Vietnam Communist Party chief to visit Obama at White House

Nguyen Phu Trong – the head of Vietnam’s communist party and one of most powerful figures in the Southeast Asian nation – will meet with President Obama on Tuesday for a historic meeting aimed at strengthening ties between the two nations.

Obama, who called Vietnam a “very constructive partner” on a range of issues including climate change and global peacekeeping, said he and the Secretary General had “discussed candidly” differences on human rights and freedom of religion.

President Obama met with Vietnam’s Communist Party leader at the White House on Tuesday and pledged to make his first visit that nation “sometime in the future”.

Trong said he extended an invitation for Obama to visit Vietnam and the president had accepted.

Vice President Joe Biden, who also attended the Oval Office meeting, said at the lunch that “partners like Vietnam are never more consequential than today” as the US turns its focus to Asia.

Both of his presidential predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, visited Vietnam.

Moving forwards, it is not a question of will their relationship grow, but how fast it will be improved, Poling said. “And here I am as vice president with the general secretary celebrating 20 year anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with nothing but promise on the horizon”. “Vietnam remains a thoroughly autocratic and undemocratic state ruled by a single party, headed by Trong, in which repression, torture, and religious persecution are the norm”, Sifton told AFP.

There is some speculation that Obama may stop in Vietnam during a trip to Asia in the fall.

During his visit, Mr Trong is also expected to attend a dinner reception hosted by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the bastion of American free enterprise.

Contacts between Washington and Hanoi have intensified in recent years in connection with two key USA geopolitical interests: the presence of the two countries at the talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty and the desire to counteract China’s push into the Pacific, in particular into the South China Sea.

The masses are formed through the dredging of sand on top of coral reefs in the Spratly Islands, which the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and Vietnam claim as their own. Trong is the de facto leader of Vietnam despite holding no official government post.

Obama emphasized that the proposed 12-nation TPP would create “significant job growth and prosperity for both the Vietnamese and the American people”. He says the U.S.is increasing its engagement with the Asia-Pacific area. A letter organized by Republican Rep. Chris Smith, chairman of a House human rights subcommittee, said the US must send “a clear message to the Hanoi authorities that respect for human rights is essential for a closer economic and security relationship”.