US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an official visit to Vietnam on October 29-30, according to Vietnamese media this week.
Whether this is a “surprise” visitor is part of a pre-planned visit and what is the real purpose behind this visit by the head of the State Department, on Thursday, some observers and commentators from the US and Vietnam shared their views with BBC News Vietnamese.
“This year is 35 years of reestablishing relations with Vietnam and this is an important issue that the US wants to celebrate this day,” from the University of Maine, USA, Professor Ngo Vinh Long, historian, researcher politics and international relations told a BBC roundtable on Thursday.
“Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they cannot do it until today (October 29) and tomorrow (October 30) when Mr. Mike Pompeo arrives …”
In addition, according to this scholar, there is another important reason for the US side, which he further pointed out, that is:
“… That is prompting Vietnam to sign a series of trade agreements so that they can use this to tell American voters that the US has forced Vietnam to make concessions because Vietnam has exported a trade surplus of $44 billion to the US.”
“So the US wants that trade deficit to decrease and for American firms to invest more in Vietnam …”
From Hanoi, Associate Professor Hoang Ngoc Giao, Director of the Institute of Policy, Law and Development (under the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations – Vusta) said:
“From my point of view as well as that of some of my colleagues from Hanoi, this is a trip that took place in the context of the week prior to the US presidential election.”
“And secondly, coming to Vietnam is not part of his plan, according to media reports, the US Secretary of State came in today, until yesterday (October 28), the Vietnamese diplomacy had a press release about the visit.”
“Then his coming to Vietnam and especially this trip taking place in a tour to countries makes a lot of sense for the geopolitical story of Vietnam and in the context of solving regional problems, namely going to India, then Sri Lanka, then Indonesia and Vietnam.”
“If we look at it from this perspective, we will see that all those points are more or less related to the Chinese story in the East Sea (South China Sea) and the region, it is both relevant.”
“Then in terms of space, it is certainly not merely a social greeting … but it will certainly have stories of co-interests in the South China Sea and concerning the fact that China is taking actions in the South China Sea now and especially in Taiwan, as well as recent South China Sea exercises and exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin.”
“And this trip in Vietnam is even more meaningful since it took place after the trip of Prime Minister of Japan Suga Yoshihide, his first foreign trip in his new position to Vietnam and the two countries also signed a cooperation agreement on the military and on the transfer of defense facilities, equipment, and technology.”
According to Mr. Hoang Ngoc Giao, from the above perspective, although the specific content of the exchange that he called “negotiation” between the Vietnamese government and the US government is unknown to the people, the late October visit of Pompeo to Hanoi creates “hope” at some point.
“The first point, in Vietnam, the Vietnamese government seems to be more bold, moving towards cooperation and cooperation with the US to protect national security and sovereignty.”
“The second point, on economic issues, as Professor Ngo Vinh Long said, it is an advantage for the administration of Donald Trump and Mr. Pompeo to bring back a product before the election, one result is that the trade balance between Vietnam and the US has been reduced, more than $40 billion are now signed and some cooperation worth several billion dollars is a goodwill of the Vietnamese side.”
Also on October 29, right after the above discussion, through a pen-talk interview, a guest senior researcher from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Iseas – Singapore), Dr. Ha Hoang Hop gave to comment on the meaning and substance of Mr. Pompeo’s visit to Vietnam at the end of October.
“In my opinion, the main thing is that the US promotes the FOIP framework (the Indo-Pacific is wide and open, concretizing a number of things with Vietnam such as: cooperation in law enforcement at sea, promoting the joint statements related to the law of the sea, sovereignty, security, and freedom of navigation; followed by cooperation on coastal patrol, defense cooperation, security cooperation and non-traditional security related to FOIP, and cybersecurity.”
“The third topic is cooperation against COVID-19, in which, Vietnam can buy vaccines and medicines to treat COVID-19 from the US.”
“The fourth issue is promoting economic and trade cooperation, including energy cooperation, Vietnam increases the import of US products. The fifth issue is the discussion of specific human rights issues and the sixth issue is to promote people-to-people exchange.”
When asked if there was any relationship between this Pompeo’s visit and the US presidential election, with the official vote date (November 3) remaining within a week, Dr. Ha Hoang Hop replied:
“I don’t see any clear connections. Mr. Pompeo is in the service of the secretary of state, and the US Constitution does not allow him to do anything directly related to campaigning (for Mr. Trump).”
Before the question of whether the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, regardless of who the winner belongs to the Trump / Biden presidential pair, will influence, what new movement, Weakness is significant to Asian regional security, including the South China Sea and Vietnam, as well as US-Vietnam relations policy, said political analyst at Iseas Institute (Singapore):
“In principle, the current US policy will not change regardless of who wins the election. However, if Mr. Biden wins the election, at the appropriate time, policy practice will take the appearance of Obama’s era.
“If Trump wins the election, he will continue his current policy, be tougher with China, more committed to allies in the Asia-Pacific.”
“As for Vietnam, American policy has not changed either – bilateral relations will be better promoted by the two countries together.”
“If Biden wins the election, in my opinion, Vietnam needs to carefully study his foreign practice, especially relations with Beijing so that Vietnam can be more proactive in a narrow multilateral diplomatic landscape,” Dr. Ha Hoang Hop stated his opinion.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
Source: https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/vietnam-54738822
