On December 2, the conference “US-Vietnam: 10 years of comprehensive partnership in retrospect and prospects of comprehensive strategic partnership for peace, cooperation and sustainable development” was held by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Associations (VUFA) and the US Embassy in Vietnam. 

VUFA chair Phan Anh Son noted that over the last 30 years of normalization and establishment of diplomatic relations, Vietnam and the US have witnessed significant progress.

In terms of politics and diplomacy, many high-level visits have been paid, opening up new stages of cooperation.

The bilateral trade turnover in 2022 reached $123 billion, or 270 times higher than 1995, and $61 billion in the first seven months of 2023. The two countries have gained positive achievements in neutralizing the effects of the war, resolving non-traditional security issues, and ensuring maritime and aviation security and safety in the East Sea.

Vietnam and the US have deployed more than 10 education and culture exchange programs, while the number of Vietnamese students studying in the US has been increasing rapidly, from 800 in 1995 to 30,000 in 2023.

Over the last 10 years, the US has provided Vietnam a grant worth $1.8 billion and the two countries have carried out much cooperation in controlling Covid-19. Vietnam and the US have been closely cooperating on international and regional forums as well as in handling global issues.

September 10 was an important milestone in the history when the two countries declared the upgrading of their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, opening up a new historic chapter in the relations between Vietnam and the US.

Son commented that the achievements are the results of consistent efforts made by the two countries in “putting aside the past, overcoming differences, promoting similarities, and looking towards the future'.

The US Ambassador to Vietnam Marc Knapper said the Vietnam-US relationship has been developing well over the last 10 years, marked by the US President Joe Biden’s official visit to Vietnam, after which the two sides agreed to upgrade the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Knapper stressed that the US entirely respects the Vietnamese political system and territorial integrity. The US takes pride in being a partner of Vietnam, working together with Vietnam to obtain common goals, ensuring the security and prosperity of both the Vietnamese and American people.

The ‘maturity’ of Vietnam-US relations

VUFA former chair Vu Xuan Hong recalled the days in 2013 when he accompanied the then Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang in the visit to the US, where Sang and the US President Barack Obama declared the upgrading of the two countries’ relationship to comprehensive partnership.

“There was no optimistic person among us then thought that after 10 years the relationship would be upgraded to comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest level in bilateral relations,” he said.

People-to-people relations and the Vietnam-US relations have helped change the awareness of each other.

The Vietnam-US Association was established in 1945, after the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This was the first Vietnamese people’s friendship association established to cooperate with American people to serve as a basis for the building of Vietnam-US relations.  

In 1946, Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh sent a letter to US President Truman expressing Vietnam’s willingness for independence, sovereignty and freedom, and Vietnam’s wish to develop a full relationship with the US. The upgrading of the two countries’ relationship to the highest level has turned Ho Chi Minh’s wish into reality.

During the years of the US trade embargo after the war, Hong said the Vietnam-US association was the only people’s organization which could approach and lobby American people to give support to Vietnam. It organized hundreds of visits for Vietnamese and American people to each other’s countries for better understanding of each other.

Bui Thi Phuong Lan from the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences said that she came to the US for the first time in 1993. By that time, the two countries had not recognized each other. Her US visa was stamped on an A4 paper and it could be obtained in Moscow or Bangkok. 

In 1994, when studying in Texas, hearing that the US was about to lift the embargo against Vietnam, Lan burst into tears.

Meanwhile, former Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Nguyen Tam Chien said that the Vietnam-US relationship has surprised scholars all over the world because of the rapid development from ‘former enemies’ into ‘comprehensive strategic partners’.

Tran Thuong