US President Barack Obama’s official visit to Vietnam from May 23-25 is expected to usher in a new period of more rapid and stronger development in relations between the two countries.
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Hiebert and Nguyen added that scepticism remained on Capitol Hill as to whether the Vietnamese would remain committed to improved human rights, a condition of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which Vietnam is a member of, and a likely key component of future arms sales.
That will force Obama into a delicate balancing act as he tries to boost economic and military ties to the former enemy while not appearing to accept Vietnam’s actions on human rights. “This change will ensure that Vietnam has access to the equipment it needs to defend itself and removes a lingering vestige of the Cold War”.
Forty-one years after the end of one of the most divisive wars in American history, experts say ties between the USA and Vietnam have never been closer.
In Hanoi, he will hold talks on lifting a Vietnam arms embargo.
U.S. President Barack Obama receives flowers as he arrives at Noibai International Airport in Hanoi, Vietnam on May 22, 2016. He said there was enormous bilateral trade growth potential.
“It is no coincidence that the changes in U.S. policy have been followed by some south-east Asian countries making changes to their policies on the South China Sea issue”, Mr Xu Bu wrote in Singapore’s Straits Times. Indeed, Vietnam had mostly sought to appease China since a brief and bloody war between the countries in 1979, and had shrugged off a series of provocations as China sought in recent years to assert its dominance over the South China Sea, which extends the length of Vietnam’s 2,000-mile coast.
Michael Froman, US Trade Representative, said America was keen to tap into Vietnam s middle class, a demographic expected to double between 2014 and 2020.
Mr Obama is being accompanied by U.S. secretary of state John Kerry, who after a tour in Vietnam as a young navy officer became a protester against the war.
Obama’s weeklong Asia trip, which also includes a stop in Japan for the G7 summit, is being seen as part of a strategic attempt to temper growing Chinese power in the region.
President Bill Clinton reopened diplomatic ties with Vietnam in 1995, and in 2000 became the first president to travel there since US civilian and military personnel were evacuated from there 25 earlier.
So, too, is Obama expecting questions about some of the foreign policy proposals that Trump has espoused on the campaign trail – including his insistence that Japan and South Korea reimburse the United States for the protection that American troops stationed in those countries provide. He said he hopes the visit will show a continued interest in strengthening ties in the years to come.
Obama is expected to call for approval of the 12-nation, trans-Pacific trade agreement that is now held up in the US Congress. They also say it would allow multinational corporations to challenge local laws by saying they violate the trade deal.
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“Many in Hanoi still question whether the United States intends to work with Vietnam in a serious and constructive manner in the coming years”, Hiebert and Nguyen said.
