4th NMF-VIETNAM WORKSHOP ON HOLISTIC MARITIME-SECURITY
NMF-VIETNAM WORKSHOP ON HOLISTIC MARITIME-SECURITY
“DYADIC MARITIME PRACTICALITIES”
Jointly organised by
The National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi, India
&
The Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, New Delhi, India
CONCEPT NOTE
In their ongoing endeavour to enhance holistic maritime security, the National Maritime Foundation (NMF) and the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in India have been focussing their joint attention upon a variety of constituents of maritime engagement — physical, procedural, legal, cultural, and digital. Given the geographic location of India and Vietnam, the similarity of their respective developmental trajectories, their shared national, bilateral, and regional aspiration for security, stability, sustainable growth, peace, and prosperity, the mutually beneficial opportunities that are provided to each by the commonality of the maritime domain, as also the markedly similar challenges that are faced by them, engagement processes that meaningfully contribute to holistic bilateral and regional security in the maritime domain are well recognised both nations as being critical to the economic and societal wellbeing of their respective peoples.
The first two maritime security workshops of the ongoing series (held on 23 April 2019 and 09 September 2019) had, respectively, identified maritime convergences between India and Vietnam, and undertaken a broad review of the vulnerability of maritime zones and their impact on regional stability and economic development. After patiently enduring a two-year interregnum imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the third workshop (held on 22 September 2022) moved into the more challenging level of specifics and brought together practitioners as well policymakers from both countries to discuss the details of shipping connectivity and way-ahead options that could enhance shipping and port connectivity. As had been hoped, the deliberations were, indeed, able to develop a degree of specificity that was capable of meaningfully informing concerned stakeholders from the two governments, as well from ports and shipping companies, of policy changes and changes in extant business practices that needed to be brought about by government and industry alike.
The fourth workshop, scheduled at the NMF, New Delhi, on 18 and 19 April 2023, will be formatted as a ‘closed-door’ dialogue, and will candidly examine relevant details of current and anticipated maritime developments that are shaping and driving geopolitics within the Indo-Pacific in general and the India-Vietnam dyad in particular. It will also realistically identify such fields and measures as would best promote maritime cooperation and connectivity between India and Vietnam, and explore mechanisms of cooperation between the NMF and the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV) with a view to finalizing the draft MOU between them.
This workshop is also a manifestation of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Indian and Vietnam. As in earlier editions, the deliberations of the fourth workshop will seek to avoid the trap of India-Vietnam bilateral maritime engagements becoming hostage to confrontational geopolitics. Instead, our joint endeavour will remain the advancement a common understanding of the manner and means by which enhanced India-Vietnam maritime engagement could accelerate bilateral maritime growth, while promoting regional stability and security under the rubric of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific, and Vietnam’s Strategy on Sustainable Blue Economic Development toward 2030.
The workshop will be run from 10:30 to 17:30 h (IST) on Tuesday, 18 April 2023, with its professional segment comprising three panel-discussions:
Panel 1 will address new developments in the Indo-Pacific related to maritime security and connectivity affecting India and Vietnam and will examine the activities and policies of major powers, including but not limited to AUKUS, the QUAD, ASEAN, etc.)
Panel 2 will debate measures to promote maritime enhanced maritime engagement between India and Vietnam, with special focus upon the contours of Vietnam’s possible participation in the IPOI, the enhancement of common maritime domain awareness, the challenges of lawfare, and measures to improve maritime connectivity involving ports, ships, and logistics.
Panel 3 will concentrate upon mechanisms, measures, and activities that would promote sustained and mutually beneficial cooperation between the NMF and the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and how the two institutions might best act to jointly shape a joint India-Vietnam narrative across the Indo-Pacific. The panel will culminate with the finalisation of the contours of a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the NMF and the DAV, which would be signed at an appropriate time in the near future.
The workshop will also incorporate a brief introductory session and a fuller summative session.
Please click here for Programme Details: Click Here
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