Biden Visits Hanoi, Calls Vietnam a ‘Critical’ Partner in Asia: ‘We’re Not Going Anywhere’

President Biden made a short visit to Vietnam on the back end of his trip to the G20 summit in India in which he showcased Washington’s deepening ties with Hanoi, part of the White House’s strategy to build up diplomatic relationships in southeast Asia to act as a bulwark against China’s influence.

Biden’s visit came as Vietnam officially elevated the U.S. to “comprehensive strategic partner,” its highest diplomatic status that includes China, India, Russia, and South Korea.

The status “has strengthened our ties with another critical Indo-Pacific partner,” Biden said at a news conference in the capital on Sunday. “The United States is a Pacific nation, and we’re not going anywhere.”

Biden opened his news conference by saying he had “traveled around the world in five days,” from Washington to New Delhi and now Hanoi, showcasing efforts by his administration to forge alliances. The president will stop in Alaska on the way home Monday to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

During his visit, the president met with Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s communist leader, over the concerns of human rights activists. Trong’s government is one of the most authoritarian in the region and has been waging a crackdown on dissent within the country, according to the New York Times.

“May your visit to Vietnam be a great success,” Trong told Biden, through a translator. 

At the news conference, which started 90 minutes late and included one antiquated John Wayne reference, Biden took questions from reporters who asked mainly about Washington’s increasingly fraught relationship with Beijing.

“I don’t want to contain China,” Biden said. “I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up and squared away.”

The trip came amid worries among U.S. officials that Vietnam is seeking an arms deal with Russia even as it forges ahead with closer ties to Washington. The Times reported on Friday, citing internal Vietnamese documents, that Hanoi is negotiating in secret to buy weapons from Moscow.

Those plans illustrate the delicate, multi-faceted dance at play for Vietnam as it tries to build on its relationship with the U.S. while remaining in the sphere of influence of America’s two greatest geopolitical rivals. Vietnam wants to import Russian weapons in order to build up its military as a deterrent against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. But doing so would violate Western sanctions put in place after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Biden, who has described himself as being part of the “Vietnam generation” – although he did not serve in the war – also used his brief time in the Vietnamese capital to make note of two famous American veterans of that conflict: John Kerry, his current climate czar, and the late John McCain, who spent years as a POW in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison.

“Both men saw so clearly, as I and so many others did, how much we had to gain by working together to overcome a bitter past,” Biden said.

With Associated Press.