| |
Pentagon woos Vietnam
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - In a reminder of the strategic
importance the Bush administration attaches to Southeast
Asia, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld has extended a
formal invitation to his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham
Van Tra, to visit in the near future, according to
knowledgeable sources.
It is the latest step in
a lengthy courtship that Washington hopes will draw
Vietnam into US strategic designs in the region, focused
principally on keeping China contained and preventing
the South China Sea from becoming a "Chinese Lake",
according to analysts here.
"This is where the
US and Vietnam have a clear common interest, because the
US wants to keep the South China Sea free, and the
Vietnamese maintain their claims in the Spratly
[Islands]," said Nayan Chanda, a veteran Indochina
expert with the Yale Center for the Study of
Globalization.
Tra has not yet responded to the
invitation, whose timing has proven problematic in light
of this week's passage by the US House of
representatives of the Vietnam Human Rights Act. If
approved by the Senate and signed into law, the act,
which was added on to the 2004 foreign aid bill, would,
among other things, condition all non-humanitarian aid
for Hanoi on the administration's certification that
Vietnam is making "significant progress" toward
releasing political and religious prisoners and
respecting the human rights of its ethnic minorities.
Approval of the act, whose main sponsors belong
to President George W Bush's own Republican Party, also
coincided with high-level Communist Party political
meetings in Hanoi one of the main topics of which was
precisely Vietnam's national security aims and strategy.
Sources said the House action is likely to
strengthen sectors in the Republican Party that are wary
of Washington's own strategic ambitions in the region.
These same sectors were already bolstered by the US war
in Iraq, which was strongly condemned by Hanoi.
Vietnam reportedly refused to grant the US
requests for overflight rights for warplanes from the
Philippines and Guam that needed to refuel in Thailand
on the way to the Gulf theater.
In addition,
the US Commerce Department's decision last month to
impose duties of between 37 and 64 percent on Vietnamese
frozen catfish fillets - a booming industry in Vietnam -
won Washington few friends in Hanoi (See Catfish ruling: Fishy business
, Feb
22).
Vietnam's Foreign Ministry has already protested
the Human Rights Act in strong terms, warning that it
"may adversely affect the currently growing cooperation
between Vietnam and the US, even in such areas of
concern to the US as counter-terrorism,
anti-transnational crimes, counter-narcotics, MIA
[troops missing in action] accounting and other
humanitarian issues".
Whether this will result
in rejecting Rumsfeld's invitation is considered highly
unlikely among Vietnam specialists here, but it may
affect the speed with which Tra responds.
In
fact, Tra was first invited to the Pentagon by William
Cohen, president Bill Clinton's defense secretary, when
he visited Vietnam in March 2002. Clinton himself
traveled to Vietnam later that year in a groundbreaking
visit that set the stage the following year for
ratification of a far-reaching bilateral trade agreement
(BTA) that has already paid dividends, despite the
bitter catfish dispute.
Vietnam exported almost
US$2.5 billion in goods to the United States last year,
more than double the value of the year before, while it
imported about $580 million in US goods, an increase of
26 percent over 2001. "I expect this trend to continue
as more US firms discover this market," US Ambassador
Raymond Burghardt said in April.
Washington's
strategic interests in Vietnam date from the Cold War
when it tried first to bolster France in the
anti-colonial struggle only to find itself bogged down
in a debilitating military conflict that cost at least 2
million Vietnamese lives and those of more than 50,000
US soldiers.
With the rise of China after the
Cold War as the only regional power that could challenge
Washington in Asia, US analysts saw Vietnam as a
possible obstacle to the expansion of Beijing's
influence. Indeed, since the Kremlin first suggested
withdrawing its warships from Cam Ranh Bay - previously
a US naval base - in 1990, US military strategists have
looked longingly at the possibility that their warships
might return some day.
Vietnam has sought to
transform Cam Ranh Bay into a commercial port complete
with export process zones (EPZs) attractive to apparel
and electronics manufacturers among other sources of
foreign investment.
In that sense, the
development of stronger military and strategic ties
could serve Vietnam's economic interests, according to
Rajan Menon, a regional specialist at Lehigh University.
"Generally, the dollar follows strategic interests," he
said.
"Vietnam has something to gain by
reminding China that they have an American option, and,
at the same time, they're going through a process where
they are clearly trying to encourage foreign
investment," he said. "That could be Hanoi's
calculation."
According to Chanda, Vietnam is
growing increasingly concerned about growing Chinese
influence in neighboring Cambodia which, according to
him, has responded positively to Chinese proposals to
build a naval shipyard in Kompong Som in the Gulf of
Thailand.
"[Cambodian Prime Minister] Hun Sen
has basically surrendered and said to China, 'Come and
help us,'" said Chanda, whose book, Brother
Enemy, is considered the classic account of
Vietnam-Cambodian relations during the 1960s and 1970s.
"China has seen that a few million dollars goes a long
way in making Cambodia a vassal state. It's back in the
old game," one of whose objectives is to exclude any US
military presence in Indochina.
In that context,
Rumsfeld's invitation should be seen as a "subtle signal
to the Chinese that Washington remains interested in the
region", according to Chanda.
Menon agrees and
sees the move as part of a broader anti-China strategy
in which Washington attempts to build up military ties
with countries situated along China's periphery, an
effort given a major boost in the aftermath of the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when Washington
quickly set up bases in Central Asia along Beijing's
western frontiers and began running major exercises in
the Philippines after a 10-year hiatus.
"This
administration came in with a lot of people who believed
that China was the principal threat," said Menon. "That
group still exists and is reaching out to countries like
India and Vietnam because what they have in common is
fear of China and a geographical position that enables
them to encircle it."
"For Rumsfeld, the
ultimate purpose would be to use Vietnam as a foil, a
blocking force, against China," said Chalmers Johnson,
an Asia specialist at the University of California at
San Diego.
If that is indeed Rumsfeld's main
goal, however, experts say Vietnam will be very careful
in how it deals with him. "As much as the Vietnamese
have been waiting for this, they have also been very
cautious in terms of extending military relations with
the US," notes Kim Ninh, a Vietnam specialist at the
Asia Foundation in San Francisco. "They need to figure
out what all that means for them in the region."
(Copyright
2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact
content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
