Cohen's Vietnam visit largely symbolic

Cohen's Vietnam visit largely symbolic

By Michael Mathes

HANOI (DPA): U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen's visit to Vietnam marks a historic notch in relations between the former battlefield enemies but will not produce much tangible result other than developing friendly ties, officials and experts said last Saturday.

When Cohen lands in Hanoi Monday morning he will be the first U.S. defense secretary ever to visit the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, whose communist forces captured the U.S.-backed South Vietnam on April 30, 1975 and unified a nation.

Officials and observers will be watching Cohen's moves closely, with most conceding that symbolism and the notion of healing old wounds will play larger than substance during the three-day trip.

"There is no big agenda out of this other than furthering relations," a U.S. source noted privately.

Cohen is expected to meet with the country's top leaders, including Communist Party chief Le Kha Phieu, President Tran Duc Luong, and possibly Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in Hanoi before he travels to Ho Chi Minh City -- the former Saigon -- on Tuesday.

Cohen is also scheduled to visit a missing-in-action (MIA) search site in rice paddies outside Hanoi where a U.S. F-4 Phantom jet is believed to have crashed with U.S. servicemen aboard.

Washington voiced its approval recently of Hanoi's cooperation in locating 2,000 or so Americans still listed as MIA's in Indochina.

Such genuine commitments may be a sign Hanoi and Washington are ready to warm once-frosty ties and build a sound bilateral military relationship similar to those the United States has with other countries in the region, such as Thailand.

"It is a good step in building relations," says Andrew J. Pierre, an expert on U.S. security policy and a visiting professor at Hanoi's state-run Institute of International Relations.

"But both sides are going to be cautious and I don't see any serious or substantial issues under discussion," Pierre told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Key issues such as arms sales, or visits by U.S. warships are unlikely to be discussed, sources have said.

Next month Hanoi will mark the 25th anniversary of the "liberation of Saigon" and the end of the war, which took place when communist tanks smashed through the gates of the Independence Palace and Duong Van Minh surrendered on the palace steps.

The event closed a bitter chapter in American and Vietnamese history -- a decade-long war that saw some two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed along with 58,153 U.S. military personnel.

Now, a quarter century later, the Vietnamese are showing Washington that Hanoi cannot ignore the world's lone superpower.

Yet Vietnam's primary preoccupation has consistently been its age-old adversary and looming neighbor to the north, China.

"Vietnam is now operating an omni-directional foreign policy, but China is certainly at the top of the list," said Vietnam expert Frederick Z. Brown, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington.

Sitting down with the U.S. defense secretary could help Hanoi fit Washington into its jigsaw puzzle of foreign relations.

"Cohen's trip makes good sense for Vietnam, to get a better understanding of the U.S. relationship is going to fit in with Vietnam's principle relationship, which is with China," Brown added.

Cohen will have come to Vietnam from Hong Kong and his trip here is unlikely to ruffle feathers in Beijing, sources said.

"I don't think Hanoi would have invited (Cohen) here if Beijing objected," said one observer who declined to be named.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Cohen will meet with U.S. businesspeople, many of whom have grown frustrated over Hanoi's sabotage of a landmark bilateral trade agreement that has to a degree soured the relationship between the two nations.

As communist Vietnam looks beyond its own borders to regional and global integration, economic pursuits will need to take priority if the country is to pull itself out of poverty and compete on a world stage.

The pact remains the most important issue between Washington and Hanoi, says the security expert Pierre, but he doesn't see any progress being made on the issue during the secretary's visit.

"Cohen is not the conduit for anything involved with trade relations," Pierre said.