Painful and geopolitical memory. US Vice President Kamala Harris began a visit to Vietnam on Wednesday in an attempt to strengthen alliances with China, but her stay was marred by the chaotic evacuations from Afghanistan which brought back the dark hours of the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Kamala Harris is scheduled to meet with Vietnamese President Ngyuen Xuan Phuc and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in particular. On the menu: the strengthening of bilateral cooperation between Washington and the communist regime as well as the challenges posed by Beijing, particularly in the South China Sea.
The Vietnamese leg of this tour, which follows a two-day visit to Singapore, comes at a critical time for the United States.
The fall of Kabul rekindled the trauma of the Vietnam War and the chaotic 1975 evacuation of US diplomats from Saigon. Kamala Harris will not visit the city, the economic heart of the country renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
Health security
Instead, it will try to focus attention on health security during the inauguration Wednesday afternoon of a regional branch of the American Center for Disease Control (CDC). After successfully containing the coronavirus epidemic in 2020, Vietnam, like several countries in the region, is facing an unprecedented outbreak due to the highly contagious Delta variant.
The vaccination campaign is unfolding very slowly in the country with just under 2% of the approximately 100 million inhabitants fully vaccinated. The United States has already donated five million doses of vaccine to the country.
Tensions between Beijing and Washington
Tensions between Beijing and Washington remain at the center of attention. Tuesday in Singapore, Kamala Harris accused China of “continuing to exert pressure, to intimidate” the countries bordering the South China Sea.
Beijing claims almost all of this strategic area, rich in resources and through which passes a large part of world maritime trade. Several Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, have competing claims.
China has been accused of deploying military equipment there, including missile launchers, and ignoring a 2016 international tribunal ruling that found most of its historic claims to be baseless.
Beijing responded to Kamala Harris by declaring that the US intervention in Afghanistan and the crisis that followed was an example of “selfish” foreign policy on Washington’s part, accusing the United States of “intimidation.”
Relations are icy between the two countries. The disputes are numerous, ranging from cybersecurity to the struggle for technological supremacy or human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. And Joe Biden’s administration is essentially continuing the showdown started by Donald Trump.
Choose your side … or not
In Singapore, Kamala Harris wanted to allay fears, ensuring that these growing tensions should not force countries closely linked to the two economic powers to choose their side.
“Our engagement in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region is not directed against any country whatsoever and is not aimed at forcing anyone to choose between countries,” she insisted.
Hanoi is also trying to forge its own path between Washington and Beijing. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met the Chinese ambassador, assuring that Vietnam would not line up “with one country against another”.
Flight delayed due to an “abnormal health incident”
Kamala Harris arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday evening three hours late due to an “abnormal health incident” in the Vietnamese capital.
This expression is generally used by Washington to designate the “Havana syndrome”, mysterious ailments detected five years ago in Cuba and which have since affected American diplomats in several countries.
The phenomenon has given rise to allegations, as yet unproven, accusing Russia or other countries of having used high-intensity electronic devices to physically harm these diplomats.
