The once unlikely partnership between the US and Vietnam has grown closer thanks to mutual suspicion of China

President Joe Biden’s upcoming visit to Vietnam will be brief–a 24-hour stopover on the way back from this weekend’s G-20 summit in India–but consequential. During the trip, Vietnam is expected to formally upgrade its relationship with the U.S. to the status of “comprehensive strategic partnership,” a step that marks the growing confluence of interests between the two former wartime enemies, particularly when it comes to their mutual rival, China.

The relationship has been growing closer for some time. Since Bill Clinton’s historic 2000 trip–the first by a U.S. President since the Vietnam war–every American president has visited the country.

The legacy of the war, which killed more than 58,000 Americans and 2 million Vietnamese, still looms to some extent over U.S.-Vietnam relations, and this trip will be no exception. On Monday, Biden plans to visit a memorial to his late friend, Sen. John McCain, on the site in Hanoi where McCain was captured by the Vietnamese military in 1967.

But as painful as their shared history may be, it’s far from the top priority for the U.S. or Vietnamese leaders these days, both of whom now see a counterweight to China as more important than a decades-old enmity. And Vietnam and China have a long and difficult history of their own.

As Bich Tran, fellow in the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Messenger, “China and Vietnam share thousands of years of history. Compared with that, U.S.-Vietnam history is a short episode.”

An “upgrade” for the U.S. - and what it would mean

Vietnam divides its friends into three diplomatic tiers. Since 2013, the United States has been a “comprehensive partner,” the lowest of the three. During this visit, Hanoi is widely expected to upgrade its relations with the U.S., likely bumping it up two notches to tier one, or ”comprehensive strategic partner,” a category that also includes China, Russia, India, and South Korea. Vietnam may soon upgrade ties with Australia and Singapore as well.

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A top-tier partnership confers no specific benefits, but all these moves are widely seen as efforts by Vietnam to push back against China’s growing territorial ambitions.

In addition to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” Vietnam and China share an 800-mile border, a Communist system of government, and deep economic ties: China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner. But the history of relations between the two also includes centuries of tension and conflict, including a brief war in 1979.

Lately, the main point of tension has been the South China Sea. China claims nearly the entirety of the sea–a major shipping route and fishing ground that may also contain significant oil and gas reserves–as its maritime territory. That claim is fiercely disputed by Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries. China regularly sails ships through Vietnamese waters, builds military outposts on disputed islands in the sea, and oil drilling operations by both countries in these waters have become dangerous flashpoints. The issue is so sensitive in Vietnam that the government recently banned the movie Barbie because of a shot of a map that appeared to show the “nine-dash line” that China uses to mark its South China Sea claims.

An employee installs a t-shirt with an image of photo of US President Joe Biden (R) next to another one showing a portrait Vietnamese late President Ho Chi Minh (L) in a souvenir shop in Hanoi on September 6, 2023.

A closer U.S.-Vietnam relationship

China’s rise and regional ambitions have brought the U.S. and Vietnam closer together.

The U.S. is now Vietnam’s second largest trading partner after China, and Vietnam is America’s 10th largest. That commercial relationship is likely to grow as U.S. firms seek alternatives to China for manufacturing; Reuters reports that plane maker Boeing and energy firm AES may make announcements about plans in Vietnam during Biden’s visit.

On the military front, Vietnam has begun participating in U.S.-led naval exercises. And while Vietnam’s traditional military supplier, Russia, still accounts for 80 percent of its arsenal, the country has been buying more hardware from U.S. defense contractors–particularly for coastal defense– since the lifting of an arms embargo in 2016.

On Tuesday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan did not mention China but said Biden’s visit would underscore “the leading role that Vietnam will play in our growing network of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.”

In an interview with The Messenger, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the last sitting U.S. Senator to have served in Vietnam, said it was “imperative” that the South China Sea remain “open for business, not just for us but for other countries as well.” He added, “To the extent that we can work with the Vietnamese, bolster them, to the extent that they agree with us, there’s strength in numbers.”

”The United States has a vision to turn the Indo-Pacific into a free, open, connected and secure region, but it cannot do that by itself,” the CSIS’s Tran said. “Vietnam is an important player in that vision.”

Human rights concerns

President Biden often frames the U.S. rivalry with China as a struggle to defend democratic values against authoritarianism. But unlike other countries in the region with which the U.S. has deepened political or military ties–India, the Philippines, Australia, and Indonesia are recent examples–Vietnam is not a democracy. Its political system is roughly similar to China’s: a single-party state without national elections, where political dissent is often criminalized.

Human rights groups say the government has recently intensified its crackdown on political opposition. Earlier this summer, the State Department publicly criticized Vietnam for the jailing of the country’s leading climate activist, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, a former Obama Foundation scholar.

Writing on Twitter, Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch, argued that "By embracing the Vietnamese government despite its repression, Biden abandons the global contest between democracy and autocracy in favor of a mere geopolitical struggle."

Carper noted concerns about the recent arrests of activists and said, “I’m sure [Biden is] prepared to talk with the Vietnamese about why we think that’s not a good idea.”

Some reports have suggested Vietnam may free one of its more than 150 political prisoners as a gesture during Biden’s visit.

Despite these concerns, Vietnam’s long coastline, humming factories, and deep-seated suspicion of Chinese intentions make it an attractive partner for Washington’s ambitions in the region. What seemed an unlikely friendship not long ago is only likely to deepen.

Joshua Keating

Biden Visit to Vietnam Likely to Produce ‘Tier One’ Friendship between Past Enemies