(Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
This past week, after attending the G20 summit in India, President Biden stopped by for a two-day trip to Vietnam. Despite the historical tensions between the two countries — only fifty years ago, the United States was engaged in one of the most infamous wars in its recent history — the relationship between the two countries seemed to be strong. Formally, the relationship between the two countries has been elevated to a “comprehensive strategic relationship,” two levels higher than what it was previously. For Vietnam, their relationship with the US is in the highest level of their hierarchy, on par with their relationships with Russia and China.
Biden’s visit to Vietnam comes as part of a broader effort by his administration to strengthen and maintain relationships with nations in the Indo-Pacific region. Apart from meetings with Indian leaders during the G20 summit in New Delhi, Biden has also met with leaders of the Philippines and Australia, and made a three-way arrangement with Japan and South Korea at Camp David. With China’s increased aggression in the Indo-Pacific region, it is evident that Biden’s recent focus on the region is at least partially motivated by this, even though China was never specifically brought up in Biden’s meeting with the general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong.
“It’s not about containing China,” Biden said. “It’s about having a stable base in the Pacific.”
So far, China has not responded with aggression to Biden’s involvement with a country it has strong economic ties with, however, in the days before Biden visited Vietnam, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, warned Biden to “abandon the Cold War mentality and zero-sum game mind-set, … [and] abide by the basic norms of international relations.”
(Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
Though mutual security concerns over China were an important subtext for the meeting, one of the main focuses during the meeting was shared economic interests. Specifically, Trong and Biden discussed more cooperation in cloud computing, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence, and revealed that Vietnamese Airlines had purchased fifty Boeing 737 jets from the United States. With the Biden administration aiming to improve prosperity and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, and Vietnam wanting to improve its own prosperity, some, such as former US Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius, describe the relationship as a “win-win.”
With all that was brought up in the meeting explicitly or implicitly, something that seemed to be noticeably lacking was a discussion of human rights violations. Vietnam’s Communist Party hardly hides their violations of human rights, including more than 150 political prisoners who were “peacefully exercising basic civil and political rights” and several others in detention who will be tried by a Communist-controlled court. With the US declaring itself a champion for human rights across the globe, several figures of human rights organizations, including Carolyn Nash, Amnesty International’s Asia advocacy director, have called out this convenient ignorance of human rights in favor of economic and diplomatic gain.
“[The Biden administration is] sending a message that the U.S. is willing to tolerate blatant failures to protect and uphold human rights," Nash said.
Though Biden claims he has raised human rights with every person he has met, many believe that private conversations are not enough to address the problem, and Vietnam must understand that there will be consequences for their abuses.
Of course, as commander-in-chief, Biden is designated by the Constitution to maintain diplomatic relationships with other countries. What the Constitution does not mention however, is the need to address human rights issues in other countries. This is a feature of American democracy that came much later, when America shifted from a more isolationist state to an interventionist, and eventually, a global superpower. Interestingly, human rights, even for US citizens themselves, are not mentioned in the Constitution, and were only added in the Bill of Rights as part of a compromise with the Anti-Federalists to ratify the Constitution. Thus, the fact that the United States puts economic concerns before human rights is nothing new, but we can only hope that pressure from human rights organizations will result in a deal similar to the Bill of Rights in which human rights issues are championed after diplomatic relationships with Vietnam have been strengthened sufficiently.
Biden Forges Deeper Ties With Vietnam as China's Ambition Mounts | The New York Times
Biden accused of sidelining Vietnam and India rights over strategic interests | Reuters
The significance of Biden’s trip to Vietnam in the face of China’s growing influence | PBS NewsHour
3 comments:
Nice article! I like how you addressed the complexity of the situation, and how the U.S. is attempting to solidify economic relationships in Asia while seemingly ignoring the issue of human rights in Vietnam. However, I think this is generally positive news because even though Communist Vietnam is very different than the U.S, building diplomatic relationships with foreign nations is very important to maintain good terms and decrease our dependency on China for materials.
I read Vietnam has one of the largest metal deposits in the world (amongst China), and building a relationship with them is important for manufacturing technology products.
I agree with Chris on the basis that forming stable, diplomatic relationships with other nations, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, is beneficial, I truly wonder how these relationships will change after the upcoming elections for the legislative and executive branches. If the Democratic Party gains a president and a majority in both the House and Senate, I am sure that there will be an advancement in trying to improve human rights in foreign countries. However, if the opposite were to occur and the Republican Party were to gain a majority, then I do not see it outside the realm of reality where the US actually does fairly little for, what should be, a global push for human rights activism. At some point, we have to decide when this push should happen, if we only look to prioritize economic gain, then when will we stop? Eventually, the US as a global superpower must place humans as precedents over the economy, right? I wish it was that easy...
Something that has yet to be addressed in the comments, but was touched on in the post, is the fact that while this visit officially isn't about China, it would be hard to say that that didn't factor into the Biden administration's considerations when forging alliances in that region. In fact, evidence would suggest that it's a pretty major reason - for example, the recent Camp David Summit, where Biden met with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, and his trip to India (which could also be contentious as India poses similar issues and still has not denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine).
However, I definitely agree that when making these alliances, human rights still need to be a consideration. Yet, I also don't think that there is a black and white, right or wrong answer. I suppose there is a balance that must be struck between advancing one's own country and advancing its ideals beyond the country's borders.
Finally, one last thought I had is that as a generation grew up half a century after the Vietnam War, we likely have much less emotional and strong opinions in terms of allying with Vietnam, which for some could be an extremely strong source of trauma, vitriol, or grief. On one hand, maybe making amends is a good thing; on the other, it does to some extent seem to slight the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and the millions of people affected by ignoring some of the ideals the war was fought for in the first place.
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