~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Bush seeks better ties with `Young Tiger' Vietnam

George W. Bush, the second U.S. president to visit Vietnam since American forces were driven out more than 30 years ago, pledged to improve relations and push for a trade accord with Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economy. ``You're like a young tiger, and I look forward to continuing to work to make sure our bilateral relations are close,'' Bush told Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet today as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members gathered in Hanoi for this weekend's annual summit.

The Bush administration is trying to avoid comparisons between the Vietnam War and the Iraq war just nine days after the president's party lost control of Congress in midterm elections shaped by discontent over the Iraq occupation. White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters traveling with Bush from Singapore that the two wars are ``not comparable.'' The U.S. sent its first combat troops to Vietnam in March 1965 to help South Vietnamese forces hold back an armed reunification campaign by North Vietnam's Communist government. The U.S. military presence peaked at 534,000 troops in 1969. After mounting casualties and public protests, the U.S. withdrew as Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, fell in April 1975. Spanning the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War was fought to help counter Soviet-style rule in Asia.

Ho Chi Minh Busts

Today, the Vietnamese government hosted Bush at Communist Party headquarters, where meeting rooms were adorned with 4- foot-tall busts of Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary leader who led Vietnam to independence. Still, Bush couldn't avoid the Iraq questions and, in his answers, he sought to promote the future of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship while at the same time painting the Iraq conflict as part of a larger struggle. ``We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while,'' Bush said. ``But I would make it beyond just Iraq. I think the great struggle we're going to have is between radicals and extremists versus people who want to live in peace, and that Iraq is a part of the struggle.''

History's `Long March'

Bush's agenda for talks with Vietnamese leaders included economic and market reforms, security and military cooperation, health concerns related to avian flu and Vietnam's pending accession to the World Trade Organization, Snow said. ``History has a long march to it,'' Bush told reporters earlier today after meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. ``Societies change, and relationships can constantly be altered to the good.'' Vietnam is ``a place with an enormous future,'' Bush said. ``They obviously have got to work through difficulties like religious freedom, for example, but nevertheless there's certainly a new hopefulness to this country.'' The U.S. State Department this week removed Vietnam from a list of countries accused of violating the right to religious freedom, citing measures including the release of prisoners and the reopening of churches. Bush's effort to step up trade with Vietnam was dealt a setback Nov. 13, when the U.S. House of Representatives failed to approve permanent normal trade relations. The legislation, a prerequisite for the U.S. to benefit from Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization, came up short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage under special rules.

Remembering McCain

``I'm committed to getting PNTR out of our Congress,'' Bush told Triet at Hanoi's presidential palace. ``I believe it's going to happen.'' Bush, 60, invited Triet, 64, to visit the U.S. At the meeting with Howard, Bush said one of the most poignant moments of the drive in from the airport was passing the spot where Republican Senator John McCain, a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War, was pulled out of a lake in 1967. McCain, a prisoner of war for more than five years, ``suffered a lot as a result of his imprisonment, and yet we passed the place where he was, literally, saved, in one way, by the people pulling him out,'' Bush said. Le Quoc Vinh, the 38-year-old chief executive of Le Bros Ltd., a Hanoi-based publishing and public relations company, said even the older generation of Vietnamese don't think much anymore about what's known locally as the ``American War.''

New Era

``In the old days we used to say they were a neo-colonial force,'' Vinh said in an interview. ``Now we see them as businesspeople and partners for a new era.'' Vietnam's entry into the WTO, scheduled by January, will cap a decade-long effort by the Communist Party-run nation to open its economy to the world and allow private enterprise. Vietnam's $53 billion economy grew 8.4 percent in 2005, ranking it second to China among APEC's 21 members, according to U.S. government figures. ``You've got a regime that has been liberalizing on the economic front'' and Bush ``believes that having free institutions are essential to fostering not only economic vitality but long-term political stability,'' Snow said. The U.S. legislation would repeal a Cold War-era measure that links normal trade status to Vietnam's treatment of emigration and human rights. The law holds out the threat of higher U.S. tariffs for Vietnamese goods, which isn't allowed under WTO rules. The U.S. must repeal the law before American businesses can reap the benefits of Vietnam's pledges to cut tariffs and allow more foreign investment when it joins the WTO.

Two Presidents

Vinh said that former President Bill Clinton, who visited Vietnam in 2000, is seen ``as the one who first opened the door'' to doing business with the U.S. ``Bush is seen as the president who will bring a final trade agreement,'' he said. On Nov. 7, the 149 WTO members formally invited Vietnam to join the Geneva-based trade arbiter. Without the approval of the trade legislation, all of Vietnam's WTO commitments won't automatically be extended to the U.S., according to the Washington-based U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council. Vietnam's National Assembly plans to ratify the accession by Dec. 5, according to the WTO. Vietnam becomes a member 30 days after notifying the WTO that the package has been ratified.

By Brendan Murray & Richard Keil - Bloomberg - November 17, 2006.


Getting real in Hanoi : a side of Vietnam that Bush won't see

HANOI, Vietnam — During his current four-day visit to Vietnam, President Bush is sure to be greeted by startlingly warm smiles like the ones that greeted me. But he won't be sideswiped by a mattress tied to the back of a motorcycle, as I was. There's no denying the privilege and power of a U.S. president's perspective on a place like Hanoi, where Bush will stay as part of his eight-day Asian trip. But I prefer to see Vietnam my way — no security detail, little protocol and no fame.

The night I arrived in Hanoi with no hotel reservation, I wandered the winding streets of the Old Quarter until a kid persuaded me to stay at "his" hotel, where a clean room with a balcony, air conditioning, cable TV and a hot shower cost $8 a night. Bush is staying at the Sheraton, where a normal room can cost several hundred dollars. Hanoi, of course, is the old Quagmire Central — the communist capital of the forces that tangled with the U.S., won and overran South Vietnam. Today, two-thirds of Vietnam's growing population is under the age of 35 and has little by way of personal memory of the "American War." Indeed, many young, urban Vietnamese are too busy learning English and dreaming of a richer future to think about such ancient animosities. Products like Coca Cola and M&Ms abound, though McDonald's and other big chain stores are noticeably absent from the streets of Hanoi — for now. Meantime, everything from baguettes to kitschy prints of antique communist posters can be found in the streets of Hanoi.

Creative pricing

Non-presidential visitors may have to bargain hard and hold tight to their ticket stubs to keep Vietnam's unique blend of entrepreneurial zest and stodgy bureaucracy from eating away at the deals. I decided to put the money I was saving on accommodation into a deluxe tour of Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site about a three-hour drive from Hanoi. I spent $22 on a 12-hour tour including transportation from my hotel, a boat trip and lunch. I discovered, however, that the other foreigners had paid $15 or $16 for the same trip, and the Vietnamese paid $6.25. In fact, how much a person paid for their Halong Bay ticket is a favorite topic of conversation in the backpacker set. My group's tour guide said that in Vietnam everyone pays a different price for everything.

Bush will be in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where one topic will be the communist country's imminent accession to the World Trade Organization. Bush may not find out about everyone paying a different price for everything here. If he does, he may see it as a praiseworthy lack of price controls. It irritated me — until I looked around. Halong Bay's scenery is, after all, stunning. A boat took us around the thousands of limestone hills that jut up from the bay. The guide told me that the Vietnamese saw animals and objects in the limestone shapes: two fighting cocks, for instance, and incense at an altar. My boat tour made its way to a cave, where an admissions guard punched the tickets we had used to get on the boat. I thought the ticket's purpose had been served, so I had already lost mine. There's no way I could have come this far without a ticket, and he knows that, I told the tour guide, who let me go in through the exit so that I wouldn't have to pay an extra $2.

"That guy just cares about money," I told our guide, as we walked away from the guard. "Actually, I think he doesn't even care about money. He just cares about tickets," the guide said. I might ordinarily disregard a comment like that. But in Vietnam, I got the feeling some guys might really care more about tickets than money. When not haggling over prices, even a short-term tourist can sense an undercurrent of communist sensibilities.

Personal history

Many APEC meeting attendees are more interested in Vietnam's inexpensive and able work force than bureaucratic mindsets, anyway. For them, the Hanoi that bustled just a week before will be a city of heavy security, including barricades, sirens and water cannons to ensure nothing goes wrong at the biggest event Vietnam has ever hosted. Like other leaders, Bush's path is cleared wherever he goes. In Hanoi, he won't get the chance to walk through hectic motorcycle-filled streets, like the one where the mattress whacked me from behind and I didn't even gasp because I had been in Hanoi for almost a week and expected as much.

Bill Clinton was the first U.S. leader to visit Vietnam since the war that ended in 1975. He drew enthusiastic crowds wherever he stopped, despite still painful wounds — both emotional and physical — of the millions of Vietnamese and Americans whose lives were affected by the war. A downtown silk shop still proudly displays photographs of Hillary Clinton browsing. The Clinton visit aimed partly to encourage trade with Vietnam, and some might call the country's accession to the WTO a fruit of that visit. Bush's trip is also likely to make the history books, especially if the president can persuade the U.S. Congress to normalize trade relations with its one-time enemy. My own visit to Hanoi will not make the history books. That's the price, and the privilege, of being an ordinary traveler.

By Rebecca Carroll - The Associated Press - November 17, 2006.