In China’s shadow, U.S. courts old foe Vietnam

by JANE PERLEZ, The Globe and Mail

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — The New York Times News Service

Published Saturday, Aug. 16 2014

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, courted Vietnam over the past several days, the first chairman in more than 40 years to visit the old enemy, now envisioned as a new partner that will acquire American weapons and help offset the power of China.

Dempsey, who graduated from West Point as the Vietnam War was winding down, never served here, but his visit capped a vibrant effort by the United States and Vietnam to reconnect. A longstanding embargo on lethal weapons sales by the United States was likely to be eased, he said, and Washington would then begin discussions on what equipment Vietnam would buy, most likely in the field of maritime surveillance.

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Vietnam has suddenly become more important to Washington as the United States and China are increasingly at loggerheads. Vietnam is key because of its strategic position bordering China, its large population of nearly 100 million and its long coastline on the South China Sea, one of the world’s most vital TRADING routes.

“We do think we should have a steady improvement in our relationship with the Vietnamese military,” Dempsey told a group of reporters here Saturday. “I would suggest as goes Vietnam in managing its maritime resources and territorial disputes, so goes the South China Sea.”

During his three-day visit, Dempsey met in Hanoi with Vietnam’s most senior OFFICER, Gen. Do Ba Ty, who last year was in Washington, where he was entertained at the chairman’s home. Dempsey visited Vietnamese vessels and met with their crew in Da Nang, once the site of a major U.S. base. Also in Da Nang, he inspected a U.S. thermal treatment plant designed to clean up a deadly ingredient in Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed by the U.S. military over the South Vietnamese countryside during the Vietnam War.

Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, visited Hanoi this month and said the time had come to modify the arms embargo so the United States could help Vietnam with defense abilities.

In May, China deployed a sophisticated deep-sea oil rig to disputed waters off the Vietnam coast, a move that resulted in anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam and two months of skirmishes at sea between well-equipped Chinese coast guard boats and more rudimentary Vietnamese vessels.

While moving closer to Washington, Vietnam, which is ruled by a Communist Party that still values its fraternal relations with Beijing and is locked into economic dependence on China, has indicated it is not about to ditch its powerful northern neighbor.

The United States was not trying to force Vietnam to choose between Beijing and Washington, Dempsey said.

“I didn’t come here to focus on China,” he said. “But I recognize inevitably the shadow of China hangs over these conversations.”

In China, the government is watching the American dalliance with Vietnam, and the likely easing of the arms embargo is interpreted as a move against China in the contest over the South China Sea, said Wu Xinbo, the head of the American Studies Center at Fudan University in Shanghai.

“The United States is trying to encourage Vietnam to take a tough stance against China on the South China Sea,” he said. “I believe Washington is somewhat concerned about the possible reconciliation between China and Vietnam over the South China Sea dispute.”

Who was the more ardent suitor in the wooing between the two former enemies remained an open question. Vietnam was insisting on its own gradual pace of improvement in military relations with the United States, U.S. officials said.

Washington could end up disappointed, said Brantly Womack, a professor of foreign affairs at the University of Virginia, who has written extensively on the two countries.

Vietnam was acutely aware of the prickly path over the nearly 20 years since normalization of relations with Washington, he said.

“They want to tie us in closer, but they don’t want to hang on the string,” Womack said.

At the moment, Vietnam buys most of its weapons, including a recent order for six Kilo-class submarines, from Russia. Japan agreed last month to send Vietnam six new coast guard vessels.

There would be no change in Vietnam’s restriction of only one port visit a year by U.S. naval ships to Vietnam, U.S. officials said. The possibility of the United States having access to Cam Ranh Bay, a strategically significant deep-water port used by the United States during the Vietnam War, was not on the table, they said. Even so, the signs were propitious for a tilt toward the United States.

A coalition of 10 Vietnamese labor and religious groups presented a letter to McCain during his visit, saying they supported a gradual lifting of the arms embargo.

Initial shipments of American weapons could include surveillance vessels without guns or sophisticated radar, with more advanced weapons slowly phased in as Vietnam improved its human rights record, said Nguyen Quang A, a member of the coalition and prominent intellectual.

Vietnam had a history, he said, of creating military alliances “not against a third country but for protecting our sovereignty.”

The assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor, Tom P. Malinowski, said Vietnam had taken some “positive steps” on human rights in the last six months that would be factored into the final decision on easing the weapons ban.

Vietnam had released seven prominent prisoners of conscience, registered 113 church congregations and signed the convention against torture, he said. Still, the United States wanted Vietnam to release all prisoners of conscience, including prominent bloggers and writers given lengthy prison sentences last year, he said.

Vietnam’s leadership faced an unusual call for more political openness this month when 61 members of the Communist Party signed a public letter that took aim at the relationship with China.

The government should take legal action against China in the international court system for its deployment of the oil rig, the signatories suggested.

“When over 60 members of the Communist Party of Vietnam have signed an open letter calling for leaders to ‘develop a truly democratic, law abiding state,’ it is time to invite Vietnam to free itself of dependence on Russia and China and to encourage further reform,” said Vikram J. Singh, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia and now vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress in Washington. “This is about dignity and pride, and being treated on par with other countries in the region.”

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