ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Japan, Vietnam Agree to Bolster Cooperation in Energy, Critical Minerals

While in Hanoi, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae also laid out her revamped vision for the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy.

Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae meets with Vietnam’s President and Communist Party chief To Lam, in Hanoi, Vietnam, May. 2, 2026.

Japan and Vietnam have agreed to boost cooperation across a range of areas, including energy and critical minerals, as both nations seek to navigate an uncertain global economic climate and manage the reverberations of the war in the Middle East.

The announcements came as Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae visited Hanoi over the weekend, part of a regional tour that also includes a stop in Australia.

During her three-day visit, which began on Friday, the Japanese PM held meetings with senior leaders, including Prime Minister Le Minh Hung, National Assembly chair Tran Thanh Man, and President To Lam, who is also the chief of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV).

During their meeting, Takaichi and Hung signed six agreements on issues including infrastructure, agriculture, and space cooperation. The two sides agreed to work more closely on “economic security, including energy, important mineral resources, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and space,” Takaichi said after the meeting.

“The two sides identified economic security as a new priority area for bilateral ‌cooperation,” Takaichi told reporters. “With regard to critical minerals … both sides agreed to strengthen close coordination to ensure stable supplies and reinforce supply chains.”

Hung said that Vietnam is likely to receive crude oil from Japan under its recently announced $10 billion Partnership On Wide Energy and Resources Resilience (POWERR) Asia Initiative, which intends to help its Asian neighbors secure energy supplies to offset the impacts of the conflict in the Middle East.

Japan is also seeking to reduce its reliance on China for rare earths by strengthening critical minerals supply chains. Vietnam has large reserves of rare earth minerals but does not yet possess the capacity to refine them, making it a natural partner for Japan.

In addition to these pledges, Takaichi and Hung agreed to boost their bilateral trade to $60 billion by 2030, up from just over $50 billion in 2025. They also pledged to increase Japanese investment in Vietnam by $5 billion per year, Vietnam News reported.

Perhaps inevitably, the meeting involved discussion of the threats posed by China’s growing maritime clout, a subject of........

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