Received by NSD/FARA Registration Unit 06/04/2021 10:43:23 AM
Received by NSD/FARA Registration Unit 06/04/2021 10:43:23 AM 06/03/21 Thursday This material is distributed by Ghebi LLC on behalf of Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, and additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, District of Columbia. Beijing, Hanoi Agree to Establish Naval Hotline to Resolve Emergencies in South China Sea by Morgan Artvukhina While the two nations have a history of sometimes-violent border disputes, China and Vietnam have emphasized the increasing importance of political and economic cooperation since normalizing relations in 1991. Nonetheless, Washington has tried to pry Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations away from working with China. Chinese and Vietnamese naval leaders have agreed to set up a naval hotline as part of a larger effort to defuse tensions in the South China Sea. This comes after their respective heads of state recently agreed to improve diplomatic and trade relations, too. Rear Admiral Tran Thanh Nghiem, Commander of the Vietnam People’s Navy, held an online talk with Admiral Shen Jinlong, Commander of the People's Liberation Army Navy last week to discuss military relations between the two socialist nations, which are sometimes fraught with dispute and confrontation over competing claims to parts of the South China Sea. According to the Vietnamese defense ministry’s official People’s Army Newspaper, “the two sides agreed to enhance the sharing of information related to situations at sea and issues of mutual concern, study the possibility of setting up a hotline to connect the two navies, and maintain the joint patrol mechanism in the Gulf of Tonkin.” The People’s Army Newspaper further notes that Nghiem hailed previous efforts at improving bilateral defense cooperation and the regular meetings between naval leaders, organization of patrols, and joint drills at sea.
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