orientation, roadmap, priorities and measures to implement multilateral external relations in the medium and long term;

- Propose the content of multilateral diplomacy in the draft documents submitted to the XIII National Party Congress.

The topic implementation time:

Start from January 2017 - End of August 2019

Total cost for implementing the topic:

2900 million VND (in the form of contractual spending to end products). In which, expenses for scientific labor is 2125 million VND and expenses for seminars, scientific seminars, surveys, reference books, general management is 775 million VND.

The products of the topic have been accepted, assessed, and recognized by competent authorities:

The chairman of the Acceptance Council, Prof. Dr. Phung Huu Phu; standing vice chairman of Central Theoretical Council, vice chairman of the council, Assoc. Prof. Bui Nhat Quang and 07 professors and associate professors in the council; representatives of the Ministry of Science and Technology; the KX04/16-20 program board of directors; Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam; and members of the subjects management board participated in the acceptance.

The Acceptance Council highly appreciates the serious research process of the topic. Topic ensures quantity, volume, quality; the topic’s products outperformed the order; synthesis reports, summary reports, reports of recommendations and reports on professional research content of the topic have shown the research results related to the research task; the content structure of the report has scientific logical style, scientific arguments with specific theoretical and practical basis to answer the research problems posed; data, documents are representative, reliable, authentic, up to date’. The topic also contributes to the training of 01 doctor and 12 masters. The research results are also shown through 01 monograph, 03 articles published in international journals, 01 international seminar, 02 national seminars, 04 scientific seminars, 26 domestic articles. The published works of the topic are certified in writing by the using agency; The topic is completed 2 months early.

Funds for the topic are properly used according to the regulations on the allocated funding source, settling funds actually spent according to the main expenditure contents, the timely settlement of the funding to the owners of professional content according to the progress request of the topic. The total saving cost of the topic is 102 million VND.

After evaluating the successful and limited sides of the topic, the Acceptance Council conducts voting. The result of the topic is 9/9 votes excellent. The Council requests the management board of the topic to receive comments from the Council and continue to improve the topic according to the Regulations./.