US President Joe Biden visits the Vietnamese capital Hanoi on Sunday. He would like to become better friends with Vietnam, but that country is hesitant for fear of neighboring China.
Editorial September 10, 2023, 5:00 AM
‘Is the American president coming to visit on Sunday? Well, the more partners we have in the world, the better,” says 32-year-old fish sauce seller Phạm Thị Thuý just outside the Vietnamese port city of Haiphong. She also serves filter coffee on a terrace under the trees to workers from the huge factory down the road of the young car brand Vinfast. It builds and exports electric cars and is the pride of Vietnam; already worth more than competitors such as Ford or Volkswagen.
Pham’s income has also increased in recent years. “I have nothing against Americans at all.” Pointing to her husband who is silently sweeping the shop floor: ‘He lost a grandfather and an uncle in an American bombing of Haiphong, but that war is in the past. We want to look ahead.’
Fish sauce seller Phạm Thị Thuý (32). Image Hendra Eka for de Volkskrant
Joe Biden is welcome this weekend when he lands in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi: the American president will politely ask whether the diplomatic relationship between the former enemies can be taken to a higher level. Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War – called the American War in Vietnam – the US hopes to be embraced as a strategic partner. A stream of American diplomats visited Hanoi in recent months, Biden publicly expressed the desire to become better friends, but so far Secretary General Nguyễn Phú Trọng of the Communist Party of Vietnam has shown himself to be a timid lover. He fears he will upset his big neighbor China.
Samsung in Lego
The red carpet for foreign heads of state may actually remain at Hanoi airport after Biden’s visit. All world leaders like to visit the Southeast Asian country, which has developed in recent decades from one of the poorest countries in the world to an important player in the global economy. Not only shoes and T-shirts come from Vietnam, but also Macbooks, iPhones and Samsung tablets. Even the Danish Lego is building a new factory among the rice fields outside Ho Chi Minh City for 1 billion dollars. Many manufacturers are looking for an alternative to neighboring China, which is struggling with an international boycott and rising labor costs.
Biden’s one-day visit to Hanoi likely means that Vietnamese timidity has been overcome. Both countries share a common security goal: containing the increasingly assertive China in the South China Sea (called the East Sea in Vietnam). Fishermen complain that they are being chased away and oil companies no longer dare to supply their installations. The US already supplied naval ships and tactical drones to the Vietnamese coast guard, and that cooperation can be further scaled up.
As a reward, President Biden promises the Vietnamese more access to high-tech knowledge, materials and capital. This is strategically interesting for Vietnam, which has been trying to develop into a more high-quality player in the global chip industry for some time. American chipmaker Intel already runs the world’s largest chip factory in southern Vietnam, but its activities there are limited to manufacturing, testing and packaging. Much more knowledge and tens of billions of euros are needed to design new chips and build high-quality factories.
Agent Orange
Party leader Nguyễn’s reluctance has nothing to do with the Vietnam War. Even though the US dropped millions of tons of bombs on Vietnam during twenty years of war, plus the poisonous Agent Orange, and more than three million people lost their lives, the Americans are a welcome guest in Vietnam. Biden is also not the first American president to visit Hanoi. Both countries are now helping each other to search for and identify missing persons.
Ask an ordinary Vietnamese person on the street what he thinks of the American War and there will be a long explanation about two ideological world systems – capitalism and communism – that happened to collide in Vietnam. Like tectonic plates that cannot be stopped. According to most Vietnamese, the American veteran, who is now retired and visiting Vietnam for an emotional battlefield tour, cannot be blamed. The idea is that these were conscripts who were also lied to by politicians. As a 32-year-old senator, Joe Biden voted in 1975 for an immediate departure from Vietnam.
To keep neighboring China on friendly terms, Vietnam is sending a delegation of top diplomats to Beijing before and during Biden’s visit. They will probably explain that although the US may become a strategic partner, China is still an even greater friend. That country can call itself – together with Russia, India and South Korea – a ‘strategic comprehensive partner’; the highest rung of the Vietnamese diplomatic ladder. The fact that South Korea is already there confirms that economic interests weigh heavily. The Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung alone employs 100,000 Vietnamese and accounts for 18 percent of the country’s exports.
Nguyễn Văn Tình (65) with his grandchild Han. Image Hendra Eka for de Volkskrant
In the village of Thuy Giang, where the Korean manufacturer LG has swallowed up almost all the rice fields for a huge screen factory, 65-year-old rice farmer Nguyễn Văn Tình smokes a hookah. ‘I am one of the last farmers in this area – rice, chickens, cows and fish. When I moved here in 1999, all I saw were rice fields. If the factory also wants to buy my fields, please do. As a farmer you earn almost nothing for a lot of work.’
65-year-old Nguyễn believes his children are better off. ‘They all work at LG. One makes headphones, another prints labels and the third drives a delivery truck. It is steady work, their income is stable.’ With a nod to his ten-year-old Hân who is playing with the cat: ‘I hope she gets an even better job; doctor or journalist!’ According to him, President Biden is more than welcome. ‘I was a soldier once, but that was a long time ago. There is no anger, we look to the future. The more cooperation, the better. ‘
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2023-09-10 21:58:58
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