Vietnam leader to deepen ties with US visit

HANOI — Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, the de-facto top leader of his country, is meeting American President Barack Obama on his visit to the United States this week, as Washington is eager to take relations with Hanoi to a new level.

As the US seeks to woo Vietnam as part of Mr Obama’s “pivot” towards Asia, Hanoi also would not mind the US directing at least a little hard talk at Beijing, which has been aggressively carrying out construction projects in the South China Sea.

“We believe that as one of the world’s leading major powers and a member of the (United Nations Security Council), the US has a great interest and responsibility in maintaining peace and stability in the world, particularly in the Asia-Pacific,” Mr Trong said in a written response to questions by AP.

Mr Trong called his trip to the US tomorrow “a historic visit”, adding that he expected Mr Obama to make his first visit to Vietnam later this year, though the White House has not confirmed the trip.

During his visit, Mr Trong is also expected to attend a dinner reception hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce, the bastion of American free enterprise.

Economic imperatives drove the US and Vietnam to normalise post-war relations 20 years ago, and they remain a major incentive to boost ties.

However, US ambitions to remain a Pacific power hinge in large part on projecting its power by drawing a line with China.

Popular sentiment in Vietnam is generally hostile towards China’s assertive maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea.

But Vietnam, which also has claims to the parts of the disputed waters, is reluctant to antagonise its much-bigger neighbour.

The practical perils of proximity are one matter, but more doctrinaire communists, such as Mr Trong, are uneasy about casting their lot with the democratic West instead of their old communist kin in Beijing.

In Washington’s view, however, wooing a hard-line sceptic such as 71-year-old Mr Trong is key to achieving the two countries’ goals.

While Mr Trong’s trip is a sign of how far the US-Vietnam relationship has come in the 40 years since the end of the war, it does not mean an alliance is in the works, said Mr Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

“(Vietnam wants) to have eggs in the American basket to balance off what they’ve got in the Chinese basket, all in the service of Vietnam’s interest and strategic vision,” he said.

Mr Trong emphasised the importance of Vietnam’s relationship with the US.

“Vietnam would like to be a friend and reliable partner of all countries in the world,” he wrote in his response. “In this effort, we attach great importance to the relations with the US as one of the most important partners in our foreign policy.”

What Washington has to offer Hanoi are economic benefits, particularly under the yet-to-be finalised multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership. It can point to a solid track record: Since the normalisation of ties in 1995, annual trade between the US and Vietnam has increased from less than US$500 million (S$673 million) to US$35 billion last year.

Vietnam has now surpassed Malaysia and Thailand as South-east Asia’s top exporter of merchandise to the US.

“(Mr Trong’s visit) is part of the discussion in Hanoi about the nation’s future ... how to balance the economic and political links with China against the lure of US markets and security assurances,” said Mr Frank Jannuzi, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer who works at the Washington-based Mansfield Foundation, which aims to promote US-Asia relations. AP