The Vietnam agreement coincides with an uptick in tension between Hanoi and Beijing over long-standing territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Vietnam — along with the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei — has long protested Beijing’s claim of authority over parts of the South China Sea that extend 1,200 miles from China’s coastline.
Satellite imagery released this week indicates China is building an airfield on an island that Hanoi says is Vietnamese territory.
But the agreement doesn’t necessarily signal that Vietnam is moving away from its giant neighbor China in favor of better ties with Washington.
Vietnam has had a “comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership” with China since 1998 and a similar deal with Russia for more than a decade.
Biden can expect accusations of hypocrisy for championing a values-based foreign policy while upgrading ties with Vietnam’s repressive authoritarian one-party state.
“Vietnam’s human rights record has actually been getting worse, not better,” said Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation. »
