US-China relations: Pompeo adds Vietnam to his Asia tour
- Two-day visit to Hanoi added at last minute, after US secretary of state seeks to cement his foreign policy message in India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia
- Pompeo said before the start of the tour it would include ‘discussions on how free nations can work together to thwart threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party’
“It’s more for the optics that America will be a friend of Vietnam, with maybe some announcement of sales of defence weapons.”
Relations between China and Vietnam have soured as Beijing has grown more aggressive in asserting its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, but analysts say Hanoi is balancing its defence ties with the US and Russia while maintaining trade relations with China.
Pompeo said on Wednesday that US energy firm AES and PetroVietnam would soon sign an agreement for a US$2.8 billion liquefied natural gas project. On the same day, the US embassy in Hanoi said the Vietnam Trade Alliance had signed an agreement to buy up to US$500 million worth of US pork over a three-year period.
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Xu Liping, director of the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Pompeo’s tour was meant to “solidify Trump’s legacy in foreign policy” with a focus on the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy.
“Vietnam, as the Asean chair this year, is important to Pompeo and the US will not give up on such an opportunity to voice the US’ position ahead of the East Asia Summit and the series of meetings held by Asean next month,” he said.
In Maldives, he said the US would open an embassy in the island nation, while in Jakarta he said America would seek out new opportunities to cooperate with Indonesia in the South China Sea.
Araral said Pompeo was keen to show that the US was still a leader in the region despite suggestions it had allowed China a free rein there.
“The bigger message really is that the US has not abandoned its friends,” he said. “So those offers that were made to Sri Lanka, the satellite sharing with India, probably some material cooperation with Vietnam – basically, if you put all of these things together, the main message is that the US is assuming its leadership role in this part of the world.”
Additional reporting by Catherine Wong