The communist government of Vietnam is a problem. ADVERTISING The communist government of Vietnam is a problem. First and foremost, it is a problem for the people of Vietnam, who still suffer political repression despite the market-oriented economic reforms that
The communist government of Vietnam is a problem.
First and foremost, it is a problem for the people of Vietnam, who still suffer political repression despite the market-oriented economic reforms that have added commercial bustle to daily life and helped lift many Vietnamese out of poverty.
Forty years after the fall of Saigon, there has been no gradual transition to multiparty democracy; there still are 110 political prisoners, as well as widespread censorship, in the Southeast Asian nation.
Consequently, Vietnam’s regime also is a problem for those who favor a robust pro-human rights stance in U.S. foreign policy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement — of which Hanoi would be the only low-wage authoritarian member.
Other things being equal, the Obama administration’s decision to include Vietnam in TPP would be indefensible; ditto for President Barack Obama’s Oval Office welcome this week to the Vietnamese Communist Party general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, an honorific visit for a man who is his nation’s political strongman, not an actual government official.
“There continue to be significant differences in political philosophy and political systems between our two countries,” Obama said after that meeting, which is one way to put it.
Other things, though, are not equal.
The United States already trades with Vietnam, to the tune of roughly $30 billion per year. TPP potentially is a good deal for the U.S. economy because it cuts tariffs, and Vietnam’s tariffs on U.S. goods are higher than U.S. tariffs on Vietnamese goods. The agreement will commit Vietnam to respect the rights of its workers; it’s a paper commitment, to be sure, but does add to the legal basis for U.S. human-rights diplomacy and the demands of Vietnam’s activists.
Meanwhile, there are strategic considerations.
Vietnam and the United States share an interest in checking China’s aggressive moves in East Asia, which makes them natural partners despite the war the United States once fought to prevent the likes of Trong from taking over the then-divided country.
As the history of Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines shows, democracy in Asia flourishes with the support and stability a strong U.S. security presence provides.
Taken together, economics and geopolitics can justify taking what already is a substantial U.S.-Vietnamese diplomatic relationship to the next level, TPP — on one condition.
The Obama administration and its successors must treat closer ties as a means to the overriding end: greater freedom, political as well as economic, in Asia.
Vietnam has eased up on its dissidents in the past year, releasing 50 of 160 prisoners of conscience in 2014. This represented not fundamental change in Hanoi, but an effort to mollify U.S. critics of Hanoi’s inclusion in TPP.
Still, opportunistic or not, this shift shows Hanoi needs us — maybe more than we need them.
That gives the United States leverage, which it must not hesitate to use on behalf of those brave Vietnamese who do not share their rulers’ “political philosophy.”
— Washington Post
