WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama could lift restrictions on arms sales when he makes his first visit to Vietnam next week. That would remove a final vestige of wartime animosity but would not please China, which views growing U.S. defense ties in its backyard with deep suspicion amid rising military tensions in the South China Sea.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama could lift restrictions on arms sales when he makes his first visit to Vietnam next week. That would remove a final vestige of wartime animosity but would not please China, which views growing U.S. defense ties in its backyard with deep suspicion amid rising military tensions in the South China Sea.
There’s considerable support in Washington for the lifting the restrictions, including from the Pentagon, but also pockets of congressional opposition, leaving uncertain whether Obama will announce it when he visits Vietnam, starting Sunday. The administration is pushing for more progress on human rights, a constant drag on the relationship. Significantly, the communist government has committed to allow independent labor unions as a condition of its participation in the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, but it still holds about 100 political prisoners and there have been more detentions this year.
As part of Obama’s effort to help Southeast Asian nations counter Beijing, the U.S. in 2014 partially lifted an arms embargo in place since the end of the Vietnam War, allowing Vietnam to buy lethal defense equipment for maritime security. Vietnam, which has mostly Russian-origin equipment, has not bought anything, but is still eager for Washington to remove the remaining restrictions. If nothing else, it would show relations are fully normalized and open the way to deeper security cooperation.
“Real progress on protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms including through legal reform is crucial to ensuring that Vietnam and our relationship achieves its full potential,” Daniel Kritenbrink, the White house senior director for Asian affairs, told reporters Wednesday. The issue is also sensitive because of criticism of Vietnam’s rights record among congressional opponents of TPP.