President Clinton's Visit to Vietnam

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CIAO DATE: 02/01

President Clinton's Visit to Vietnam

Frederick Z. Brown

Asian Update Series
November 2000
Asia Society

Contents

Map
The Setting
The Process of Normalization
The Embargo and Its Consequences
The U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement
The Issues

Appendix 1: The Vietnamese Players
Appendix 2: Top Vietnam Exports to the U.S.
Appendix 3: Top U.S. Exports to Vietnam
Appendix 4: Vietnam's Global Balance of Trade
Appendix 5: U.S. Balance of Trade with Vietnam
Further Reading
Vietnam Specialists
About Author
More info on Asian Updates

The Setting

On November 17, 2000, President Bill Clinton begins a four-day state visit to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the first visit ever by an American president to the unified country of Vietnam. He will be accompanied by Mrs. Clinton, daughter Chelsea, and several cabinet secretaries, most likely state, commerce, health and human services, veterans affairs, and the United States Trade Representative (USTR). A congressional delegation is also planned.

At this writing, plans call for the president to spend two days in Hanoi and two days in Ho Chi Minh City, with a possible side trip to Hue or Danang. In Hanoi, Clinton will meet the immediate successors of the architects of North Vietnam's victory in the Second Indochina War, Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, and President Tran Duc Luong, who extended the invitation when he met with the U.S. president briefly in New York City in September. This triumvirate, in concert with 15 other members of the Politburo, rules Vietnam. President Clinton will ride through Ba Dinh Square, where Ho Chi Minh, on September 2, 1945, quoted the American Declaration of Independence in proclaiming the birth of a communist Vietnam.

President Clinton's visit comes 25 years after the fall of the Saigon regime that the United States had supported in the bloodiest struggle of the cold war. The visit will be an emotional event for the generations on both sides who fought that war. The president will find profound paradoxes in Vietnam, a country whose young people are seething with pent up energy, who live in a society still gripped by its history, a nation with cautious leaders who reject any change that might threaten their power.

The president will also find a Vietnam that in some ways has changed a lot since 1975 but in others remains much the same. Intrusions of the State into the people's lives have diminished, and the absence of war has brought them tranquility, yet Vietnam remains highly authoritarian with close internal security controls; the party, through its pervasive front organizations, tries to blot up all social space. The Vietnamese people, taken as a group, are eating better than ever before, yet malnutrition persists, especially in rural areas. The World Bank puts Vietnam near the bottom (167 out of 206) in the poverty ranking of the world's nations. Its national per capita income has increased over the past few years but is estimated at only $370 a year.

At the heart of these paradoxes is the Vietnamese Communist Party. The war is in the past and for most Vietnamese ideological purity is irrelevant. The legitimacy of the VCP rests squarely on its ability to provide a better life for the Vietnamese people. Since 1979, the VCP has been in the throes of an internal debate regarding the pace and extent of economic reform. The Sixth Congress of the VCP in 1986 formally inaugurated a policy of renovation (doi moi), and from 1991 to 1997 the economy grew at an average of more than 8 percent. Since then, the Asian economic crisis and the reluctance of the VCP leadership to take the next step in reform have resulted in a drop to 4 percent annual growth and brought foreign direct investment almost to a halt. Moreover, the benefits of doi moi are evident, but the gap between rich and poor is blatant; many rural areas remain impoverished. Corruption and abuse of power by party and government cadres are widespread.

Whereas there has been significant economic change since 1975, political reform has been stymied. In the name of stability, the party's leadership is determined to retain exclusive power and rejects the concepts of political pluralism and "peaceful evolution," which it sees as a western device to subvert communism. The media is controlled. The right of assembly in the western sense of the phrase is not honored. The VCP motto, "The people rule, the State governs, the Party leads," is misleading. Although it is subject to a range of pressures from its own people, the party still calls the shots in Vietnam.

Nonetheless, a number of changes are underway. The elites of the VCP, the state owned enterprises, and the expanding private sector recognize that the present socio-political system needs to be modified, if not overhauled. Among the basic shifts already evident are:

The slow expansion of the role of the National Assembly
The VCP's intention to separate its bureaucracy from the operation of the government, an effort that springs less from a liberal mindset than from an acknowledgment of the current system's inefficiency
The parallel effort to create a government guided more by law than party fiat, in recognition that the former is more appropriate to a country no longer at war
The continued decentralization of national administration, a process that increases pressure from below on government and party leaders
The party's commitment to "equitization" in many areas of economic life, despite continued emphasis on state-owned enterprises as the backbone of the economy and also of the party's hold on power
Finally, and perhaps most significant in the long term, genuine debate within the VCP regarding its own future and the inevitability of political liberalization commensurate with economic change. In effect, a sort of pluralism beyond traditional communist "democratic centralism" already exists for the 2.2 million VCP members–but not for the remaining 77 million Vietnamese who are outside, and still governed by, the party.

What can we expect to come out of this historic visit? In one sense, it is the capstone of Vietnamese and American efforts to fully normalize relations between the two countries, in effect a celebration of the American opening to Vietnam under the Clinton administration. Yet in view of Clinton's attitude toward U.S. policy during the war years and avoidance of military service, the president will be criticized at home for using the visit to expiate (or vindicate, depending on one's perspective) his past. Some will condemn the visit as an expensive charade designed to embellish his legacy. In the short term, beyond the cosmetics of good will and elaborate ceremony, it is doubtful that the visit will yield concrete steps forward in U.S.-Vietnam relations. These personal matters aside, the very fact of an American President visiting Vietnam–our former enemy, still an avowedly communist state, yet a nation in traumatic social transformation–is unmistakably positive. Most Vietnamese–patriotic, determined to improve their standard of living regardless of ideology, and eager to join the modern world–see this visit as an extraordinary event. They understand full well that a closer and friendlier relationship with the United States, which this visit dramatically demonstrates, will strengthen Vietnam in intangible yet meaningful ways.

The Process of Normalization

The Vietnam War had immense repercussions for both winners and losers. The war deflated the idealism of the Kennedy years, caused President Johnson to forsake reelection, unleashed forces that compelled President Nixon's resignation, and diminished the American presence in Asia. As the Gulf War and Kosovo proved, the lessons of Vietnam, real or imagined, continue to pervade our highest councils to this day. In no campaign debate did Al Gore fail to mention his Vietnam service as a badge of honor.

Why is the Vietnam War still so much with us? In part it is the humiliation of defeat, in part the images of the TV age that are burned into our minds–the dead Kent State student, the South Vietnamese general blowing out the brains of a prisoner, the naked child fleeing napalm, body bags, Miss Saigon. And for America's South Vietnamese allies, the defeat was an unmitigated catastrophe; 2 million were forced to flee abroad, and millions more suffered retribution at home. These things are hard for Americans and Vietnamese Americans to forget.

For the winners, although the war unified the country under Marxism-Leninism, the consequences of victory were harsh, going well beyond the horrendous physical damage inflicted and the millions of lives lost. And when it came to building a new relationship with the United States–a high priority for Hanoi once the Soviet Union collapsed–communist Vietnam found itself in a feeble position.

The Clinton visit is the latest in a series of incremental steps toward normalization taken by four American presidents over a quarter of a century. Each administration has confronted complex psychological and political obstacles along the way. Normalization was never a magical moment to be achieved by the stroke of a pen. It has been and remains a process.

Both countries have been trapped by their respective histories. In truth, between 1945 and 1995 the United States had never enjoyed anything approaching normal relations with any government of Vietnam, either North or South, nor with the Vietnamese people. Until 1975, the U.S. had been effectively at war with half of Vietnam for the first 21 years of that country's independence from France. After 1975, mutual hostility and mistrust between a unified communist Vietnam and the United States endured. In the hearts of many Americans, it has not been easy to change the image of Vietnam from being a war to that of being a country.

The Embargo and Its Consequences

It is impossible to understand the normalization process without looking at the U.S. economic and commercial embargo against Vietnam that remained in place for almost half a century. The U.S. embargo was first imposed against the areas of northern Vietnam held by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, or Viet Minh). When the Truman administration made the decision to support France's reimposition of colonial control over Vietnam, the embargo's primary aim was a geopolitical advantage against the communist superpowers in the cold war. "Winning" in Vietnam became part of that syndrome. The concept of the Vietnamese as a distinct people was all but unknown in the United States; policy-makers for the most part viewed Vietnam, North and South, as pawns on the global chessboard. In the State Department, the French desk of the Bureau of European Affairs handled matters pertaining to Indochina.

From 1951 to 1954 the embargo's purpose was to bolster France's military effort against the Viet Minh and to show the new communist government of China, which gave safe-haven and material support to the Viet Minh, that the United States would resist communist expansion in Indochina. Americans saw Soviet and Chinese support for their Vietnamese communist allies as one of the bitterest issues of the cold war years. President Kennedy called Vietnam "our Asian Berlin." Sanctions continued against the DRV after the country was divided at the 17th parallel by the Geneva Accords of July 1954. In 1964, U.S. involvement in Vietnam escalated in support of its ally in the South. The embargo was reinforced by the addition of the DRV to the list of countries subject to the existing Foreign Assets Control Regulations.

After the fall of the Republic of Vietnam in 1975, the DRV (Socialist Republic of Vietnam, SRV, from 1976), representing a now-unified Vietnam, was subject to an expanded regime of U.S. sanctions, including a prohibition on commercial and financial transactions, as well as private investment in Vietnam. The embargo also froze the Vietnamese government's assets in the United States. The United States probably caused more damage by using its leverage to convince other member-countries of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to withhold loans to Vietnam.

Throughout the 1970s and '80s, the conditions under which the embargo would be lifted became a weighty bargaining chip. The Carter administration, in early 1977, attempted to normalize relations with the SRV. It offered unconditional establishment of diplomatic relations, after which the United States would lift the embargo, support international financial institution (IFI) loans to Vietnam, and consider granting most favored nation (MFN) status. In the absence of $3.25 billion in economic assistance, which Vietnam claimed President Nixon had promised as part of the 1973 Paris Accords, Vietnam refused this offer. For Washington, still smarting from the humiliation of its 1975 defeat, demands for reparations were unacceptable; Hanoi's violations of the Paris Accords in 1973–75 had obviated any implied obligation under Nixon's "best efforts" pledge.

In June 1978, Vietnam joined the Soviet-controlled Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and in November it signed a mutual security treaty with the USSR. Vietnam having cast its lot with Moscow, the Carter administration concluded that an opening to Hanoi would jeopardize the higher priority of normalization of relations with China. The Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia in December dashed any lingering hopes for normalization or an end to the embargo; Vietnam became another facet of the U.S.-Soviet strategic rivalry in the Pacific, exemplified by the Soviets' use of Cam Ranh Bay, the former U.S. military facility. And Cambodia became part of the "strategic relationship" between Beijing and Washington in confronting the Soviet Union and its surrogate, Vietnam (Hanoi today is not likely to forget this Sino-American cooperation in 1978–79).

By 1981, Vietnam found itself politically and economically isolated. During Vietnam's 10-year military occupation of Cambodia, the members of the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) annual resolution demanding Vietnam's withdrawal. During the Reagan administration, the U.S. embargo became part of a multilateral strategy to force Vietnam to negotiate a Cambodia settlement on terms acceptable to the United States, China, and ASEAN. With the end of the cold war and dismantling of the Soviet-Vietnamese connection, the embargo's purpose evolved further to buttress the internationally sponsored Cambodia peace agreement and to speed resolution of the POW/MIA issue.

In April 1991, the Bush administration announced a timetable for normalization of relations with Vietnam. It codified a quid pro quo procedure whereby Vietnam knew what was expected of it and what benefits would accrue as reciprocal steps in the normalization process were taken. The timetable stated the U.S. positions that Vietnam had to accept in order to move toward full diplomatic relations and a lifting of the embargo, namely, a compromise political settlement of the Cambodia conflict and continued progress on POW/MIAs and other humanitarian issues important to the United States.

The Bush plan reflected an abiding American distrust of Hanoi's commitment to honoring diplomatic agreements. It also represented a crude political fact: while imperative for Hanoi, normalization was a low priority among Washington's global foreign policy objectives. At that time, Vietnam, facing severe economic woes and the imminent disintegration of the Soviet Union (the communist regimes of Eastern Europe that had also aided Vietnam had already collapsed), had little choice but to pursue normalization under terms set primarily by the United States.

In October 1991, Vietnam, bowing to international pressure and recognizing global shifts, signed the United Nations–sponsored Cambodia compromise settlement. This agreement went a long way toward satisfying regional security concerns of ASEAN, the United States, and, most important, China. In its waning days after the November 1992 election, the Bush administration considered additional steps toward normalization, even lifting the embargo entirely and agreeing to embassies. But the Vietnamese, probably calculating a better deal from the next administration, would not provide information on the remaining "last known alive" MIA cases, which might have precipitated a favorable U.S. action. Given the bitterness of the 1992 election campaign and Clinton's vulnerability on Vietnam, the Republicans had no desire to spare the incoming Democrats the misery of dealing with such a delicate issue. Moreover, whether the Vietnamese would honor the result of the Cambodian elections scheduled for May 1993 was uncertain. Withholding the next major step in normalization was a useful incentive. President Clinton was left to make peace with Hanoi–and to take the political heat. In the end, the Bush administration, in December 1992, altered the embargo only slightly to permit U.S. companies to bid (but not sign contracts) on projects financed by the World Bank and other international financial institutions.

By the summer of 1993, with the major multilateral obstacle to normalization–Cambodia–largely resolved, Vietnam began better bilateral cooperation on POW/MIAs, a prime American requirement from the beginning of the process. Vietnam's relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors and China also improved, simply because Vietnam's strategic position had been drastically weakened by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Under President Clinton, normalization of the bilateral relationship with Vietnam has been a low priority in Asia-Pacific policy. Far greater importance has been attached to U.S.-China relations, nuclear issues on the Korean peninsula, and periodic crises such as the Taiwan Straits in 1995 and the Asian financial crash in 1997. Perhaps because of the president's personal history regarding Vietnam, there was little eagerness to push closer relations. Furthermore, before the Cambodia settlement the time was hardly appropriate for better U.S.-Vietnam relations.

In February 1994, the administration ordered an end to the remaining sanctions under the embargo; in May 1994 came the announcement that liaison offices would be opened in Hanoi and Washington. Fifteen months later, President Clinton, on July 15, 1995, finally announced full normalization of diplomatic relations.

The U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement

Private sector groups traveling from the United States will meet the presidential party in Vietnam to join in discussions with Vietnamese government trade officials, visit potential joint investment sites, and take part in other activities associated with the future implementation of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement. From the announcement of full diplomatic relations, it has taken five years to negotiate this agreement, which is the final step for Vietnam to gain the full economic advantage of normalized relations with the United States, and an essential condition of Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Advocacy for normalization came mainly from American business interests, who see Vietnam as a potentially lucrative market. Not all interest groups (e.g., the POW/MIA lobby, human rights groups, some labor unions) were enthusiastic about granting Vietnam a trade deal. Beginning in 1992, Vietnam's economic reforms had begun to take hold and prospects for U.S. investment seemed bright. Congress and the administration were lobbied by dozens of commercial leaders eager to participate in the Vietnamese market–Boeing, General Electric, Motorola, Oracle, Nike, Caterpillar, American International Group, Citibank, Mobil, to name several. The enthusiasm that flowered in 1993–95, as the embargo was whittled away and diplomatic relations were established, was dampened by the frustrations of doing business in Vietnam's socialist market system. Some American investors and businessmen concluded that neither Vietnam's legal, administrative, and physical infrastructure nor its political scene was ready for equitable business.

In 2000, prospects seem more favorable, if only because Vietnam recognizes that it needs the BTA. As the BTA is gradually implemented, disgruntled traders and investors will return. Those who remained will be well positioned to compete in a market that could gather speed quickly. The Vietnamese are 79 million strong. They work hard, are entrepreneurial and eager to better their lives, and most are ready to discard the ideological handicaps imposed by their leaders. Foreign business will have profits to make.

Among those who follow Vietnamese affairs is a growing awareness of a subtle complementarity between Vietnam and the United States with respect to China. Although the party-to-party relationship between China and Vietnam remains strong due to common interest in a one-party political system, future international geopolitics may make for strange bedfellows. This is not to suggest a Vietnamese-American entente cordiale against China. The United States has a paramount interest in building a constructive relationship with China, and that track must be pursued as conditions permit. If Vietnam were forced to choose between China and the United States, it would choose China. And the United States would do likewise if the choice were China or Vietnam. But black and white choices in politics are rare. In an increasingly complicated strategic situation in Asia, independent-minded Vietnam will assume greater importance for the United States.

After being ASEAN's enemy from 1978 to 1991, Vietnam became its seventh member in 1995, hosted the ASEAN summit in 1998, and is chairman of the group in 2000. This turnabout is one of many geopolitical realignments in post–cold war Asia. For the United States, cultivating a strategic relationship with Vietnam at a moderate pace and with realistic parameters has become a goal of parallel importance with fuller economic-commercial relations. Indeed, the two will reinforce each other once the BTA comes into effect.

Section 402 of Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 (known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment) requires the signing of a bilateral trade agreement before the United States can extend normal trade relations (NTR, formerly most favored nation) status to nonmarket economies such as Vietnam's. In July 1999, agreement in principle was finally reached between Hanoi and Washington. However, at the moment of formal signing by President Clinton and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Aukland in September 1999, it became clear that the VCP leadership had not reached a consensus, and the signing ceremony was canceled at the last minute. Conservatives in the Vietnamese leadership had feared a number of adverse results from the BTA. Among these were:

Damage to Vietnam's system of state-owned enterprises (SOE) and to other vested business interests such as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN)
Increased unemployment as a result of more efficient international competition ("globalization anxiety")
The undermining of Vietnam's revolutionary socialist spirit and the introduction of "social evils"
Chinese disapproval (At the time, China had not finalized its own WTO negotiations with the United States or gained Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR). Vietnam was also nervous that land-border treaty negotiations with China might be jeopardized.)
Possibly a lecture on the virtues of democracy by Secretary of State Albright delivered during her stopover in Hanoi on the eve of APEC

The agreement was finally signed a year later on July 13, 2000. It is the single most significant action taken by the two parties since diplomatic normalization and a major step forward in the relationship. The deal requires ratification by the Vietnamese National Assembly and the U.S. Congress, after which the United States will extend normal trade relations status to Vietnam, and Vietnam will accord reciprocal status to the United States. The White House did not immediately send the agreement to Congress because of concern that it might complicate PNTR for China, which was under deliberation at the time. The administration also worried that anything to do with Vietnam might provoke unwanted political vibrations during the presidential election campaign. Once the president transmits the agreement, it is uncertain if the BTA will receive "fast-track" treatment (no amendments, and an up-or-down vote within 75 session-days). USTR chief, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, on October 8, 2000, expressed reservations regarding the continued utility of fast-track and said she would reflect her doubts to whoever wins the presidential election. In any event, the BTA will probably be sent to Congress during its first session in 2001. The U.S. business community is optimistic of passage.

In the absence of a vote of disapproval by Congress, the president may grant a waiver of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. President Clinton has waived Jackson-Vanik for three consecutive years (1998–2000). Congressional votes for disapproval have dropped each year (last June's House vote was 91 to 332), indicating a growing support for an upgraded trading relationship despite obvious human rights and other concerns. Permanent NTR will not occur until Congress passes a law "graduating" Vietnam from the dwindling group of nonmarket economies that are denied unconditional NTR treatment (former communist countries in Eastern Europe have been graduated in recent years). In the meantime, the Jackson-Vanik ritual will be conducted annually.

Under negotiation between Hanoi and Washington for five years, the BTA became enmeshed in Vietnam's own internal struggles. Conservatives feared that opening the economy would eventually lead to political change; reformers saw changes toward establishing a free market and joining the world trading system as Vietnam's salvation. On the American side, the president's special representative for trade negotiations was determined to close a deal with detailed provisions across all trade and services sectors and a firm timetable for implementation. Whereas the 1979 BTA with China was 10 pages long, the 2000 BTA with Vietnam is 100 pages long and far more comprehensive. What does Vietnam get? First, NTR status will greatly expand the range of products it can export to the United States. Since 1994 exports have generally been in items subject to low or zero tariffs such as coffee, spices, and other unprocessed foods. The World Bank estimates that Vietnamese apparel exports to the United States will grow tenfold to about $384 million in the first year after receiving NTR status. Overall, Vietnam's exports in the first year of NTR could rise to $1.3 billion, more than double 1999 levels (see p.19). This figure seems pitiful compared to China's $81.8 billion in exports to the United States last year, but for Vietnam the infusion of U.S. direct investment that would come with the BTA and the profits from trade are immensely important.Second, the BTA is an essential step for Vietnam's entry into the WTO. Vietnam is a number of years away from meeting all the requirements for WTO membership, given the changes it must make on market access and tariff reductions, but eventually it will have to successfully negotiate an agreement with the United States in the same way that China did. The U.S. president will then ask Congress to extend PNTR to Vietnam, which will then be in a position to join the WTO.

What does the United States get? In the BTA, Vietnam undertakes a number of measures to liberalize its market: NTR treatment for U.S. imports; tariff reductions on 250 items; eased barriers to American participation in the banking, telecommunication, and other service industries; protection of intellectual property rights; and other changes that would encourage and protect American direct investment in Vietnam. American exports (office machinery, farming equipment, agricultural products, telecommunications equipment) to Vietnam will grow, but probably not as fast as Vietnam's exports to the United States. These measures will be phased in over a period of three to seven years. Other provisions commit Vietnam to honoring WTO rules. In short, the BTA is in the national interest of both parties.

The Issues

The American president's trip to Hanoi is another chapter toward writing finis to what the Vietnamese call the "American War," what we call the "Vietnam War." That is its main value. It confirms the progress that has been made in recent years and prepares the ground for subsequent steps. One visit, of course, cannot lay to rest all the bitter memories–on either side–nor can it resolve certain basic differences in the relationship on political and human rights issues. What the Vietnamese want from Clinton's visit is prestige and regime legitimation. They will get a bit of both. For some Vietnamese, the president's visit will be an implicit "laying-on of hands" by the United States, if not an endorsement of the status quo.

While President Clinton will shake hands with hundreds of Vietnamese in receptions, perhaps visit schools or a university, or go briefly to a rural area, his policy discussions will, of course, be with the VCP power brokers. The Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo holds preponderant power and makes decisions by consensus. Its 18 members are elected by the 170-member Central Committee at VCP congresses every five years. Behind the scenes, three retired party leaders are influential: former VCP General Secretary Do Muoi, former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, and former President Le Duc Anh.

This is a visit of consolidation, not of negotiation. As of early November, no formal agenda has been announced. Regardless of agenda, a major American donation in money or disaster relief materiel to victims of the worst flooding in a generation in central Vietnam and the Mekong River delta would certainly be an appropriate way for President Clinton to kick off the visit. Some disaster relief has already been flown in to stricken Mekong areas.

President Clinton will discuss the issues that have become the bedrock of U.S.-Vietnam bilateral relations–continued efforts to gain the fullest possible accounting for American servicemen missing in action, and the mutual effort to expand the economic-commercial relationship–as well as highly sensitive issues such as Vietnam's human rights record. Vietnam will also have a list of economic and humanitarian issues. Vietnam is at peace with its neighbors, although worried, as it has been for 2,000 years, about China. The role of Vietnam in ASEAN and the broader strategic dimensions of a future U.S.-Vietnam relationship will be on the agenda of both parties. In the long term, the gradual strengthening of a strategic dialogue could be the most important aspect of the visit.

The American side can expect the following issues to come up during the president's visit.

Enhanced economic and commercial relations are the centerpiece of the trip. As noted above, both legislatures must ratify the Bilateral Trade Agreement. The president and his party will urge Vietnamese officials, at all levels, to take the necessary domestic measures–and they are many and far-reaching–to implement the BTA fully and according to the agreed schedule. The president will underscore the advantages to Vietnam of the increased potential for exports to the United States as well as membership in the World Trade Organization.

Human rights and democratization are obviously sensitive issues that nonetheless can and should be discussed with the Vietnamese leadership. However, human rights are one part–an important part–of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship, but not its totality. The president and his delegation, especially members of Congress, will continue to press the Vietnamese on the need to improve their human rights practices in order to move the bilateral relationship forward. This is hardly a new issue. Washington and Hanoi already engage in an annual "human rights dialogue" at the assistant secretary–vice ministerial level. The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi is in continuous communication with the government on individual human rights cases; it protests treatment of specific individuals as necessary and represents American groups seeking redress of perceived human rights abuses. The Vietnamese, not unexpectedly, have rejected interference in their internal affairs. Yet on occasion, they have released from prison individuals identified by the United States or international human rights groups as priority cases. The Department of State believes that the Vietnamese attitude is "changing–slowly," and that the central government has "substantially reduced its intrusive behavior" and has tried to restrain "heavy-handed provincial governments." Clinton may finesse the question of "democratization"–the American and Vietnamese understandings of this elusive word are very different–or he may suggest that Vietnam, for its own good, expand genuine participatory governance.

Religious freedom. The visit will provide an opportunity to emphasize the importance the United States attaches to religious freedom, something the Vietnamese already know. According to the Department of State, progress has been made: Vietnam has released 20 religious or political prisoners from jail so far this year [2000], including 12 Hmong Protestants and three Catholic priests. Dissidents released from prisons still face harassment, but they can meet outsiders and supporters. Without a doubt, a greater freedom of religious expression and worship exists in Vietnam than during the two decades after 1975. With all due respect to the State Department's opinion, it should be noted that while the churches and pagodas are well attended, "freedom of religious expression" is very strictly construed. Any Catholic, Protestant, or Buddhist leader who strays across the line to suggest political pluralism or to openly criticize government or party policy risks arrest. Also, the number of Catholic priests who may enter seminary training each year is limited. No one expects the Vietnamese leadership's views or policies to change markedly by reason of the president's visit.

Workers' rights. The State Department expects "further progress in the near future" on Vietnam's meeting international standards on workers' rights. This issue will be followed closely when the BTA comes up in Congress for approval, and again during the implementation phase.

Strategic dialogue. The president and senior members of his delegation may explore, however judiciously, the desirability of a broader and more profound bilateral discussion of geopolitical matters, particularly Asian security. Vietnam's role in ASEAN, its relations with China, the U.S. view of China's military modernization, the South China Sea–all these topics have already been broached during lower level exchanges of official visits and "track two" conferences in recent years. The president's visit may spur the development of more sophisticated consultations on a regular basis, although plans for expanded military-to-military cooperation are unlikely to emerge from the visit.

Continued progress on POW/MIAs has become the barometer of progress in bilateral relations over the years. President Clinton would not have visited Vietnam without well-established, consistent Vietnamese government cooperation on accounting for prisoners of war and men missing in action. In the State Department's words, Vietnam has "cleared the bar we had established to set the normalization process in motion." The president will express the United States' appreciation for Vietnam's exemplary efforts to resolve the remaining cases, notably the 41 American servicemen in the "last known alive" category (that is, known to have been captured but their fate not revealed by the Vietnamese). Joint U.S.-Vietnamese MIA field operations (a total of five scheduled in 2000) have moved to extremely rugged and dangerous terrain in mountains and deep sea, which are the only places left unsearched. In response to an American request, the Vietnamese began unilateral activities on their own in 1994. The POW/MIA problem seems likely to plow on indefinitely until the United States decides that the "fullest and most comprehensive possible accounting" has been reached. The issue has become, ironically, a pillar of the bilateral relationship, and the president will make much of Vietnam's cooperation while pressing for further progress.

Vietnamese Americans number 1.3 million and are the third-largest Asian American group today. The president will impress upon his Hanoi hosts the need to build a positive relationship with them. This is a little recognized, and far from resolved, irritation in the normalization process, and it should be an issue on which a genuine two-way discussion can take place. In 1999, according to the Vietnamese Central Bank, overseas Vietnamese officially remitted $1.2 billion, most of it from the United States; unofficially, remittances are probably twice that amount. Despite nice words by top-ranking communist officials and some recent quiet overtures, Hanoi has yet to remove the political, psychological, and legal barriers preventing Vietnamese Americans from playing a constructive role in Vietnam. The overseas community is an immense resource on which Vietnam can draw.

Freedom of emigration is another success story that has helped move the bilateral relationship forward. Vietnamese government cooperation has been crucial in the president's annual waiver of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The Orderly Departure Program (ODP), the Resettlement Opportunities for Vietnamese Returnees (ROVR), and the Former Reeducation Camp Detainees (HO, Humanitarian Operations) programs will be phased out in the near future. Under these refugee programs, Vietnamese have been able to emigrate relatively freely (or immigrate to Vietnam and resettle under ROVR). More than 1.2 million have resettled in the United States since 1980. The president will express appreciation and urge that the few remaining candidates under these programs either be cleared for exit from Vietnam or be interviewed by the Vietnamese government for return and resettlement.

Cooperation on illegal narcotics trafficking. Vietnam and the United States have a common interest in curbing this activity. Vietnam's geography makes it a natural route for the flow of narcotics originating in Laos, Burma, or southern China to global markets. Vietnam has its own illegal trafficking and use problems. The Drug Enforce-ment Agency recently opened an office in the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. The president's delegation will discuss ways to enhance anti- trafficking cooperation.

Cooperation on HIV/AIDS. Both countries share an interest in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS and have exchanged ideas on how to do so. Vietnam's HIV-infected population (mainly young adults) is expected to reach 160,000 by year-end.

Enhancement of nongovernmental organization (NGO) cooperation, and educational and training programs. Programs of the Ford Foundation, the Asia Foundation, and the Fulbright Commission, among others, are affecting Vietnam's intelligentsia, including members of the government and the Vietnamese Communist Party. The government, despite an initial suspicion, now seems to trust foreign NGOs, or at least accept their utility, in part because they are an efficient method of channeling humanitarian, development, and educational assistance, especially to the rural sector. The president's delegation will presumably explore ways to strengthen and expand these aspects of the relationship. For the Vietnamese, the very fact of the visit already satisfies their highest priority. Clinton's trip reminds China that Vietnam is an independent actor beholden to no great power. The Vietnamese may add the following items to the list of topics covered above.

Agent Orange is a complicated, emotional issue for both sides that has been at the edges of the bilateral agenda for some time. Enhanced consultations on research and treatment (but probably not U.S. compensation) could occur during the visit.

Expanded humanitarian assistance. The Vietnamese may put forward the idea of economic assistance "to heal the wounds of war" cast in a humanitarian formula. While direct development assistance is not to be, humanitarian aid could take a number of forms–new scholarship programs for study in the United States, large-scale medical programs, transfer of technology, or financing of Vietnam's own MIA resolution activities. As noted above, a significant goodwill gesture by the United States would be a major donation of cash or materiel to victims of the massive Mekong River delta and central Vietnam flooding.

Mine and unexploded ordnance clearing could promote enhancement of the military-to-military relationship. Human rights, freedom of religion, and differing definitions of democracy are clearly the most contentious topics. Members of the congressional delegation are certain to make demarches highly critical of the government and the VCP, especially on religion. The Vietnamese will listen, point out the anomalies in America's own human rights record, stress their need for stability, and firmly resist any specific proposals to change the way they run their society. In the end, there will be agreement to disagree. The Vietnamese will agree that the BTA can be useful to Vietnam, but they will note that American business can make a lot of money in Vietnam and that the agreement is not one-way. They may propose continued legal and educational assistance on matters pertaining to implementation of the BTA. Progress is already being made on POW/ MIAs, emigration, HIV/AIDS, and curbing the international drug trade, and the Vietnamese appear to have no major policy differences in these areas. Formal announcements on any or all of these issues could come out of the visit, for example an understanding on U.S. medical or advisory assistance on HIV/AIDS, or a formal agreement on anti–drug trafficking measures. The Vietnamese will assure the Americans of their devotion to the resolution of all humanitarian issues, and rhetoric on these topics could be the advertised highlights of the visit. The Vietnamese may agree to discuss specific measures regarding the treatment of Vietnamese Americans after the visit. There will likely be a quid pro quo, perhaps a reiterated American disavowal of support for expatriate groups who advocate a violent overthrow of the Hanoi regime. Finally, the idea of a strategic dialogue is an area of common interest that the Vietnamese recognize very well. It will be pursued in a low-key fashion. Enough will be said publicly to get the point across that the United States and Vietnam are talking to each other about regional security matters. Beijing will draw its own conclusions.

Appendix1: The Vietnamese Players In rough order of precedence:

General Le Kha Phieu, general secretary of the VCP, 71, born in Thanh Hoa province. Phieu was deputy to the commander of the People's Army of Vietnam during the war in Cambodia and head of the PAVN's Political Department. A member of the Politburo's Standing Committee as well as the National Defense and Security Council (both have only five members), Phieu is first among equals. He is considered a leading conservative and a protégé of former President Le Duc Anh.

Tran Duc Luong, president, 64, born in Quang Ngai province, but moved North in 1954. Elected to Politburo in 1996. Nominally Vietnam's top official, Luong has been president since 1997. He is believed to have been a protégé of the late Pham Van Dong, who also hailed from Quang Ngai. A junior official during the war, he studied geology in the Soviet Union and headed the Geology Department of the former Ministry of Heavy Industry. He was deputy prime minister under Do Muoi and former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet. Luong is considered a balancer between the so-called conservative and reformist wings of the VCP.

Phan Van Khai, prime minister, 68, born in Cu Chi, but moved North after 1954. Elected to Politburo in 1992. Khai was educated as an economist in the Soviet Union. A senior official in the DRV State Planning Committee during the war, Khai moved to Ho Chi Minh City after 1975 and was deputy mayor and later mayor of the city. From 1987 to 1991, he was head of the State Planning Committee until becoming first deputy prime minister in 1992. Khai is a leading reformer and generally associated with former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet and the late Nguyen Van Linh, with whom he served in the South after 1975.

Nong Duc Manh, chairman of the National Assembly, 60, born in Bac Thai province. Elected to Politburo in 1991. Member of the Tay ethnic minority. Manh was trained as a forest engineer in the Soviet Union. He joined the party in 1963 and worked in the forestry service in his home province, becoming the ranking party official there in 1980. In 1986 he was elected alternate member of the Central Committee, then full member in 1989 as well as head of the commission for nationalities. Reelected to the Central Committee in 1991 and 1996, he became chairman of the National Assembly at its first session under Vietnam's 1992 Constitution. Manh visited the United States in August 2000.

Nguyen Tan Dung, first deputy prime minister, 51, born in the South. Elected to Politburo in 1997. A career officer in the Ministry of Interior (now Public Security), Dung has also been head of the State Bank of Vietnam.

Pham Van Tra, minister of defense, is a member of the Politburo, as well as the National Defense and Security Council, along with Phieu, Khai, Luong, and Manh.

Nguyen Manh Cam, deputy prime minister, 71, born in Nghe province. Elected to Politburo in 1997. Trained in China and the Soviet Union, Cam is a career diplomat and became deputy foreign minister in the late 1980s, then foreign minister from 1992 to 1999. He has been deputy prime minster since 1997.

Nguyen Minh Triet, Ho Chi Minh City VCP chief, 60, born near Saigon, possibly Dong Nai province, but moved North in 1954. Elected to Politburo in 1997. His career was in the VCP Youth Union; he became head of the Dong Nai VCP in the early 1990s, then deputy head of the Ho Chi Minh VCP in 1996 until moving up in early 2000. He has been head of the party's Mass Mobilization organization since 1997 and his career is believed to be upward bound.

Nguyen Dy Nien, foreign minister, 65, born in Thanh Hoa province. Not a member of the Politburo. A career diplomat with specialization in UNESCO affairs. He was chairman of the Committee on Overseas Vietnamese until appointed foreign minister in 2000, replacing Cam.

Appendix 2: Top Vietnam Exports to the U.S.

Appendix 3: Top U.S. Exports to Vietnam

Appendix 4: Vietnam's Global Balance of Trade

Appendix 5: U.S. Balance of Trade with Vietnam