The President of the United States, Joe Biden, continued this Sunday in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, his round of Asian canvassing to forge alliances to neutralize the influence of his great rival China in the Indo-Pacific region. In an appearance before the press, however, Biden defended that it was not about starting “a new Cold War,” but about maintaining “stability.”
He landed in Vietnam after attending the G-20 meeting in New Delhi, which resulted in the strengthening of the idea of the Global South in the geostrategic order, and with a joint statement calling for respect for territorial integrity, however without success as far as the explicit condemnation of Russia is concerned. “That’s what this trip is about: India cooperating much more with us and Vietnam being closer to the United States. “It’s not about containing China, it’s about having a stable base in the Indo-Pacific,” Biden said in Hanoi.
The aim of the visit to Vietnam and the meeting with its Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong was to highlight the progress in diplomatic relations between the two countries towards achieving their maximum status as “integral strategic partners”. The tightening of relations also implies an intensification of economic cooperation, with particular attention to the West’s dependence on Asian semiconductors, a global imbalance that the pandemic has exposed. “It won’t be easy for Vietnam,” a senior White House official acknowledged in a phone call with reporters before the trip on condition of anonymity. “They are under enormous pressure from China. We are aware of what is at stake.
The gesture ends a 28-year diplomatic journey. In 1995, relations between the two countries were considered normalized, after the war they faced until the dishonorable withdrawal of the United States in 1973, with a visit from then-President Bill Clinton. However, information from the New York Times on Saturday clouded the reception climate. It reported on Vietnam’s secret plans, which have benefited in part from tensions between Washington and Beijing that have positioned it as an alternative source of supply for U.S. markets, to buy weapons from Russia, even though this would violate them Sanctions imposed by Washington against Moscow after the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Biden plans to announce measures on Monday to help Vietnam shake off its overreliance on Russian weapons, according to a senior administration official quoted by CNN.
Gesture round
Despite the president’s justifications to the press in Hanoi on a day he described as “historic,” it is difficult not to interpret Washington’s gestures and strategy in recent months as part of a plan to contain Beijing. First, Biden hosted Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos at the White House for the first time in more than a decade. He later opened the halls to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he treated to a state dinner, an honor reserved for very few heads of state visiting Washington. And finally, at his retreat at Camp David, a place of enormous importance in the military and strategic history of the United States, he held a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol “a new era of trilateral cooperation” to initiate.
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In Hanoi, Biden said he met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang during the G20 summit on Saturday, an appointment that President Xi Jinping chose to skip, which was interpreted as another symptom of strained relations between Beijing and Washington against the backdrop of war in Ukraine and harmony with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the upgrading of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) group of emerging economies, which is preparing for its five-year expansion to 11 members.
Biden and Xi have not spoken in 10 months. Therefore, the US president’s meeting with Li was seen as the highest-level exchange between the two powers since the G20 meeting in Indonesia last year. “We’re talking about stability. … It was not a confrontation at all,” Biden summarized.
The press conference brought another scene to feed the many who see Biden’s age of 80 as an obstacle to his re-election plans. The meeting began with the president saying he had “traveled around the world in five days,” a week in which problems at home mounted in the form of unfavorable polls and low popularity ratings. And it almost ended when, apparently alleging jet lag, he tried to end his performance at the end of the afternoon by saying, “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to bed.”
The press managed to wrest another minute from him until Biden, who tried to appear dynamic in his performance by walking from here to there with microphone in hand like a TV anchor, finally left the room while a journalist followed him said he was shouting a question to get her to respond to news released Wednesday that special counsel David Weiss plans to ask the grand jury to indict Hunter Biden, his son. It’s another problem for the president: He is being investigated for tax crimes and for lying when he said he was drug-free when he bought a gun.
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