A US aircraft carrier yesterday arrived in the central Vietnamese city of Danang, weeks after Hanoi protested against Chinese vessels sailing in its waters.
The USS Ronald Reagan’s port call in Danang comes as the US and Vietnam celebrate the 10th anniversary of their “comprehensive partnership.”
The aircraft carrier — part of the US Seventh Fleet “supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific region” — arrived with two escort ships, the guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Robert Smalls, the US embassy in Hanoi said.
Photo: AFP
US Navy officials disembarked and shook hands with their Vietnamese counterparts in a afternoon brief ceremony.
“More than 5,000 sailors aboard USS Ronald Reagan are eager to visit Danang and experience Vietnamese culture,” Captain Daryle Cardone, of the USS Ronald Reagan, said in a statement.
Vietnam and the US share increasingly close trade links, as well as concerns over China’s growing strength in the region.
A Chinese survey vessel, multiple coast guard ships and fishing boats operated for several weeks in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, prompting the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand that they leave.
The boats eventually left early this month.
“The visit gives that message that Vietnam is continuing to balance against China by improving its security relationship with the US, and with other outside powers,” said Nguyen The Phuong, a doctoral candidate in maritime security at the University of New South Wales Canberra.
The US aircraft carrier’s visit follows the arrival of Indian naval ships in Danang last month, as well as a port call by Japan’s largest warship in Cam Ranh, a city on the southeastern coast, earlier this week.
Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Pham Thu Hang said earlier in the week that port calls were an “ordinary friendship exchange for peace, stability, and cooperation and development in the region and the world.”
This is the third visit by a US aircraft carrier to Vietnam after a historic port call by the USS Carl Vinson in 2018, the first time such a ship had arrived in the country since the end of the Vietnam War.
The visit includes several cultural and community events, such as a US Navy band concert, a visit to an orphanage and sports matches.
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