In Vietnam, Biden is making his latest attempt to bring one of China’s neighbors closer to the United States

Hanoi Vietnam
CNN
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President Joe Biden arrived at Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s doorstep on Sunday with an agreement to bring another of China’s neighbors closer to the United States.

In just the past five months, Biden has hosted the President of the Philippines at the White House for the first time in more than a decade; The Indian Prime Minister was celebrated with a lavish state dinner; He hosted his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in a summit full of symbolism at the famous presidential retreat at Camp David.

At every turn, Biden’s courtship and his team’s steady diplomacy have secured stronger diplomatic, military, and economic ties with a network of allies and partners joined if not by an outright sense of alarm at China’s increasingly aggressive military and economic posture, then at least by a growing sense of wariness and anxiety.

The latest page in the US playbook in the Indo-Pacific will come with the creation of a “comprehensive strategic partnership” that would put the United States on equal footing with Vietnam’s highest level of partners, including China, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

“It represents a new period of fundamental reorientation between the United States and Vietnam,” a senior administration official said before Biden arrived in Hanoi, adding that it would broaden a range of issues between the two countries.

“It will not be easy for Vietnam, because they are under tremendous pressure from China,” the official continued. “We are aware of the risks and the president will be very careful in how he deals with Vietnamese friends.”

The increasingly interconnected network of American partnerships in the region constitutes just one aspect of the American diplomatic strategy in dealing with China. On a separate track, the Biden administration has also sought more stable relations and improved communications with Beijing over the past year, with a number of senior Cabinet secretaries making a trip to the Chinese capital in just the past few months.

The latter part of this playbook has yielded fewer results so far than Biden’s appeals to China’s wary neighbors, a division that was on stark display when Biden attended the G20 in New Delhi, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not.

The president did not seem too concerned when asked on Saturday about his Chinese counterpart’s absence from the summit.

“It would be nice to have him here,” Biden said, with Modi and a handful of other world leaders at his side. But no, the summit is going well.”

As Biden and Xi vie for influence in Asia and beyond, the mere appearance could be seen as a power play, and Biden has sought to make the most of Xi’s absence, seizing the opportunity to underscore the United States’ continued commitment to and support of the region. Developing countries around the world.

In Vietnam, Biden is not competing for China’s influence alone. Upon his arrival, reports indicated that Hanoi was preparing to secretly purchase weapons from Russia, a long-time arms supplier.

A senior administration official said Biden plans to announce steps on Monday to help Vietnam diversify its resources away from excessive reliance on Russian weapons.

As China’s economy slows and its leader escalates military aggressions, Biden hopes to make the United States appear a more attractive and reliable partner. In New Delhi, he did so by presenting proposals to boost global infrastructure and development programs as a counterweight to China.

Beijing and Moscow condemned the so-called “Cold War mentality” that divides the world into blocs. The White House insists it seeks only competition, not conflict. Biden told reporters on Sunday that he was “sincere” about improving the US relationship with China.

“I don’t want to contain China, I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is improving, and that everyone knows what it is about,” Biden said. He added: “We have an opportunity to strengthen alliances around the world to maintain stability. And that is what this trip is about, which is for India to cooperate more with the United States, to be closer to the United States, and for Vietnam to be closer to the United States. It is not about containment.” “China. It’s about having a stable base – a stable base in the Indo-Pacific region.”

However, the desire to attract countries into the fold was clear.

On Saturday, Biden posed for a photo with the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa, three members of the BRICS group that Xi has sought to raise as a rival to US-dominated summits such as the G20.

If there is a danger in this approach, it is that it makes countries feel pressured by rival giants. However, for Biden, there is a necessity to at least offer poor countries an alternative to China when it comes to investments and development. The president acknowledged on Sunday that the Chinese economy had faced “some difficulties” recently, pointing to stalled growth and a real estate crisis unfolding in the country, but he tried to quash the idea that the United States was rooting against China’s economic success, telling reporters: “I want to see China succeed economically,” he told reporters. But I want to see it succeed according to the rules.”

He added: “We are not looking to hurt China. Honestly, we will all be better off if China does well – China does well under international rules.”

But increasingly, China’s neighbors – such as Vietnam – are seeking a counterweight to Beijing’s powerful and often ruthless presence in the region, even if they are not prepared to completely cede China’s sphere of influence to the United States.

“We are not asking or expecting the Vietnamese to make a choice,” the senior administration official said. “We clearly understand and know that they need and want a strategic partnership with China. That’s just the nature of the beast.”

Days before Biden’s visit and the expected announcement of the strategic partnership, China sent a senior Communist Party official to Vietnam to boost “mutual political trust” between the two communist neighbors, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.

In response to a question about Biden’s upcoming visit to Vietnam, the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday warned the United States against using its relations with individual Asian countries to target a “third party.”

“The United States should abandon the zero-sum Cold War mentality, adhere to basic standards of international relations, not target third parties, and not undermine peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region,” ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a daily press conference. .

Vietnam also seeks to maintain good relations with China. The Communist Party chief was the first foreign leader to visit Xi in Beijing after the Chinese leader secured an unprecedented third term last October. In June, the Vietnamese Prime Minister met with Xi during a state visit to China.

But even as it seeks to avoid China’s wrath, Vietnam is increasingly gravitating toward the United States out of economic self-interest — its trade with the United States has swelled in recent years, and it is eager to take advantage of American efforts to diversify its supply chains beyond China. – As well as concerns about China’s military buildup in the South China Sea.

Experts say these strengthened partnerships are as much a credit to the Biden administration’s overall China strategy as they are a result of the way China is increasingly aggressively exercising its military and economic power in the region.

China has long complained about the US alliance network in its backyard. “She said these were remnants of the Cold War, and that the United States needed to stop encircling China, but it was China’s behavior and choices that pushed these countries together,” said Patricia Kim, a China expert at the Brookings Institution.

“Therefore, China’s foreign policy has been counterproductive in many ways.”

Developing relations between the United States and Vietnam is of great importance given Washington’s complex history with Hanoi.

The two countries have gone from bitter enemies who fought a devastating war to increasingly close partners, even with Vietnam still run by the same communist forces that eventually won and sent in American military forces.

There were indications during Biden’s visit that some of those differences remain. Reporters representing American media were banned from covering events at Communist Party headquarters—an event that the White House and Vietnamese officials had agreed would be covered by the American press.

This incident only served to underscore the extent to which Biden is advancing US strategic and economic interests despite concerns about human rights and freedom of the press.

Vietnam is the world’s third-largest jailer of journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders, and the country ranks 178th out of 180 countries in the organization’s World Press Freedom Index.

The White House defended its dealings with authoritarian regimes around the world, insisting that Biden raises human rights and democracy issues in particular.

While it took a decade to develop that relationship, U.S. officials say it was coordinated efforts to take the relationship to new heights that carried the years-long momentum further.

The visit of Vietnam’s chief diplomat, President Le Hoai Trong, to Washington in late June crystallized this possibility. During a meeting with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the two first discussed the possibility of developing the relationship, according to a Biden administration official.

As he returned to his office, Sullivan wondered whether the United States could be more ambitious than just upgrading one step in the relationship — to a “strategic partner” — and directed his team to travel to the region and deliver a letter to Trong proposing an alternative solution. A two-step upgrade would take relations to the highest possible level, putting the United States on equal footing with Vietnam’s other “comprehensive strategic partners”: China, Russia, India and South Korea.

Sullivan will speak again with Truong on July 13 as he travels with Biden to the NATO summit in Helsinki.

The conversation pushed the possibility of a two-step upgrade in a positive direction, but an agreement was not reached until after the Vietnamese ambassador to Washington visited the White House in mid-August. Inside Sullivan’s West Wing office, the two finalized plans to take the US-Vietnam relationship to new heights, as Biden and Vietnam’s leader, Secretary-General Nguyen Phu Trong, shook hands in Hanoi.

The trip was still wrapping up when Biden revealed during an off-camera fundraiser that he was planning a visit. The observation sent the planning into overdrive.

However, American officials are careful not to characterize the rapprochement with Vietnam — or with the Philippines, India, Japan, and Korea, or its security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom — as part of an overall strategy to counter China’s military and economic heft. In the Indo-Pacific region.

“I think this is a deliberate design by the Biden administration,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. “You do not want countries in the region or African countries to feel that the United States cares about them only because of China because that shows a lack of commitment. This shows that we only care about you because we do not want you to go to the Chinese.”