Forty years after the fall of Saigon and the end of one of America’s most unpopular, divisive and costly wars, President Barack Obama will be hosting none other than Vietnam’s Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong in the White House on Tuesday.
While economic relations and trade issues with Pacific Rim nations are important — Trong’s support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade accord is particularly needed — the Stars and Stripes writes that Obama is also working to make Vietnam a “strategic ally against China.”:
Obama’s overture to Vietnam is part of a larger strategy by his administration to shift U.S. diplomatic attention away from traditional hot spots in the Middle East and Europe to meet China’s rise in Asia.
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The strategy got a major boost when Congress approved Obama’s request for fast-track trade promotion authority last month — legislation that could smooth the path for the TPP, which would encompass nations that together make up 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.
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Over the past two years, Hanoi has become alarmed by Beijing’s maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea, a strategic shipping lane that China has sought to control. Last spring, China positioned an oil rig 120 miles off Vietnam’s coast, near islands claimed by both countries and breaching Vietnam’s exclusive 200-mile economic zone under international law.
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Though Beijing withdrew the rig under international pressure last summer, Chinese authorities moved it back near Vietnam last month after plans for Trong’s visit were made public.
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That move “will add a sense of urgency to Hanoi’s strategic thinking,” said Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The United States and Vietnam share a view that China “cannot be allowed to override international law and define its sovereign interests based on history or the size of its military or its economy.”
Human rights advocates, however, are not very happy with the visit of and honors to be afforded the Communist Party chief.
Again, the Stripes:
More than 100 Vietnamese are imprisoned on political charges, according to the State Department, a number that has fallen by about 25 percent in recent years but remains a sticking point for U.S. diplomats in Hanoi.
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“It’s a reward that is not worth the price,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “You’re telling this regime and others, ‘Freedom or not, you will be rewarded.’ . . . The price of saber-rattling with China is that you throw human rights under the bus.”
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Rep. Zoe Lofgren, California, a longtime advocate for human rights reform in Vietnam, was among a Democratic congressional delegation led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, also of California, that visited the nation in March to talk about the TPP and other issues. In a meeting with Trong, Lofgren presented him with a list of political prisoners who she said should be set free.
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“I don’t think he was very happy with our advocacy, but we didn’t go there to make him happy,” Lofgren said in an interview on Monday. She said Obama needs to press Vietnam to commit to enforceable labor and human rights protections in the trade deal, and she questioned why the president is meeting with Trong in the Oval Office rather than a less-prestigious location of the White House.
At his Senate web site, Marco Rubio joined Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), David Vitter (R-LA), John Cornyn (R-TX), John Boozman (R-AR), James Lankford (R-OK) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) to urge President Obama to make human rights improvements in Vietnam a top priority in his meeting with Trong this week.
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The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.