Obama said Vietnam has nothing to fear from upholding these rights.
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Improved relations between the USA and Vietnam must not lead to greater pressure on China or threats to its interests, an official Chinese newspaper said Tuesday, May 24.
But the U.S. leader, speaking to a packed auditorium including Communist party officials, said bolstering rights “actually reinforces stability and is the foundation of progress”. At the height of the war more than 500,000 US troops were involved in the fighting, which killed more than 58,000 Americans and wounded 303,000 over the course of a decade. “I picked up the check”, said Bourdain.
Obama acknowledged that the U.S. and Vietnam had differences, but avoided any direct mention of Vietnam’s poor human rights record and limited himself to making a generic defence of the importance of freedom of expression, association, religion and the need for a democratic system, Efe news reported.
When President Obama lifted the ban on US weapons sales to Vietnam, he invoked one of his favorite themes – relics of the Cold War.
After Hanoi, Obama’s next stop in Vietnam Tuesday was Ho Chi Minh City, where he visited an ancient pagoda and planned to meet with young entrepreneurs at a co-working space in the bustling economic capital of the country.
Obama is now visiting Vietnam and is expected to meet civil society leaders, including some of the country’s long-harassed critics, on Tuesday morning.
Obama, in his speech, also referred to China’s growing aggression in the region, something that worries many in Vietnam, which has territorial disputes in the South China Sea with Beijing.
Obama says Mansour’s death doesn’t signal a shift in the USA approach to countering terrorism in Afghanistan.
His remarks came the day after the US lifted a decades-long ban on the sale of lethal weapons to Vietnam.
Washington’s “ultimate goal” was to cement United States dominance in the area, it said, and it was “taking advantage of Vietnam to stir up more troubles in the South China Sea”.
He said the USA would continue to train Vietnam’s coastguard to “enhance maritime capabilities”.
Obama noted Vietnam’s progress in recent years.
The US-Vietnam relationship is based on mutual interests, including expanding trade and enhancing cooperation in a range of areas, Obama emphasized.
Obama also predicted that Vietnam would benefit greatly from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal in his Hanoi remarks, even though the deal is unlikely to pass the current Congress, and is opposed by all of the remaining 2016 presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat alike.
“Vietnam will have greater access to the equipment you need to improve your security”, Obama said. He planned a visit to the Jade Pagoda, considered one of the most handsome pagodas in southern Vietnam and a repository of religious documents that includes more than 300 statues and other relics.
American war veterans who served in Vietnam have also said they welcome the lifting of the ban, saying it was a logical step in normalising relations between the two countries.
Human Rights Watch estimates about 110 political dissidents are in prison in Vietnam.
Later, in a speech to more than 2,000 Vietnamese citizens, including students and government officials, Obama again took up the matter of human rights carefully, saying that “no nation is perfect” and listing the United States’ own shortcomings first.
His speech, punctuated with humourous asides and references to Vietnamese culture and history, was greeted with warm applause in the cavernous National Convention centre.
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Obama’s speech came a day after he announced the lifting of an arms sales embargo on Vietnam. “We’ve already had teams out in Vietnam over the last couple of months talking to them about the array of obligations that they have under the agreement”.
