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.