HANOI (AP) – United States (US) President Joe Biden opened a brief visit to Vietnam yesterday by telling the country’s leadership that the two nations have a chance to shape the Indo-Pacific for decades to come.
Vietnam is elevating relations with the US to the level of a comprehensive strategic partner, which a top Biden adviser said represents Vietnam’s highest tier of international partnership.
Biden welcomed the move and said he hoped progress could be made on climate, the economy and other issues during his 24-hour visit to Hanoi. “We can trace a 50-year arc of progress between our nations from conflict to normalisation to this new elevated status,” Biden said as he and Communist Party of Vietnam general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong announced the new relationship status at party headquarters.
Trong pledged that his country will work hard to implement the agreement. “Only then can we say it is a success,” he pledged.
Biden earlier yesterday during a separate appearance with Trong had described the US and Vietnam as “critical partners at what I would argue is a very critical time”.
Other countries sharing the same level of relations with Vietnam include China and Russia.
Elevating the US to the same status suggests that Vietnam wants to hedge its friendships as US and European companies look for alternatives.
Biden arrived in Vietnam yesterday and was welcomed with a pomp-filled ceremony outside the mustard-coloured Presidential Palace. Scores of schoolchildren lined the steps waving small US and Vietnam flags and Biden watched from an elevated review stand as high-stepping members of the military marched past. He and Trong met afterward Communist Party headquarters.
Earlier yesterday, Biden’s chief deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said the elevated status represents Vietnam’s highest tier of international partnership.
Finer highlighted the five-decade arc in US-Vietnam relations, from conflict during the Vietnam War to normalisation and Vietnam’s status as a top trading partner. “We will be deepening that relationship through this visit,” he added.
