What Vietnam Expects from America

Nguyen Thanh Chau

Security, Asia

If the United States wants to project itself as a “resident” power in the Asia-Pacific area, it must act accordingly.

Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will be in Washington this week to pay his first visit to the United States as Vietnam’s head of government. In July 2015, Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong had a historic visit to the United States, which was then reciprocated with President Barack Obama’s successful trip to Vietnam in May 2016. This visit of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will be the third important high-level delegation exchange between the two countries within three recent years.

The dynamism of the fast-growing ties between Hanoi and Washington is intrinsically intertwined with the changing context of the Asia-Pacific region. It is widely acknowledged that the region is undergoing more dramatic changes than any other regions do. By 2020, ten out of twenty world’s biggest economies will be located in the Asia-Pacific, and over 1 billion people will be helped out of poverty thanks to aggressive reforms in many countries. The rise of China, India and the rest has produced far-reaching and profound repercussions not only in the economic, but also in security realms of the entire world. The worrisome developments on the Korean peninsular and in the East Sea (Vietnam’s version of South China Sea) are now a constant reminder of the fragile and hard-fought peace that the region has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War. While opportunities for economic cooperation abound, bigger security challenges are also looming. Lack of a pan-region governing body is arguably one important reason for that speculation.