Vietnam has boosted ties with the US during a visit by President Joe Biden, bringing the former foes closer in the face of Beijing’s growing assertiveness.
The US signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with the south-east Asian country on Sunday after Biden arrived in Hanoi from New Delhi, where he had attended the G20 summit.
The symbolic but significant change, which follows years of lobbying by Washington, raises the US by two levels to the top status in Vietnam’s bilateral ties hierarchy.
The status is one previously reserved only for China, Russia, India and, as of last year, South Korea. Vietnam had long avoided the move for fear of upsetting Beijing.
Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist party of Vietnam, said its partnership with the US had grown by “leaps and bounds”. Biden described Vietnam as “a critical power in the world and a bellwether in this vital region”.
The step is “more than words”, said Jon Finer, deputy US national security adviser, who announced the strategic partnership as Biden was flying to Hanoi. “In a system like Vietnam, this is a signal to their entire government, their entire bureaucracy, about the depth of co-operation and alignment with another country.”
Biden arrived in Vietnam after a G20 summit where the US and its western allies made compromises on their condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the bloc’s joint statement.
The US and its allies are trying to appeal to the global south to build a worldwide consensus against Russia.
The US also views developing countries in Asia as crucial to countering China’s power in the Indo-Pacific. Vietnam is regarded as a frontline nation facing China’s growing ambitions in the South China Sea, where Beijing has made sweeping claims of sovereignty to the alarm of many of its