A day of pomp, pageantry for PM
The red carpet has been rolled out, the roads emptied and flags raised. But even when you’re an adored world leader, sometimes they’ll still mistake New Zealand for Australia.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern began the second leg of an eightday trip though Southeast Asia on Monday, landing in Hanoi, Vietnam to shake hands with top-ranking communist leaders.
Away from the global spotlight and firm words exchanged at the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the weekend, Ardern has been greeted with pomp and pageantry – long motorcades, military brass bands, flag-waving crowds, and hordes of state-run media following her every footstep.
Vietnam put on a show and, in effect, put Ardern on show. While for Ardern the trip is a trade mission between two big summits, for the Vietnamese elite it’s been a large photo opportunity.
It was the trade-off for New Zealand getting a trade mission, an opportunity for Ardern to open doors for New Zealand businesses in a growing export market. Ardern spent Monday afternoon travelling between a series of opulent government buildings within less than a square kilometre in central Hanoi for a string of meetings.
First it was to the marble mausoleum in which Ho Chi Minh, communist Vietnam’s founding father, is entombed, to place an oversized wreath as bayonetwielding soldiers stood by.
The motorcade then travelled hundreds of metres to the yellow, colonial-era presidential palace, where Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and a young girl holding a bouquet of flowers welcomed Ardern and a delegation that included Trade Minister Damien O’Connor.
Another marching band played as Ardern passed a crowd of children waving Vietnamese and New Zealand flags, inspected a military guard, and then – instead of entering the palace – was walked along a street lined with flag-waving folk to the Government Office.
Around every corner was another press pack, furiously snapping. Ardern and Chinh held a bilateral meeting, and the pair watched the signing of new civil aviation and education co-operation agreements.
‘‘I’m very happy to note the strategic partnership between Vietnam and New Zealand is growing along very a positive trajectory. Bilateral trade is constantly increasing,’’ Chinh said at a press conference afterward, according to a translator.
Both wanted the $2.3 billion NZD New Zealand-Vietnam annual trading relationship to reach $3.2b NZD, or the $2b USD mark.
Ardern then walked across the road at the communist party’s headquarters. In a room where cellphone signals were blocked, lined with red velvet chairs and overlooked by a large golden bust of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam’s most powerful leader shuffled in.
The aged party secretary, Nguyen Phu´ Trong, spoke quietly with Ardern as women crouched behind the chair of each, translating.
Back to the palace across road, President Nguyen Xuān Phu´c spoke to much of the same talking points as the leaders before him. But he added a personal touch.
Ardern last visited Vietnam in 2017, when she was a new prime minister. The president also visited New Zealand the following year.
‘‘How is your daughter?’’ he asked at the end of his remarks.
Ardern, in response, quipped that she was pregnant when they met in 2017, but no-one knew. He
gave her a handful of gifts, including two for her daughter Neve. Then another journey back up the road to Vietnam’s National Assembly, the country’s rubberstamp parliament.
The assembly’s chairman, Vuong Dı`nh Hue was waiting, and in another room with Ho Chi Minh looking over Ardern again spoke of a growing relationship. Later, Ardern would have a formal dinner with Chinh, visit Ho Chi Minh’s stilt house, then be taken on a ‘‘fruit expedition’’ to cut a pomelo from a tree.
Despite the indications of a relationship heading in the right direction, there was of course an amusing blip.
As Ardern and Chinh watched officials sign new agreements between New Zealand and Vietnam, and announcer called: ‘‘Thank you. The signing ceremony of legal documents on cooperation between Vietnam and Australia has come to an end.’’