In a speech at the National Convention Center in Hanoi, Obama said respecting freedom of speech, a free press, and the right to demonstrate would instead bolster Vietnam’s economy and its standing in the region.
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Lawyer Ha Huy Son, who has defended multiple dissidents in court, said he had been invited to meet Obama at the United States embassy in Hanoi on Tuesday morning but had been stopped from going.
He says doing so reinforces stability and doesn’t threaten it. Obama also says nations are more successful when these rights are respected. “If you consider where we have been and where we are now, the transformation in the relations between our two countries is remarkable”, Obama said.
“I think that clearly we will never fail to honor the sacrifice of those who fought here and what their dreams were for this country, but I think one can say genuinely, definitively without a failing to honor past service, that we have reached a very new point in our relationship now”, he added.
In a sweeping speech, which harked back to the bloody war that defined both nations but also looked to the future, Obama said that “upholding rights is not a threat to stability”. That’s how a Facebook starts. “That’s how some of our greatest companies began”. The U.S. hopes to use any arms sales to Vietnam as a carrot to nudge it toward reforming its communist, one-party government and embracing free market principles.
America still bears the scars of the Vietnam War, the longest conflict in its history up to that time. Quang A said the government disqualified him.
The US is taking advantage of Vietnam to stir up more troubles in the South China Sea, the newspaper said.
The President noted that several activists had been prevented from attending the meeting.
The United States (U.S.) has lifted a decades-old arms embargo on Vietnam in a historic move that follows the country’s growing assertiveness against China’s influence in the region.
“Big nations should not bully smaller ones”, President Obama said to applause in Vietnam.
“As we go forward the United States will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever worldwide law allows and we will support the right of all countries to do the same”, Obama said.
Immediately after his speech, Obama flew to Vietnam’s boisterous southern commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City, where he will meet tech-startup entrepreneurs later on Tuesday. 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. The country’s expanding middle class is also seen as a promising market for U.S. goods.
“In one fell swoop, President Obama has jettisoned what remained of US leverage to improve human rights in Vietnam – and basically gotten nothing for it”, said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division.
The trade deal requires Vietnam to adopt labor and environmental reforms.
“Vietnam will be less dependent on any one trading partner and enjoy broader ties with more partners, including the United States”, Obama said.
Like Cuba, which Obama visited earlier this year, the president is striving to normalize relations with countries that had been out of the question in the past.
Duy Hoang, U.S. -based spokesman for Viet Tan, a pro-democracy party that is banned inside Vietnam, said that until Vietnam makes progress on human rights, the U.S. should not sell it military gear that could be used against the population.
On his second full day in the southeast Asian nation, Obama met with activists, including a pastor and advocates for the disabled and sexual minorities, to underscore USA support for improved rights.
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In Beijing, Chinese state media on Tuesday slammed the lifting of a decades-old U.S. arms embargo against Vietnam, saying the move was aimed at China and calling Obama’s assurances to the contrary “a very poor lie”.
