Experts’ review of the history and present state of Russia-Vietnam cooperation

The article presents the assessments of the leading Russian and Vietnamese experts of the currentstate of Russian-Vietnamese cooperation in various fields. The high level of trust between the leaders of the two countries and regular contacts at the highest level, close cooperation in the international arena and in themilitary and technical field, the spiritual closeness of the peoples of Russia and Vietnam were reminded. Butat the same time, negative moments in the relations between the two countries were also revealed. Scientists drew attention to the fall in the influence of the Russian Federation in the economy, science and culture of Vietnam, the main reasons for this phenomenon were named. Russia has lost its previous positions in most sectors of the Vietnamese economy, due to objective reasons and its own mistakes, and the return of these positions under intense competition in the Vietnamese market is a difficult problem. The tight migration policy of the Russian authorities and the fall of the ruble exchange rate were named among the reasons for the loss of interest in Russia as an object of Vietnamese labor migration. Despite the allocation of the maximum number of quotas for free education for Vietnamese students in Russia, the attractiveness of Russianeducation among Vietnamese youth is far inferior to education in other countries. The main reasons were the problems with employment in Vietnam with Russian language and obtaining high-paid work in Russia after graduation. Low funding of Russian-Vietnamese cooperation in the field of science and technology, as well as culture, poor coverage of the Vietnamese theme in the Russian press were noted. The participants of theRound Table made a number of recommendations with the aim to correct the current situation and expressed the conviction that it is necessary for Russia to inherit the best that existed in the practice of cooperation with Vietnam in the Soviet years.

Russia, Vietnam, USSR, cooperation, politics, economics, science, culture, South China Sea, military-technical cooperation, migration