Vietnam is challenging China’s dominance of coronavirus diplomacy with the donation of medical supplies to Europe and Southeast Asia and even winning plaudits from US President Donald Trump for a shipment of protective suits.
China is looking to burnish its credentials as a responsible power by sharing expertise and donating masks and other protective equipment to countries seeing a surge in cases and to repair an image dented by the disease that originated there late last year.
Vietnam, despite its lack of resources compared with its giant neighbor, has donated 550,000 face masks to France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain, and 390,000 to Cambodia and 340,000 to Laos.
It has also capitalized on the US government’s purchase of 450,000 made-in-Vietnam DuPont hazmat suits by expediting the shipment of the protective equipment, and using it to highlight its medical donations in public statements and state media.
Trump on Thursday thanked “our friends in Vietnam” for that shipment.
Helped by a mass quarantine and aggressive contact-tracing, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health has recorded 255 cases of COVID-19 and no deaths.
Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, who has been widely praised for his role in leading the effort against the coronavirus, on Monday last week said the outbreak was under control.
The next day, state media showed photographs of European ambassadors receiving boxes of masks from the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a ceremony showcasing the donation.
“Vietnam appears to have gained in confidence by managing to deal successfully with the coronavirus,” said Carl Thayer, an expert in Vietnam’s diplomacy at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.
“While Vietnam is bracing itself against a second wave of the virus, it is also beginning to look ahead to a revival of economic activity,” Thayer said.
Key to spurring that activity is to be a much-anticipated EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, which the Vietnamese National Assembly is to ratify later this month, Thayer said.
There are now 40 firms producing 7 million fabric masks a day in Vietnam, the government said on Thursday.
An additional 5.72 million surgical masks can be produced daily, it said.
However, Vietnam is not the only country keen to show that it is able to offer its support to the world.
Taiwan is donating 16 million masks, mostly to Europe and the US, earning it rare prominence on the world stage.
The government of Taiwan, which like Vietnam has managed to keep its tally of coronavirus cases low, with just six deaths, has not drawn a direct link between its virus diplomacy and that of China, but has been keen to show how “Taiwan can help,” especially as it can make more than 13 million masks a day.
South Korea has also won attention for its campaign against the virus and on Thursday it hosted an online presentation outlining its containment measures for about 400 health officials and experts from 13 countries, including the US, Mexico and Italy.
“We’ve been getting requests from many countries for us to share our know-how,” a South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said.
Vietnam has also not explicitly compared its virus diplomacy to China’s, but it was quick to send supplies to old allies Laos and Cambodia, where its influence has waned in recent years while Beijing’s has surged.
Even though Vietnam needs similar equipment in its own efforts against the virus, it has made donations to neighbors with large Vietnamese communities “on the basis of traditional friendship and relations,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said.
Vietnam could also be pushing the quality of its medical supplies in light of mounting returns to China of faulty equipment, Thayer said.
Vietnam’s biggest listed firm, Vingroup, two weeks ago said it would start producing up to 55,000 ventilators a month, including for foreign markets.
“Vietnam cannot hope to match China in the volume and dollar value of its aid, but Vietnam can provide assistance where it counts,” Thayer said.
Additional reporting by Khanh Vu, Phuong Nguyen, Ben Blanchard and Josh Smith
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