Sydney (VNA) - Vietnam’s chairmanship has ensured ASEAN has retained itsability to effectively channel regional cooperation, according to a senioranalyst from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)’s defenceand strategy programme.

In her articlerecently published at asialink.unimelb.edu.au, Dr. Le Thu Huong said that against all odds, Vietnam has concluded itschairmanship of ASEAN with the signing of the world’s largest trade agreement -the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP),contributing to reasserting ASEAN’s centrality in theeconomic architecture of East Asia.

A great deal of ASEAN’s success this year can be attributed to Vietnam’sability to keep the focus on critical bread and butter issues.

The article highlighted Vietnam’s contributions to ASEAN in various fields, fromtraditional security and maritime-related issues to the economic domain, aswell as COVID-19 recovery plans, and innovation for a post-pandemic world.

Vietnam has been among the strongest supporters of FTA networks, expanding thenumber of its own bilateral agreements, but also promoting connections to twoof its top investors – the Republic of Korea and Japan.

Vietnam’s successful battle with COVID-19 within its borders has been critical for itsleadership of ASEAN this year, the article said, adding that the country hasasserted strong leadership in a challenging geopolitical environment.

While Vietnam’s chairmanship has been instrumental in steering ASEAN throughchallenging times for the region’s economic and health security, it is thedevelopmental agenda that can truly unite this diverse group, it noted.

According to the article, Vietnam also hosted the ASEAN-United Nationsdialogue, which acquired special prominence given the setbacks COVID has causedto efforts to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

With most economies in the region expected to contract, any conversation abouta post-COVID recovery needs to be a collective one.

ASEAN’s continuous efforts to sustain the cooperation framework in spite of thegeopolitical climate, are both pragmatic and useful, it said./.