MODERATOR: Greetings from the U.S. Department of State’s Asia Pacific Media Hub. I would like to welcome journalists to today’s on-the-record briefing with Marc E. Knapper, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, and Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania. The speakers will provide a readout of President Biden’s – excuse me – September 10th visit to Vietnam.
With that, let’s get started. Ambassador Knapper, I’ll turn it over to you for your opening remarks.
AMBASSADOR KNAPPER: Great. Well, thanks very much. Hello to everybody who’s out there. I really appreciate your joining us today to talk about a very, very exciting subject, which was the President’s recent visit here to Hanoi, the upgrade in U.S.-Vietnam relations, and the overall scope of our countries’ great and the growing-even-more partnership.
So as you all know, September 10th and 11th President Biden was here, and on the 10th he and the General Secretary of the Communist Party Le Hoai Trung announced really what was a very historic and unprecedented double upgrade of our two countries’ relationship from what was a Comprehensive Partnership to now a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which within Vietnam’s system is the highest rung of diplomatic relations. And as President Biden himself said, as we trace the 50-year arc of our relationship from being foes to now being friends, this relationship between our two countries will be a force for prosperity and security in one of the most consequential regions of the world.
This new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership builds on our already very, very strong trade and investment ties and is geared towards taking a future-oriented approach to sustainable growth and cooperation in science, technology, education, upskilling, workforce development. And I think our message really from this visit and today is clear: that this partnership between Vietnam and the United States is enduring. Our two countries’ futures are inextricably linked. Vietnam’s success is our success. And we strongly and very resolutely acknowledge that Vietnam plays a very key role regionally and globally in supply chains and ensuring in the Indo-Pacific stability and security.
It’s a really – I mean, of course the question is what does this mean? So, I mean, it’s a very significant leap from where we were before and recognition of where our two countries are and are going. It really represents a commitment to greater investment in each other’s countries, greater efforts towards innovation between our companies, our universities, our research institutions. And in the end we believe this is going to result in greater prosperity and security for the peoples of both nations.
This really – this upgrade is all about our two countries’ relationship and the intrinsic value of our ties and of our friendship as we go forward. We believe it’s going to contribute strongly to the multilateral economic and security architecture in this part of the world that drives our shared prosperity, stability. This visit and the commitments made on both sides focus heavily on science and technology for a reason, because these areas, including education and workforce development, really do represent the future as our two countries seek to build each other’s prosperity and increase and building more bridges between our – between our two peoples.
This – the upgrade also represents, I think, really hard work over the last, well, 28 years since normalization, and it took people of courage on both sides of the ocean, including individuals like former senator and Secretary of State John Kerry who was on this trip in his current capacity as Special President Envoy for Climate Change; individuals like the late John McCain, Senator John McCain – and there’s a marker to him here in Hanoi that President Biden and Secretary Kerry visited together; of individuals like Patrick Leahy, who’s spent his career in the Senate championing efforts to promote reconciliation between our two countries, including things like dioxin remediation and cleaning up landmines and dealing with other legacies of war.
And I just have to say among the President’s meetings here, of course, he met with the general secretary on the 10th, but on the 11th he also met with the prime minister Pham Minh Chinh, he met with the president, Vo Van Thuong, and he also met with the president of the National Assembly. And during that meeting with the president of the National Assembly, it was really quite moving. There was a – we had a small ceremony in which we had a couple of American veterans from the war, and a veteran and a – and a Vietnamese veteran from the war exchanged, for lack of a better word, artifacts, including the diary of this Vietnamese veteran that had been in the possession of an American veteran for I guess decades. And in fact we were able to return it to him, in addition to handing over archival materials that we had found that we hope will help to aid in the search of – in accounting for Vietnamese – Vietnam’s own missing and fallen during the war.
Just a really powerful moment in which you had veterans from both sides meeting in the presence of our President and the president – and the presence of the head of the National Assembly. I don’t know, just for me – I mean, my father is a veteran; he fought here too – and so for me personally it was just very moving to see individuals from both sides doing this in the spirit of reconciliation, in the spirit of growing our partnership even more going into the future.
So it’s – this represents really, as I said, things like education, science, technology, defense and security cooperation – this really does reflect where our two countries are and where we want to go. And it’s a recognition that, as I said, our two countries’ futures are now resolutely and very publicly inextricably linked, and we look forward to, as we go forward, just implementing these – the many, many agreements we have from the visit and just seeing just how far we can go with our Vietnamese friends and partners.
And I will stop there and I think Dr. Rapp-Hooper will come next. Thank you.
RAPP-HOOPER: Ambassador Knapper, thank you so much, and thanks so much to friends and colleagues for being on the line this evening, this morning. It’s good to get the chance to talk to you all, especially after the wonderful and historic presidential visit that Ambassador Knapper and his team just hosted in Vietnam. It was really a true privilege to be a part of it.
I’ll just say two minutes’ worth of remarks on how this achievement is not only extraordinary for the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral relationship, which of course it is, but how it also builds upon the Biden administration’s long track record of investing in and elevating the role of its alliances and partnerships throughout Indo-Pacific in its Indo-Pacific Strategy.
As many of you on the line will be aware, the Biden administration published its Indo-Pacific Strategy in early 2022, about a year into the administration, and in that strategy it laid out a goal of pursuing a region that’s free, open, connected, prosperous, resilient, and secure. Along the way, the President and his close top advisors have been hard at work building a wide, overlapping range of coalitions and partnerships throughout the Indo-Pacific, many of which serve different objectives but all of which complement one another. And in many ways, part of the reason for our excitement is that we see the U.S.-Vietnam partnership now taking its place, its rightful place, in the pantheon of these incredible partnerships that have already done so much in just a couple of years in the Indo-Pacific and will do much, much more on the road ahead.
When we talk about those alliances and partnerships that have been modernized and revitalized in the Indo-Pacific, of course we’re talking about a number of bilateral alliance relationships, to include those with South Korea, Japan, and Australia and the Philippines, all of which are in stronger states than they have been in a very long time. But we’re also talking about a number of important multilateral groupings, whether that’s the elevated Quad partnership; AUKUS, which of course was begun under this administration; or the deep engagement that this President and, of course, the Vice President have also done with ASEAN and their deep respect for and commitment to ASEAN centrality.
So in many ways this breakthrough with Vietnam that comes with this double upgrade that Ambassador Knapper mentioned is part of a long succession of successes building upon one another as the administration seeks to bring about increased peace and stability in the region by working with others.
I will say as somebody who had the privilege of working closely with our Vietnamese counterparts as we paddled furiously towards this visit amidst a diplomatic breakthrough, it became clear to all of us that part of the reason that our friends in Vietnam were interested in signing up to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the United States at this moment in time and were willing to go so far as to make the first double upgrade in their diplomatic history was because the United States Indo-Pacific Strategy is a pluralistic and diverse vision for what we and our partners can seek to achieve together in the region. It’s a vision that’s inclusive. It’s a vision that welcomes all comers who share in its objectives. And our Vietnamese counterparts were clear that they signed up to this vision, that they have a lot of interests that are aligned with it as well.
So whether we’re talking about the importance of rule of law in international waterways like the South China Sea, the importance of secure and resilient supply chains especially in emerging technologies, or we’re talking about the need for a rules-based, open, vibrant economic order, the United States and Vietnam are increasingly aligned not only in our views of our bilateral relationship, but in the objectives that we are seeking in the region. And this CSP is really exemplary of that fact.
I’ll stop here and look forward to your questions.
MODERATOR: All right, thank you. We will now turn to the question-and-answer portion of today’s briefing. Our first question goes to Hui Yee Tan of The Straits Times, who’s based in Bangkok. Hui Yee asks: “What new areas of security cooperation will the U.S. pursue with Vietnam?” Over to our speakers.
RAPP-HOOPER: Thanks so much. This is Mira Rapp-Hooper. I’m happy to take a first crack at this one, and thanks for a great question. The United States and Vietnam have a longstanding security partnership that ranges a number of areas, and of course we are very excited here in Washington to see what more will be possible under our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. As I already mentioned, we have a strong alignment of views on the importance of the rule of law, freedom of navigation, and the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea, and in general on the importance of a rules-based regional order where disputes are settled peacefully and international law prevails. We have done a lot of important work together to build capacity in areas like coast guard capacity and in the maritime domain, and we are looking forward to continuing to grow our relationship in those areas.
If you look at the fact sheet, however, from our visit that just took place in Hanoi, traditional security is not as front and center as you might expect given the important work that we do do together and we’ll continue to do in the future. And I highlight this because I think it’s important to note that the way that we think about security in the region is actually expanding, and the United States and Vietnam are very much partnered in the way that we think about it.
You’ll note, as Ambassador Knapper did, that the headline deliverables from this visit are very much focused on the United States taking a very forward-leaning investment in Vietnam’s technology sector, to include a historic semiconductor partnership and efforts that will complement it to help build out Vietnam’s skilled workforce to make it a dynamic hub for regional and global leadership in the high-technology space. And this in many ways, of course, is an economic project, but on the United States it’s also a security project. Having a strong, prosperous, vibrant Vietnam that can play an important role as a tech leader is good for our security, it’s good for the resilience of our supply chains, particularly in critical technology areas.
So this is all to say that our traditional security cooperation continues in really important ways, but this diplomatic opening has also given us the opportunity to expand the way that we think about security and the role that our partnership plays in it.
I’ll see what Ambassador Knapper might like to add.
AMBASSADOR KNAPPER: Thanks very much, and I don’t have much more to add to that except to say that, as Dr. Rapp-Hooper said, we look at security beyond sort of the hard kind of military and defense and coast guard aspects of it. We do look broadly at the definition of security as we work with Vietnam, and that is everything from energy security as we consider how best to cooperate as Vietnam seeks to create a greener and cleaner economy and lower its reliance on coal and move to renewable energy and to fulfill its very bold commitment to be net zero by 2050. So energy security, climate security, and the work we’re doing with Vietnam, for example, in the Mekong Delta, which is one of the most vulnerable parts of the world, frankly, to the effects of climate change. And we look, again, at the human security, as Dr. Rapp-Hooper said. I mean, we’re investing in skilling, upskilling, ensuring that Vietnam has the high-tech workforce it needs to meet the opportunities and the challenges of the 21st century. Thanks.
MODERATOR: Thank you. All right. Our next question goes to the live queue. Silva Shih from CommonWealth Magazine in Taiwan. Silva, you should be able to unmute yourself now. All right, do we —
QUESTION: Hi, can you hear me?
MODERATOR: Yes, we can.
QUESTION: Thanks. So hi, I’m Silva Shih with Taiwan’s CommonWealth Magazine. So this question is probably for two of distinguished speakers. So in the fact sheet, the United States recognized Vietnam’s potential to play a key role in the semiconductor supply chain. I’m wondering, what is Vietnam’s potential in this regard? Thanks.
AMBASSADOR KNAPPER: Well, let me take a first crack at that. And I think it’s – we’ve already seen Vietnam’s emergence as a key nexus in the global semiconductor supply chains, including major investments here by American and other companies in the assembly, packaging, testing. Vietnam has made clear its desire to expand into other areas, and I think you’ll see that as we continue to work with Vietnam on this in addition to other partners to ensure that Vietnam has the high-tech workforce and the high-tech ecosystem necessary to make this happen. We’re big believers in Vietnam’s strong ability to be able to do this, and we want to be a part of this future and ensure that we can continue our work together to make this future a reality. Thanks.
RAPP-HOOPER: This is Mira. I’ll just add briefly to what the ambassador rightly noted, that when the President was in Vietnam meeting with Vietnam’s leaders on September 11th, he and the prime minister (inaudible) together a CEO forum that was convened by the – our Secretary of State, the U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and his counterpart in Vietnam to explore avenues for growth and cooperation between American businesses and Vietnamese businesses with a particular emphasis on semiconductor cooperation. And certainly from the U.S. vantage point, there are a number of American companies that are deeply interested in continuing to grow their investments in Vietnam and see huge potential in Vietnam as a semiconductor hub for a variety of reasons, ranging from the fact that it is already emerging as one, but the fact that it has an educated, literate, young workforce and a really tenacious drive to move into this area.
So this is all to say that even just in the short space where we’ve been preparing for this visit, we’ve seen a huge amount of energy not just from the Vietnamese Government but from businesses on both sides of the Pacific as everybody sprints towards this goal of helping Vietnam take its place in the semiconductor ecosystem, and it’s been a very exciting project to be a part of. Over.
MODERATOR: All right, thank you. Our next question goes to the live queue, to Li Xiang from Shijieguan News, based in Hong Kong, I believe. You should be able to unmute yourself now.
QUESTION: Hi. Can you hear me?
MODERATOR: Yes, we can.
QUESTION: Okay, thank you. Thank you give me a chance to ask a question. And I want to ask the question, yes: The United States upgrading of ties with Vietnam has been hired as a Cold War move against China, and Vietnam has previously emphasized diplomatic relations with China as a priority. Is it wishful thinking for the United States to choose between the two socialist countries? Thank you.
RAPP-HOOPER: This is Mira; I’m happy to tee off on this question first and then hand it to Ambassador Knapper. So with great respect to our colleague who asked the question, I think I would probably quibble with both premises – that is, the idea that this is in any way any kind of Cold War move, and also the idea that this diplomatic opening is any kind of effort to choose between Vietnam and China, because I don’t think it is either one of those things.
To begin with, the question of it being a Cold War move, I think the United States and Vietnam, as Ambassador Knapper is better positioned to tell you than any of us, have had a long, sometimes halting, definitely winding road towards the level of partnership that we have just achieved yesterday in Hanoi. But it’s been an incremental history that has been building more and more rapidly as the U.S. and Vietnam have had converging interests in the 21st century. So from the immediate post-World War II period, our Vietnamese counterparts often note to us that Ho Chi Minh had a strong interest in cooperating with the United States in the late 1940s. Of course we then experienced a very difficult period between the United States and Vietnam during the mid-Cold War, only to put an incredible amount of work towards peace, reconciliation, and healing that culminated in the restoration of our diplomatic relations in the 1990s followed by a Comprehensive Partnership in 2013 and then this really incredible leap to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership just 10 years later.
So this is all to say that from where we sit, this bears any – very little relationship to anything that happened during the Cold War, and quite the opposite: really epitomizes what modern partnership looks like from the United States perspective. That is, a dynamic, open, inclusive partnership that’s intended to support Vietnam in its technological, economic, and development aspirations, and in which we partner together not only on traditional issues like security but where we’re deeply partnered on issues like climate, health, human security, and people-to-people ties.
But moreover, I would also note just to the second part of your question that the President of the United States and Vietnam’s leaders throughout their meetings certainly had no discussion about anyone choosing between each one of us and any other partner. Part of what makes the United States Indo-Pacific Strategy appealing to many of our other partners around the region is the fact that it is open and inclusive. It’s not about choosing the United States over anyone or anything; it’s about what we all stand for together.
So as I said in my opening remarks, I think that that strategy, that positive, affirmative goal, is something that was appealing to our Vietnamese friends as they considered this diplomatic move and something that will continue to drive our partnership forward in really positive and productive ways well into the future.
Marc, why don’t I turn to you to see what you might like to add.
AMBASSADOR KNAPPER: Thank you, Mira. And yeah, I would just note, as Dr. Rapp-Hooper said, you trace the arc of our relationship from the end of – sort of towards the end of World War II when we were practically allies in the fight against imperial Japan – Ho Chi Minh and his group were working with us in northern Vietnam, and of course Ho Chi Minh wrote a letter to Harry Truman in February 1946 seeking “full cooperation,” quote/unquote, with the United States. Of course our – as often happens with friends, our relationship lost its way and we shared a terrible conflict together, but we’ve come back through the process of addressing war legacy issues, through educational exchanges starting in the early to mid-‘90s, and here we find ourselves now again two countries who share interests, who share goals, whose – now again, as I said, resolutely recognizing and very publicly recognizing that our futures are inextricably linked and that our success is that of Vietnam and the success of Vietnam is that of the United States.
And really, it’s just remarkable. And this relationship isn’t about anyone else; it’s about our two countries and the intrinsic value this relationship has in terms of our shared prosperity, our shared security, our shared interests in a free and open Indo-Pacific and a free and open South China Sea. And so I think going forward you’re going to hear – we’re all going to hear – a lot about our shared goals and how we can work together to promote a shared future that includes prosperity, that includes working together on energy issues, climate issues, health issues, and in promoting even greater education and people-to-people ties. Thanks.
MODERATOR: All right. We have a question from Tuan Dao of The Investor, based in Hanoi, Vietnam, who asks: “How about cooperation in rare earths production between the two countries? Any potential deals planned?” Over to our speakers.
AMBASSADOR KNAPPER: Yeah, I’ll take that one. Within our fact sheet, I think there’s a reference to rare earths cooperation and the memorandum of understanding we signed with Vietnam to work together on this area. I mean, we see Vietnam as a potential critical nexus in global supply chains when it comes to critical minerals and rare earth elements, and it’s an exciting area of cooperation and we certainly want to work together to ensure that Vietnam is able to take advantage of its rich resources in a way that’s also sustainable. Thank you.
MODERATOR: All right. I think we have time for one more – Andrew Le of Pho Bolsa TV. Andrew, you should be able to unmute yourself now.
QUESTION: Thank you. This is Andrew Le from Pho Bolsa TV in Westminster, California. With the new partnership level obtained, will the U.S. help Vietnam track down anti-VC groups in the U.S. or extradite to Vietnam the escaped criminals?
AMBASSADOR KNAPPER: Well, I’ll take that, and would just note that without presuming the – any individual or group in particular, I would just say that law enforcement cooperation is a very important element of our two countries’ relationships, which includes working together to share information and, when necessary, deal with criminals. Just recently we had Vietnam cooperating with us very closely to return to the United States two fugitives who had fled here, and we very much appreciated the great work between our two governments, including with the ministry of public security here, to find and return to the U.S. these two criminals so they could – so they could meet justice back in the U.S. Thanks.
MODERATOR: All right. That brings us to the – near the end of our time today, so I just wanted to see, Ambassador Knapper, do you have any last words for us before we wrap up?
AMBASSADOR KNAPPER: Thank you. I really, again, appreciated the time and the great questions and the interest. This is a relationship, again, that’s of – it’s of great consequence both to the United States and to Vietnam. I think just the level of interest in this country and this relationship shown by the most senior of our leaders – not just the President but we’ve had one-fourth of the U.S. cabinet visit Vietnam since the beginning of this year – and that says a lot, I think, about just how we view this relationship, how we view our two futures together, just how consequential our relations are and how important Vietnam is to the United States and our – I think our recognition that Vietnam’s success is our success and that as we look to the broader Indo-Pacific to ensure that Vietnam is a key player in this community in our shared efforts to promote prosperity, to promote security, and to promote our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Thank you.
MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, Ambassador. Dr. Rapp-Hooper, any other last words?
RAPP-HOOPER: Thanks so much. I’ll just echo Ambassador Knapper’s sentiments to say that the United States fully and resolutely supports a strong, independent, prosperous, and resilient Vietnam, and we see that state of affairs as totally conducive to our interests and part of the realization of our vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. And the diplomatic elevation that we were able to achieve on September 10th and September 11th moves us in a really fundamental way towards a realization of both of those goals, and we’re really excited for the road ahead. Thanks for joining us this evening.
MODERATOR: Well, thank you. Thank you all for your questions and thank you to Ambassador Knapper and Dr. Rapp-Hooper for joining us. We will provide a transcript of this briefing to participating journalists as soon as it’s available, and we’d also love to hear your feedback. You can contact us at any time at AsiaPacMedia@state.gov. Thanks again for your participation and we hope you can join us for another briefing soon.
