U.S. ties with Hanoi

President Bill Clinton has announced that the U.S. will open diplomatic relations with Vietnam, where it fought a cruel and bitter war in the 1960s and 1970s.

Now that the two former foes have agreed to bury the hatchet, the most interesting thing is the reason behind the step and how it all relates to the past.

Clinton, who refused to take part in the Vietnam War when he was a youth, made a good and relevant decision when he announced the policy, although he believed it was rather late in coming. It is not too late, however, for Washington to approach Vietnam as a new friend. And it is high time that the remaining superpower did so because other countries, especially the economic giants, have already established cooperation with Vietnam.

Today's Vietnam is an impoverished nation but one with a promising future. It has already prepared itself to deal with any country that is willing to cooperate, including those from the West.

The U.S. has also been eying economic opportunities there in order not to be left too far behind Japan and the other industrial and newly industrialized countries. The U.S. also needs to play the Vietnam card in facing China because the road towards better relations with that country has often been bumpy.

Washington seems to believe that the Vietnamese leaders will be easier to talk too. Clinton gave a hint of such optimism when he said that American relations with Hanoi will "help advance the course of freedom" in Vietnam, just as was the case with improved ties with Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Although the communist leaders in Hanoi are certainly realistic enough to understand that Vietnam needs cooperation in the domains of economy, trade, science and technology, we do not believe that things will be as easy the U.S. president might think.

This need is proven not only by press pictures from Vietnam showing people riding bicycles, which are still the main public means of transportation in that country, while neighboring countries are battling the problem of motor vehicle traffic jams. More proof of the urgency placed on economic matters can be found in how the Vietnamese leaders have reacted to President Clinton's statement: They seem quite ready to forget the long nightmare of war with the United States.

The American invasion of Vietnam was part of the illogical fear that Southeast Asia nations would fall one after the other, like dominoes, to communism and be pulled into the Soviet sphere of influence. The U.S. did not realize that the war was unjustifiable until after its troops were humiliated in the Vietnamese jungles. In the meantime, 58,000 soldiers died and thousands of others went missing in action.

Clearly, the U.S. learned bitterly from this futile sacrifice. And commendably, it blamed no one but itself.

And what about the Vietnamese? The Americans devastated that country because of opposition to an ideology, which the West could not accept.

But before Clinton tries to make his dream of turning Vietnam into a country molded after those of Eastern Europe today, or before he even thinks about pointing a finger at the human rights record in this communist country, he will have to recognize the fact that the Vietnamese are nationalists first and communists second.

The Vietnamese leaders will certainly not fail to once again collect their fighting spirit to resist any possible pressures from Washington in their future bilateral relations. Rather than expecting the improbable, it would be better for Washington to realize that paying a considerable amount of money in war reparations to Vietnam is probably going to be the best way toward cementing workable ties.