VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam has no other choice than to develop
together with China.
But what to do to develop next to China? First of all, it needs to
learn the way of looking into the times of Chinese people, and then it needs to
learn the way of doing business with clear methodologies and strategies, said
Nguyen Dinh Luong.

Nguyen
Dinh Luong was former Head of the Vietnamese negotiation team for the
Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement. He believes that it is necessary to
analyze Chinese development in the context of globalization and think about
what Vietnam
should do.

Chinese economy has
obtained splendid development over the last decade. The nation has become the
main production base of the world and it has surpassed many other economies to
rise to higher rankings in the world. What are your feelings about the
development?

Chinese
people, for thousands of years, have been following an aspiration of forcing
the whole world to bow to the Chinese
emperors. The people who have been appointed to the high posts in the Chinese
leadership are all excellent people with long term visions. As for the people,
the highest benefit is the development of Chinese country. They well understand
that economic globalization is an opportunity to develop the country.

They know how to take full advantage of the
occasion to develop. They know what to do to attract big international
investors from all over the world to China to set up production bases
and then to reach out to neighboring areas. They make the benefits of the world
fasten with China’s
benefits. They have turned the world into a place that consumes Chinese goods.
They have been attracting tens of thousands of rich Chinese people all over the
world, especially from Taiwan
to the mainland. Chinese people have set foot all over the world.

Do you mean that China will
continue developing?

China will keep
developing. Though some people feel happy about the development of China, and some others fear the development, China will
still keep developing.

Chinese
people now have everything to develop, including strength, knowledge and
cleverness to follow its path of development and get ready to adjust strategies
for its development.

Chinese
people say that they are building up a market economy under Chinese model.

Local newspapers
recently have been discussing the impacts of the rise of China on the
global economy. The newspapers have quoted some experts as saying that Vietnam’s
economy has been put under the influence of Chinese economy. Vietnam has been witnessing the high trade
deficit in the trade with China
for many years. Meanwhile, Chinese enterprises have been acting as the EPC
contractors in many Vietnamese invested projects. What are your comments about
this and what should we do to improve the situation?

Chinese
cheap products have been flooding all the entire world, not only in Vietnam.
Chinese enterprises win the bids to become the contractors of many projects all
over the world, not only in Vietnam

Vietnam and China are
neighboring countries and cultural similarities also make Vietnamese and
Chinese people close to each other. Chinese people understand Vietnamese
people, and therefore they have come to every street corner in Vietnam.

We
have no other choice than to develop together with China.

So what should we do
in order to develop together with China and avoid the heavy reliance
on the economy?

We
need to learn from China,
but this does not mean that we have to do all the things that China has done.
We should analyze the good and the bad and we should consider applying the
theories that fit Vietnamese circumstances.

The
State has spent a lot of money to send officials to China to conduct research and
surveys. However, it is regrettable that no one has provided a review about
what Vietnam has learned and
what Vietnam
should do.

What can we learn
from China?

I
have never made a working visit to China, but I believe that there are
many things that we can learn. First of all, we can learn the way of looking
into the times, and then we learn the way of doing business with clear
methodologies and strategies.

Tran
Dong