US, Vietnam Pledge to Boost Ties as Blinken Visits Hanoi

HANOI: In an effort to combat China’s’s rising confidence in the Indo-Pacific, Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to build relationships with its longtime adversaries in Hanoi fifty years after the last U.S.combat soldiers left South Vietnam.

Just two days after the 50th anniversary of the U.S. troop withdrawal that put an end to America’s’s special military presence in Vietnam, Blinken and Asian Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made a commitment to improve connections to new heights.

And it happened as Blinken began construction on a massive fresh$ 1.2 billion U.S. ambassador substance in the capital of Vietnam. The Biden administration hopes that this project will show its dedication to enhancing ties less than 30 years after political relations were resumed in 1995.

Despite worries about Vietnam’s’s history with regard to human rights, Washington sees Hanoi as a crucial element of its system for the area and has worked to utilize its long-standing competition with its much larger neighbor China to increase U.S. influence there.

After discussions with Chinh, the foreign minister of Vietnam, Blinken told writers,” We think this is an opportune time to raise our existing agreement.”

According to Chinh,” This has been a really thorough and effective relationship, and we will keep deepening relationships going along.” ” We greatly appreciate the U.S. ‘ s role and responsibility towards the Asia Pacific, or, in a larger context, the Indo-Pacific.”

He continued by saying that the socialist government of Vietnam is eager to” further enhance our diplomatic ties to a new elevation.”

Vietnam and Beijing have regional and maritime problems in the South China Sea, along with a number of China’s’s smaller relatives. In response, the US has strengthened military ties with the Philippines and the self-ruled peninsula of Taiwan, which China claims to be a maverick state, and offered political support.

A second Coast Guard cutter, which will enhance the father, is currently being transferred by the United States to Vietnam, according to Blinken.