Can Vietnam Rally the Big UN Powers to Stop More Bloodshed in Myanmar?

Viet · Apr 25, 2021

Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy of Vietnam posing in his country’s mission office near the United Nations in New York City, March 2021. Vietnam leads the Security Council this month as rotating president. The crisis in Myanmar will be further scrutinized in the Council, as it has been since the Feb. 1 coup. JOHN PENNEY

When Vietnam started its term as an elected member of the United Nations Security Council in January 2020, it also had to take on the role of the monthly rotating president. Back then, it sold itself as a bridge builder among the Council’s major powers.

Vietnam’s second presidency, which started on April 1, is squeezed between the United States’ in March and China’s in May. These powers are not only foes at the moment, but they also have starkly different approaches to the crisis in Myanmar, with violence spiking in the Southeast Asian country after the military seized power on Feb.1. Can Vietnam help Washington and Beijing find common ground this month on how to deal with the continuing military crackdowns in Myanmar?

“We try to make everyone happy, so that we are also happy — the only way for the small and medium [size] country like Vietnam to live in this very changing and challenging world,” Dang Dinh Quy, the permanent representative of Vietnam to the UN, told PassBlue on March 24.

While April is an opportunity for Vietnam, a regional partner of Myanmar, to ease the increasing tensions there between the military and the protesters, it’s unclear how the Security Council could make a difference. Members have already issued three statements on the situation, with little results. International human-rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have called for sanctions and arms embargoes to be imposed by the Council, but Vietnam is unlikely to support such steps, as its priority is engagement rather than confrontation with the Myanmar military regime.

So what else could the Council do to get the military to reverse course? “I haven’t had anything clear in my mind,” Ambassador Dang told PassBlue. “But we need engagement with every party involved in Myanmar, so we don’t make anyone there feel they’re isolated. It doesn’t help.”

He clarified Vietnam’s stance on possibly imposing UN sanctions, which China strongly opposes, as “we do not support unilateral sanctions, but as a member of the Security Council, and as members of UN family, we follow all the decisions made by the United Nations Security Council, as long as it’s effective and as long as it’s not exerting any negative impact on the lives of the people and on the humanitarian situation of the country concerned.”

Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran, a global fellow in the Asia Program at the Wilson Center in Washington, told PassBlue: “I think Vietnam is going to play an important role in trying to figure out how if we need certain outcomes, if we need to get a resolution, if we need to hold a special meeting, if we need to issue any statements, any conversations on this, how do we actually do it.”

“The second thing,” he added, “I would watch for is the changing balance of power between the permanent members and the nonpermanent members. I think one of the things that you’re seeing is Vietnam has tried to play this bridging role, not just with the P5, but also some of the other members.” (The “P5” refers to the permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.)

Ambassador Dang said on April 5, during a World Federation of United Nations Associations’ meeting with civil society, that an Arria-style debate on Myanmar would be held by the Security Council on April 9, enabling the wider UN membership to speak on the topic.

Myanmar could also come up in some of Vietnam’s signature events, such as the debate on the cooperation between the UN and regional and subregional organizations, including Asean, on April 19. “I think that it is up to the member states to speak on the issue,” Dang said. “And also we depend on the situation on the ground from now until the 19th.” (Vietnam is a member of Asean.)

Other signature events for the month are mine actions and sustaining peace on April 8 as well as a debate on April 27 on the protection of “indispensable civilian objects” in armed conflict, which will be chaired by Vietnam’s foreign affairs minister, Phạm Bình Minh. Another important debate, on sexual violence in armed conflict, will be held on April 14. Most Council meetings will be held virtually this month, the ambassador said.

Each month, PassBlue profiles UN ambassadors as they assume the Council presidency. To hear more details about Vietnam’s goals in April, with insights from Dr. Parameswaran from the Wilson Center as well as from Kyle Springer, a senior analyst at the Perth USAsia Center in Australia, download the latest episode of PassBlue’s podcast, UN-Scripted, on SoundCloud, Google Podcasts, Patreon, iHeart Radio or Amazon Prime Music.(Excerpts of the podcast interview are below.) The ambassador also briefed the media on April 1.