Blinken visits Hanoi, pledges to take US-Vietnam relations to 'even higher level'

Hanoi: In order to offset China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought Saturday to deepen ties with former adversaries in Hanoi, fifty years after the last US combat soldiers left South Vietnam.

Just two weeks after the 50th anniversary of the US troop pullout that put an end to America’s direct military participation in Vietnam, Blinken and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made a commitment to elevate relations to new heights.

“We now hope to be able to take (relations) to an even higher level,” The Associated Press quoted Blinken as saying.

“This has been a very comprehensive and effective relationship and going forward we will continue to deepen relations,” Chinh told the AP, adding, “We highly appreciate the role and responsibility of the US towards the Asia Pacific, or, in a larger scheme, the Indo-Pacific.”

Earlier, Blinken broke ground on a sprawling new $1.2 billion US embassy compound in the Vietnamese capital, a project the Biden administration hopes will demonstrate its commitment to further improving ties less than 30 years after diplomatic relations were restored in 1995.

Despite concerns over Vietnam’s human rights record, Washington sees Hanoi as a key component of its strategy for the region and has sought to leverage Vietnam’s traditional rivalry with its much larger neighbor China to expand US influence in the region.

Chinh added that Vietnam’s communist government is keen to “further elevate our bilateral ties to a new height.”

Along with a number of China’s smaller neighbors, Vietnam has maritime and territorial disputes with the Chinese in the South China Sea. The US has responded by offering diplomatic support and bolstering military cooperation with the Philippines and the island of Taiwan, which China claims as a renegade province.

Just last month, China threatened “serious consequences” after the US Navy sailed a destroyer around the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea for the second day in a row, in a move Beijing claimed was a violation of its sovereignty and security. The Paracels are occupied by China but also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

US officials are reluctant to describe any visit to Asia in terms of China, preferring instead to discuss the importance of improving bilateral ties. But they frequently speak to broader concerns in the region that are clearly directed at China.

“Washington and Hanoi are almost completely aligned on the kind of Indo-Pacific that we want to see and in which we want to reside: a region that’s free and open, where all countries large and small play by the same rules, where large countries don’t bully small ones, where countries trade freely but also fairly, and where disputes are resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law,” said Dan Kritenbrink, a former US ambassador to Vietnam who is currently the State Department’s top diplomat for East Asia.

And five decades after the Nixon administration pulled US combat forces out of Vietnam on March 29, 1973, Washington is pressing ahead with a push to increase its military relationship with the Vietnamese.

Blinken’s visit comes as the administration grapples with its own record of troop withdrawals and is facing congressional criticism and demands to explain the chaotic US departure from Afghanistan two years ago.

Some have likened it to the Vietnam experience, especially as it relates to the fate of Afghans who supported the 20-year military mission but were left behind when the Biden administration pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021.

With inputs from agencies

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