Vietnam publishes its first White Paper in a decade
Vietnam issued its much-anticipated defence White Paper on 25 November, the fourth such document to be published since the inaugural edition in 1998 and a full decade since the most recent one. However, non-Vietnamese readers had to wait till 10 December for the English version to appear on the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defence’s website.
The White Paper is subdivided into three sections covering the strategic context, framework for defence policy, and development of the Vietnam Peoples Armed Forces (VPA).
Its defence policy is summarised as ‘a national defensive strategy to protect the country from afar and to prepare to
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