With President Joe Biden scheduled to visit Vietnam on September 10-11, Vietnamese ambassadors to the United States said relations between the two countries have been transformed thanks to their leaders’ determination to make historic visits.
One of the most important visits was that of President Truong Tan Sang to the United States in July 2013, which led the two countries to elevate their relations to a comprehensive partnership, said Nguyen Quoc Cuong, who worked as ambassador from Vietnam to the United States between 2011 and 2014.
“The countries have not yet reached a national consensus on improving relations between them, so preparations for the visit have been complicated,” Cuong said.
President Sang and his entourage left Hanoi on July 23, 2013 for a three-day visit at the invitation of President Barack Obama. This is the second American visit by a Vietnamese head of state since the normalization of relations between the two countries, following the visit of President Nguyen Minh Triet in June 2007, invited by President George W. Bush.
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Vietnamese President Truong Van Sang (left) and US President Barack Obama in the United States in July 2013. Photo AFP |
Cuong said that while picking Sang up from the airport and accompanying him to events in Washington, he noticed Sang had difficulty getting in and out of a car.
Sang told Cuong that he had been arrested and tortured during the Vietnam War. When he refused to recant his confession, an American officer lost patience and kicked him in the leg, breaking it.
Decades after the war, he said the leg still hurt in cold weather.
“I kept quiet,” Cuong said. “Then I shared the story with an advisor to President Obama. I added that many Vietnamese leaders had fought in the war and suffered injuries, like Mr. Truong Tan Sang. Some still wore pieces of American bullets in their bodies, others lost their wives or their bodies.”
The ambassador said Obama’s adviser seemed to agree with him and asked if he could report the story to the president.
“I told him it was up to him,” Cuong said. “Through this history, American leaders have better understood the vision and determination of our leaders, as well as the tradition of forgiveness towards the Vietnamese people,” he said. VnExpress.
After Vietnam and the United States agreed to elevate ties to a comprehensive partnership, the United States suggested that the two sides issue a press release of up to one page to mark the occasion.
But the Vietnamese side believes that strengthening relations is an important event and the two countries should issue a joint statement specifying the principles and meaning of the comprehensive partnership, Cuong said.
“Vietnam provided the United States with a draft of the statement. After some discussions, the two sides then agreed to issue a joint statement of approximately three or four pages with content fundamentally similar to that suggested by Vietnam.”
In the joint declaration, the two countries for the first time clearly outlined the principle of mutual respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and political system, Cuong said.
American presidents subsequently all reaffirmed the American policy of supporting a strong, independent, self-reliant and prosperous Vietnam.
Two years later, another visit to the United States by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong set a new milestone.
Pham Quang Vinh, who was Vietnam’s ambassador to the United States at the time, said: “It was the first visit of a [Vietnamese] General Secretary of the Party in the United States”
Vinh said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited Trong to visit the United States during her official trip to Vietnam in 2012.
But as the two sides were expected to discuss many issues, including their differences in political systems, the visit did not take place until July 2015.
“2015 marked 20 years of relations between the two countries, so it had both symbolic and substantive significance,” Vinh said.
He explained that the visit took place after Secretary of State John Kerry, in a telephone conversation with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh in February 2015, conveyed an invitation from President Obama to General Secretary Trong.
The United States announced the visit in early May of the same year, saying both sides had agreed that Trong would meet with Obama at the White House on July 7.
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Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (L) meets with President Barack Obama at the White House on July 7, 2015. Photo by VNA |
According to plans, Obama would receive Trong in the Oval Office and have a 60-minute interview, including 15 minutes with the press. But the meeting actually lasted nearly 90 minutes, including around 75 minutes between the two leaders.
“This means there were many interesting points in their exchanges,” Vinh said.
With Trong as head of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the visit was important because it showed the two countries’ respect for each other’s political systems, he said.
During Vinh’s tenure, from 2014 to 2018, two US presidents, Obama and Donald Trump, visited Vietnam.
Obama visited in May 2016, when he lifted the arms embargo on Vietnam.
“The visit emphasized comprehensive partnership and affirmed that the United States highly values Vietnam’s strategic position and contributions in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region,” Vinh said.
Six months later, when Donald Trump won the US presidency and announced his “America First” policy, he left many countries worried about changes in US diplomatic initiatives.
Vietnam was no exception. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had an “open and honest” telephone conversation with the US president-elect in December 2016, which partly provided the impetus for Phuc’s visit to the United States in May 2017, making him the first Southeast Asian leader to visit the United States. during Trump’s presidency.
“These efforts saved relations between Vietnam and the United States from disorder and allowed them to develop,” Vinh said.
Six months later, Trump came to Da Nang for the APEC summit and paid a state visit to Vietnam.
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President Donald Trump is welcomed at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, received by the late President Tran Dai Quang, November 12, 2017. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy |
Trump said during his visit to Hanoi that for more than two decades, Vietnam and the United States have grown closer with common goals and interests, calling the ties “important.”
Vinh said the past 10 years of comprehensive partnership have seen the strongest and most substantial developments in Vietnam-US relations in all fields, while Cuong said bilateral relations have deepened with changes ” both in quantity and quality.
