In the wake of Chinese threat to all its bordering nations including Vietnam, US President Joe Biden made a bold statement by visiting Vietnam. Notably, China has been trying to push its boundaries.
Biden will hold talks on trade and closer diplomatic relations.
As Biden stepped into Vietnam, it is a different world from when the two countries were at war in 1969.
Biden is supposed to meet the senior-most leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam – the political organisation that was once an enemy – and is expected to sign agreements that will take the US-Vietnam relations to a new height.
“This visit is a remarkable step in the strengthening of our diplomatic ties,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said ahead of the visit.
“It reflects the leading role that Vietnam will play in our growing network of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific,” Sullivan said.
He said that both nations had struggled to move past the “painful shared legacy” of the conflict, which claimed the lives of millions of Vietnamese and 58,000 US servicemen.
While trade and diplomatic ties will be the main topics of the meeting between Biden and Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who is the most influential person in Vietnam, Washington also has its sights set on China, which is increasingly flexing its economic and military muscles in the Asia Pacific region.
China will be closely observing Biden’s visit as well, attempting to determine whether Vietnam’s warming up to the US undermines Beijing’s sway in Hanoi or changes Beijing’s strategic objectives with its southern neighbour.
According to Le Hong Hiep, senior fellow and coordinator of the Vietnam Studies Programme at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, Vietnam and the US have already signed a “comprehensive partnership,” and speculation has focused on the elevation of relations to the highest level of a “comprehensive strategic partnership” – the most senior level in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy.