President becomes the third US leader to
visit the nation since the end of the Vietnam war
By Agence
France-Presse
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President Obama arrives
on Air Force One at Noi Bai International Airport
in
Hanoi as part of his effort to pay more attention to
the Asian region and
Photograph: Na Son
Nguyen/AP
boost economic and security cooperation. |
US President Barack Obama has arrived in
Vietnam for a landmark visit capping two decades of rapprochement between the
former wartime foes, as both countries look to push trade and check Beijing’s
growing assertiveness in the South China Sea.
Air Force One touched down in Hanoi just
after 9:30pm (1430 GMT) for the beginning of a three-day trip during which
Obama will meet Vietnam’s communist leadership and stress improving relations
with the dynamic and rapidly emerging nation.
For many Americans, Vietnam remains a painful
byword for slaughter and folly since hostilities in the decade-long ruinous war
between the two nations finally ended in 1975.
Yet few countries have seen such a dramatic
turnaround in their relations since Obama’s Democrat predecessor Bill Clinton
normalised relations and later became the first post-war president to visit
Vietnam in 2000.
The Obama administration now sees the country
as a vital plank in America’s much vaunted pivot to the Asia-Pacific region.
Vietnam’s leadership hope to strengthen ties
with the world’s most powerful nation, particularly as it battles with China
over disputed waters.
“There always is an element of distrust in
some sectors of Vietnam’s elite, the political structure,” said Murray Hiebert
of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“But China’s increased assertiveness in the
South China Sea has really sharpened the Vietnamese mind and prompted Vietnam
to probably move faster with the US than it might have otherwise.”
On Monday Obama will meet the country’s
president, its prime minister and the country’s de facto leader Nguyen Phu
Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party.
Trong and Obama met last July, when he was
given a prestigious Oval Office meeting.
A major talking point will be the lifting of
a US arms embargo, a last vestige of the decade-long war between the two
nations.
Advocates argue an embargo lift is vital to helping
Vietnam improve coastal defences and bolster its outdated, largely
Russian-origin military equipment to better counter Beijing.
But weighing against it are concerns about
communist-ruled Vietnam’s still dismal human rights record, an issue Obama is
likely to address when he delivers a speech in Hanoi.
US diplomats have pressed for the release of
political prisoners as a sign that Vietnam can be trusted with advanced
weaponry.
Prominent dissident Father Nguyen Van Ly, a
Catholic priest who has spent much of the last two decades in jail, was
released on Friday.
But the one-party state still ruthlessly
cracks down on protests, jails dissidents and bans trade unions.
Hours before Obama’s arrival the limited
extent of one-party Vietnam’s democratic progress was on full display, as
authorities held a nationwide parliamentary election on Sunday where
independent candidates were barred.
Critics of the election say they were beaten
and placed under house arrest in the weeks leading up to the vote.
Increased trade ties will also feature
prominently during the trip, with Obama keen to make the case for a
trans-Pacific trade deal that faces an uncertain future.
On Tuesday afternoon Obama will fly to Ho Chi
Minh City, the southern Vietnamese metropolis formerly known as Saigon which,
in the 40 years since American troops hastily beat a retreat, has transformed
itself into the country’s thriving commercial heart.
Michael Froman, US Trade Representative, said
America was keen to tap into Vietnam’s middle class, a demographic expected to
double between 2014 and 2020.
“As middle class consumers emerge, they want
more of everything that the United States is well-positioned to make and to
export. But we face significant barriers to those exports,” he said.
Examples he gave were a 70% tariff on auto
exports, a 34% tariff on beef products and a 59 percent tariff on machinery
parts – all barriers that the US-led Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which
Vietnam has signed up to, aims to eliminate.
American officials meanwhile stress the TPP
will force Vietnam to make positive reforms, such as bringing in better
environmental and child labour protection measures as well as allowing
independent unions.
Sandy Pho, a regional expert at the Wilson
Center, said Obama must “execute a delicate diplomatic dance” while in Vietnam
to avoid alienating China.
“He will need to take care not to introduce
new tensions in America’s complex yet essential relationship with China,” she
said.
Obama is the third post-war president to
visit Vietnam after Clinton and George W Bush in 2006. After Vietnam he will
fly to Japan for a trip that will include both a G7 summit and a visit to
Hiroshima.