The United States and Vietnam are rapidly building a partnership based on trade and security agreements. President Obama visited Vietnam on his way to the G7 meeting in Japan. During the visit, Obama lifted a ban on the sale of weapons to the country of 90 million and Vietnam will welcome US Peace Corps volunteers who teach English. Vietnam values the relationship more for trade than security purposes, and China should not worry much about the closer ties. “Vietnam is sensitive to how China might react to Hanoi moving too quickly to deepen security ties with Washington,” concludes Murray Hiebert, a senior fellow and deputy director of the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asian Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Vietnam does not see itself as becoming an ally of the United States, but rather as executing a fine-tuned balancing act between Washington and its giant northern neighbor... Obama’s visit marks yet another delicate dance performed by Vietnam with an eye to its 2,000 years of often-troubled history with China.”
President Barack Obama had the ambitious goal of laying the foundation for a new stage in bilateral relations with Vietnam while visiting the country for the first time May 23–25. He took another step to complete reconciliation between former battlefield foes by lifting a ban on the sale of weapons to Vietnam as it faces growing pressure from an assertive China in the South China Sea.
Obama timed his visit just before he headed to Japan for the G7 summit, and that meant he was the first head of state to meet the new leadership of Vietnam anointed at the Communist Party congress early this year. It also comes just before a ruling is expected from the arbitral tribunal in The Hague on the Philippines case brought against China’s nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea. And Obama landed the day after four Indian naval warships entered the disputed sea for a two-month deployment that includes the well-known Malabar exercise with the Japanese and American navies.
