The Coast Guard Reconnaissance Unit No.2 under the Vietnam Coast Guard’s Command is tasked with grasping and assessing the situation relating to the sea from Cu Lao Xanh (Binh Dinh province) to Ha Tien (Kien Giang province), including the Truong Sa archipelago, the DKI oil platform, and the Gulf of Thailand, and providing information for the Party Committee and Command of the Vietnam Coast Guard (VCG) to give advice to the Party and the State on formulating and implementing policies and laws to safeguard the country’s sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdictions and ensure the observance of the country’s law and international law and agreements to which Vietnam is a signatory. It is also assigned to directly reconnoitre, detect, and combat violations of law, such as national security crime, smuggling, and trade fraud in the sea of its responsibility. Over the years, under the direct leadership and direction of the VCG’s Party Committee and Command, the Unit has promoted the VCG’s tradition of “being resolute and courageous, surmounting difficulties, ensuring unity and coordination, and strictly maintaining law,” successfully fulfilled its function and task, and contributed to defending the Homeland’s seas and islands. With its achievements, the Unit has been given many noble rewards by the Prime Minister, the Ministry of National Defence, and the VCG’s Command.

However, the complex developments in violation of sovereignty and law and crime with the increasingly foxy artifices have imposed more task requirements on the Unit. Therefore, the Unit’s Party Committee and Command have taken measures synchronously, drastically to fulfil the task, with a focus on raising the synergy as a top priority.

First of all, concentrate on improving the quality of training and especially the professional competence. The Unit’s Party Committee and Command have determined to keep executing the Resolution 397-NQ/ĐU by the VCG’s Party Committee on “raising the quality of training in the period of 2013-2020 and beyond” under the motto of “basics, practicality, and thorough grasp.” Significance has been attached to providing synchronous and intensive training and considering reconnaissance, sovereignty protection, and crime prevention and combat as the target of training. However, cadres and employees of the Unit have been trained and deployed from various sources; therefore, their professional competence has not been equal, some of them have yet to undergo any maritime and legal training course. Against that backdrop, the Unit has developed training programmes relevant to each group of troops in a “basic, intensive, compact, modern” manner, while actively improving its cadres’ foreign language and legal knowledge in general, its scout employees’ professional competence in particular. In addition to general training, the Unit has dispatched its technical employees to attend refresher courses on exploiting, maintaining, and preserving specialised modern weapons and equipment. At the same time, it has encouraged all soldiers to self-study and enhance their information technology and foreign language knowledge to well perform their missions.

Inspecting a vessel within the sea of the Unit’s responsibility

In order that the Unit would grasp the situation more comprehensively, “quickly, and thoroughly” and “correctly, sufficiently identify opponents,” it has placed emphasis on raising the quality of its reconnaissance work, “using field reconnaissance as the basis and technical reconnaissance as the spearhead,” and combining technical reconnaissance with other measures to verify, inspect, and assess sources of information quickly and accurately. It has exchanged information with the Navy, the Border Guard Force and the Public Security Force within provinces to grasp the situation in the air, at sea, and on the ground, opportunely detect violations of political security and sovereignty as well as operations by foreign military, law enforcement, fishing, and probing vessels, collect information, make overviews and specialised reports, and give advice to higher echelons on effectively handling situations, avoiding passivity, and maintaining security and safety in the sea of its responsibility. Regarding crime prevention and control in the field, importance has been attached to improving capability in basic investigation, particularly in the key areas, selecting collaborators, and building a network of informants. The Unit has strictly executed the Circular 15/2019/TT-BQP, dated February 11^th, 2019 by the Ministry of National Defence on the VCG’s regulations and procedures for patrol and control. It has closely cooperated with other forces in detecting and handing over many foreign-related, large-scale, well-organised smuggling cases and trade frauds to our competent offices for settlement. It has also actively gathered and provided a lot of pieces of valuable information for competent forces to combat illegal immigration, thereby making contributions to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic from the sea.

Second, step up political education and ideological management as the basis for raising the Unit’s synergy and combat power. The Unit has renewed the contents, forms, and methods of political education relevant to each group of troops, while combining political education with law propagation, dissemination, and education as well as ideological management and orientation. Emphasis has been placed on rendering cadres and soldiers fully aware of higher echelons’ resolutions and directives, especially the 11^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.8 on “the Strategy to defend the Homeland in the new situation” and the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution 36-NQ/TW, dated October 22^nd, 2018 on “the Strategy for the sustainable development of Vietnam’s marine economy towards 2030, with a vision towards 2045.” Cadres and soldiers have also been educated to distinguish between “partners and opponents.” At the same time, the Unit has stepped up the Determination to Win Emulation Movement and the Campaign titled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period as an incentive to its task performance. Due attention has been paid to managing and orientating troops’ ideology, well performing the internal political protection work, and preventing cadres and soldiers from abetting or shielding violations of law. The Unit has also strictly implemented the Regulation on Democracy at grass-roots level, built a united, disciplined cultural environment, and ensured policies for its staff members and their families. As a result, cadres and soldiers have always kept their mind on their work, shown their political zeal and determination to overcome all difficulties, readily undertaken and successfully fulfilled all missions in any situation.

Third, enhance the leadership and combativeness of party organisations and the quality of cadres and party members. The Unit’s Party Committee and Command have focused on consolidating party organisations’ structure and raising the quality of their meetings at all levels, particularly at party cells. The Unit’s Party Committee has required party organisations to abide by the principles of democratic centralism, collective leadership and individual accountability, promote democracy and collective knowledge, maintain regulations on study and meeting, and improve the quality of issuing and realising resolutions, especially for new, hard missions in a close, effective fashion. It has aligned the building of pure, strong party organisations with the construction of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units. It has also effectively implemented the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.4 on the Party building and rectification in tandem with the Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW and the Central Military Commission Standing Board’s Directive 87-CT/QUTW on “studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle,” and the Directive of the VCG Command on the “four-good, four-no, four-combat” movement in order to opportunely combat the degradation in political ideology, morality and lifestyle as well as “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” from within. Great value has been attached to encouraging the vanguard, exemplary role of cadres and party members in raising the synergy and combat strength. Besides, annual cadre evaluation has been carried out closely as the basis for personnel planning, deployment and appointment, thereby contributing to building a contingent of cadres capable of meeting the task requirements in the new situation.

Fourth, synchronously take measures to build a firm posture of people’s hearts and minds.” The Unit’s Party Committee and Command have cooperated with localities and politico-socio organisations in conducting the work of propagation to arouse national pride and patriotism among the people,  consolidate their faith in the Party’s leadership, the State’s management, and the armed forces, and encourage them to work with functional forces in the defence of sea and island sovereignty. With specific deeds, the Unit has directly improved the people’s material and mental life. It has taken part in programmes and movements, such as “the VCG accompanies fishermen,” “the VCG joins hands in cleaning the environment,” “the VCG joins hands for the poor  - no one will be left behind,” and “gratitude,” thus bolstering the image of “Uncle Ho’s solders” in the people’s hearts and minds. Notably, in 2019, the VCG’s Command assigned it to be the pilot unit in the mass mobilisation movement titled “the VCG with the ethnic minority and religious people” in Phu Huu commune, Nhon Trach district, Dong Nai province. As a result, its mass mobilisation quality has been unceasingly improved, while its close-knit bond with the people in the stationed area has been cemented as the basis for fostering socio-economic development, consolidating defence and security, building a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds,” and making the all-people national defence and the people’s security increasingly strong.

Bringing into play its good results and valuable experience, the Coast Guard Reconnaissance Unit No.2 will strive to further enhance its synergy and combat power and successfully fulfil its assigned task to build a “compact, strong, professional,” modern Coast Guard Reconnaissance Force capable of defending the Homeland’s sacred sovereignty over seas and islands.

Col. NGUYEN TU PHONG, Commander of the Unit