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HANOI: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrapped up a visit to Asia in Vietnam on Friday (October 30) after a tour marked by his repeated requests for help for the United States in dealing with security threats posed by China. .
Vietnam, which also shares the concern for an increasingly assertive China, was a late addition to the trip that included Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and Indonesia.
“We look forward to continuing to work together to strengthen our relationship and make the region, throughout Southeast Asia, Asia and the Indo-Pacific, safe, peaceful and prosperous,” said Pompeo, who greeted Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc with a hit on the elbow before their meeting.
Phuc said he was seeking “sincere cooperation” in support of a peaceful region and progress in trade and investment ties.
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While China was not mentioned publicly on Friday, Pompeo urged Southeast Asian countries to confront its harassment and re-evaluate trade deals with its state-owned companies.
While in Sri Lanka on Wednesday, Pompeo said the Chinese Communist Party was operating as a “predator.” In India, the day before, he called for cooperation to confront what he called Chinese threats to security and freedom in the region.
China has said the United States should stop its accusations and unprovoked attacks.
The main concern in Vietnam is China’s claims in the South China Sea.
China’s U-shaped “nine-dash line” on its maps marks a vast expanse of the sea that it claims, including swaths of Vietnam’s continental shelf where it has granted oil concessions and where Chinese and Vietnamese ships have been involved in the last years in months. long confrontations.
Pompeo’s trip came as Vietnam and the United States mark the 25th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations. But it also happened a week after Hanoi released a Vietnam-born American citizen sentenced to 12 years in prison for “trying to overthrow the state.”
Hours before Pompeo’s arrival, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the man, Michael Nguyen, who returned home to California last week, was released on humanitarian grounds.
The statement made no reference to Nguyen’s account of his arrest and questioning, including his claim at a press conference on Wednesday that he had been kidnapped.
READ: Pompeo wraps up China-centric Asia tour in Vietnam
Pompeo on Friday met with Vietnam’s Public Security Minister To Lam, whose office is in charge of internal security and tracks dissidents in the communist-ruled country.
After the meeting, Pompeo said in a tweet that he and To Lam had discussed the South China Sea and the Mekong region.
Bitter enemies during the US-Vietnam War, Hanoi and Washington have enjoyed significantly warmer relations in recent years.
But there have been some trade tensions lately, and the US Trade Representative confirmed in August that he was investigating whether Vietnam had undervalued its dong currency and hurting American trade.
Prime Minister Phuc this week asked President Donald Trump to have “a more objective assessment of the reality in Vietnam” regarding the trade imbalance.
