The 15th ASEAN Chiefs of Defense Forces Informal Meeting in Singapore (Photo: VNA)

The Vietnamese delegation to the event was led by Chief of Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army and Deputy Defense Minister Senior Lieutenant General Phan Van Giang.

In his speech, Mr. Giang said for ASEAN to become a close-knitted community and the central force guiding regional security mechanism, the bloc must first of all find practical and effective forms of cooperation and build its own resilience. He said Vietnam proposes that ASEAN members should reach common awareness on the joint responsibility for ASEAN’s common security issues, that the bloc’s security is each member’s security and vice versa. The Deputy Defense Minister said each member should conduct studies, appraisal and forecast, share mutual information in order to select priority fields of cooperation.

The Vietnam People’s Army has sent forces to join common activities within the ASEAN cooperation framework, he said, adding that Vietnam commits to further making contributions to national defense-military collaboration within the ASEAN Defense Ministerial Meeting (ADMM), the ADMM Plus and the ASEAN Regional Forum frameworks.