VietNamNet would like to introduce an article by Mr. Murray Hiebert, Senior Advisor, Deputy Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) about President Truong Tan Sang’s recent visit to the US.

Vietnam, US issue Joint Statement

President Sang concludes US visit

FM highlights outcomes of President Sang’s visit to US

Moments of surprise at CSIS

In the afternoon of July 25, President Truong Tan Sang paid a visit to CSIS and talked with scholars and diplomats there. This is the first time a head of state of Vietnam spoke at CSIS. In his speech itself, the President talked about Vietnam’s vision for relations in the Asia Pacific and with the United States. He talked about Vietnam’s economic reforms and its hopes for economic development.  He raised the issue of the East Sea and noted very bluntly that China does not have a legal basis for its wide-ranging claims to most of the sea.

One of the most surprising aspects of his time at CSIS was that he took six questions from the audience at the end of his speech. The questions ranged from relations with the United States to the role of Vietnamese Americans to the President’s views of the Philippines requesting United Nations arbitration on two key issues including the validity of China’s nine-dash line.  

His answers were spontaneous and unrehearsed.  At the end of the speech, he walked around the security rope cordoning off the podium to shake the hands of several ASEAN ambassadors and former U.S. Ambassadors to Vietnam in the audience.  

Not avoid discussing thorny issues

Overall, I would give the visit high marks, even though there were not many concrete deliverables. A senior US official involved in relations with Asia described the importance of the visit as ‘greater than the sum of its parts.’  

I think it was important that President Sang didn’t seem to shy away from a discussion of the most difficult issue in Vietnam-US. Relations today: human rights. I think it was a good idea for the President to bring three Buddhist monks and two Christian clergy with him to Washington. It will now be up to working level officials from both countries to find ways to reduce tensions over human rights.  

I think it’s important that the two sides talked about the East Sea dispute.  On the US side, the Americans are concerned about China’s stepped up aggressive behavior particularly toward the Philippines and Vietnam over the past 2-3 years.  

For the Americans freedom of navigation is critical. They are also worried that an accident could result from the increasing number of military vessels operating in or near areas of dispute and lead to unintended consequences.  

I think both sides have achieved some satisfactory results, although there may be a number of goals is not as initially expected. Vietnam would no doubt have appreciated hearing from President Obama that the United States would give Vietnam more access for garments in the TPP talks, a issue on which Vietnam has been frustrated with the United States.  

Vietnamese officials had also hoped they would get from the United States a commitment to consider Vietnam a ‘market economy.’ At this point, the United States still considers Vietnam a ‘non-market economy,’ because of the continuing importance of state-owned enterprises in Vietnam’s economy.  U.S officials promised President Sang’s delegation that they would reevaluate this designation.  Vietnam would also have been pleased if President Obama had accepted president Sang’s invitation to visit Vietnam.  In the end, Obama said he would try to come before the end of his term, which ends in 3 ½ years.

The United States was pleased that President Sang committed Vietnam to working with the other 11 participants in the trans-pacific partnership (TPP) trade talks to try to complete the negotiations before the end of the year.  

I think the United States would have been more satisfied if Vietnam had taken some concrete steps on human rights. I think the United States is still hoping for more progress on this front in the weeks ahead.   

Comprehensive partnership

One of the striking results of the visit was President Truong Tan Sang and President Obama agreed to upgrade Vietnam-US relations to "comprehensive partnership." Generally, ‘strategic partnerships’ imply close political and security ties. ‘Comprehensive partnerships’ generally imply more all around ties that include economic ties and people to people relations.

Secretary of State Clinton proposed a comprehensive partnership during her visit to Hanoi in 2010, but not much happened since then. Some analysts believe that some Vietnamese leaders were holding back out of concern about other powers.  The US Administration also held back because of increasing pressure from some members of congress and human rights organizations.

We probably won’t know exactly what this term means until Vietnam and the United States actually start negotiating and putting content into this vessel. The two sides said in their joint statement that the comprehensive partnership will include a vast range of issues ranging from political and diplomatic relations to trade and economic ties to science and technology, education, defense and security.  It will aslo include protection of human rights, environment and health, war legacy issues, sports, tourism, etc.  In other words, ‘comprehensive’ means a very broad relationship.   

We will have to see in a few years how this framework will contribute to furthering US-Vietnam relations. This broad agenda has the potential to deepen relations in so many areas ranging from political relations to economic ties to military relations. How deeply it furthers relations, however, will depend on how much energy both sides put into enhancing cooperation.  

Murray Hiebert