Delegates at the opening ceremony of PACC-10
The two meetings were themed “Uniting efforts: Building civilian-military partnership in armies, addressing non-traditional security challenges”.
At the plenary sessions of the meetings, scholars and military experts emphasized that security threats on the globe, especially in the Pacific region, are not simply traditional or non-traditional. The boundary to classify civilian-military security threats has been unclear. Besides, climate change, rapid technology development, growing gaps between the rich and the poor, urbanization and uncontrollable migration have spawned transnational security issues, such as terrorism, cyber-security, migration, natural disasters, and large-scale outbreaks of infectious diseases.
All of these challenges have required militaries of the world to join efforts to address them.
During the meetings, delegates voiced several solutions, including enhanced training cooperation, raised national emergency response capabilities, information and experience sharing, building a joint coordination mechanism on urgent issues and post-calamity re-establishment, as well as building a coordination mechanism among civilian-military agencies.
The participation of the Vietnamese Defense Ministry delegation in PACC-10 and PAMS-41 is a confirmation of the active, proactive and responsible role of Vietnam towards international and regional issues, showing Vietnam’s goodwill in reinforcing its friendly, cooperative ties and experience-sharing with other countries to settle joint security challenges, so as to build trust to boost cooperation for peace and development in the region and the world.
Through the meetings, Vietnam wants to demonstrate its standpoints on security and development issues of common concerns in the region and the world and on the fight to protect national interests.
Vietnam’s engagement in the meetings also shows Vietnam’s support for the host country, the Republic of Korea, and the co-organizer, the US, in enhancing cooperation in the multilateral framework in the region. It is also part of preparations of Vietnam ahead PAMS-42 as a host in 2018.
On the sidelines of PACC-10 and PAMS-41, Lieutenant General Pham Hong Huong had separate bilateral meetings with head delegates of the Republic of Korea, Japan, China and the US.
During the meetings, General Huong stressed that the ties between Vietnam and these countries have been developing in an intensive manner with practical outcomes in fields of politics, economy and culture.
General Huong also added that due attention has been paid to the defense ties among them, resulting in various achievements in high-level delegation exchanges, training, defense policy dialogues, participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations, overcoming war aftermath, cyber-security and search and rescue.
General Huong expressed his belief that the relationship between Vietnam and these countries and other countries in the region and the world will develop stronger in line with their people’s expectation and common benefits, contributing to maintaining peace, stability, and development in each country and in Asia-Pacific region.
By Huy Manh Ngoc from Seoul, the Republic of Korea
Translated by Mai Huong