A Vietnamese military band yesterday performed a rousing Star Spangled Banner as US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter arrived for talks at the Ministry of Defense in Hanoi.
Once inconceivable, such displays between the wartime adversaries are increasingly common as Vietnam frets over China.
Carter and his counterpart, Vietnamese Minister of Defense Phung Quang Thanh, later signed a “joint vision statement” pledging to expand defense trade — including possible coproduction — and collaborate on maritime security.
Photo: Reuters
“We are both committed to deepening our defense relationship,” Carter said. “We had a very in-depth discussion that extended well over an hour-and-a-half because there is so much we are doing together.”
Carter’s Vietnam stop, midway through a 10-day Asian swing, was a signal to China that its South China Sea island-building campaign is alienating its neighbors. However, the first visit to Hanoi by a US defense secretary since 2012 was also a reminder of the limits of the burgeoning US-Vietnam relationship.
The new vision statement, which builds on an accord from 2011, is not legally binding. New US arms sales have been slow to develop since the administration of US President Barack Obama last fall partially lifted a long-standing ban on military sales to Vietnam. Hanoi has reportedly been baffled by Pentagon procedures.
In Washington, expanded arms sales are opposed by Human Rights Watch, which said Vietnam’s rights record “remains weak in all key areas.”
Some older members of the Vietnamese politburo, who recall the US as the enemy, are skeptical of a complete turnabout, and while Vietnam is wary of Chinese domination, China remains its top trading partner and an important source of capital.
“This is a piece of complex systems engineering,” said Dean Cheng (成斌), an Asian affairs specialist at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “There are many, many moving parts, not just China and the US. The whole area is very much in flux.”
With 42 percent of Vietnamese no more than 24 years old, wartime memories are overshadowed by contemporary worries about China.
Still, Vietnam’s US$90 billion in two-way trade with China is more than double its annual cross-border commerce with the US, and more than 10 percent of foreign investment in Vietnam comes from Chinese companies.
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