Vietnam - Vietnam and China through the eyes of US Ambassador

VietNamNet Bridge – “The USA and China still maintains good relations and we continue exchange high-ranking visits. Of course, I talk about it when the ties between the USA and Vietnam and with the remaining part of Southeast Asia are being strengthened and developed, and the presence and involvement of the USA in Southeast Asia is clearer and deeper. All aim to ensure a stable and prosper future in this region,” said Ambassador David Shear.

Huynh Phan: Back to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, did you meet the chief TPP negotiator of Vietnam?

Ambassador David Shear: Yes. I visited him after I came to Hanoi. But the person whom he has to meet very often is the chief negotiator of the US.

Huynh Phan: Barbara Weisel? I saw her the first time in 2006, when she was a member of the US mission to negotiate Vietnam’s WTO membership.

Ambassador Shear: I met Weisel when I was in Kuala Lumpur. At that time, we were negotiating the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Malaysia. But when TPP was formed, it covered that FTA so we stopped and Malaysia joined the TPP.

Huynh Phan: And the second time was last summer when Weisel and the US Deputy Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis went to Vietnam to persuade Vietnamese officials to join TPP negotiation as a full member.

That day Marantis told me that you prepared the speech for Senator Max Baucus at the Asian Association, which was very famous during the process of calling for the Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) for Vietnam. Because Marantis worked for two years in Vietnam as a lawyer for the US-Vietnam Trade Council of Ginny Foote.

Ambassador Shear: Wow, you have learnt very carefully about Vietnam-US negotiation? Did you attend the Gala dinner after the workshop on ten years of BTA?

Marantis positively took part in the US-Vietnam BTA. At that Gala Dinner, a video clip with Marantis’ speech was screened.

The Gala Dinner was the chance for almost all people of both sides, who participated in the BTA negotiation, to meet each others.

BTA is a good agreement but the two countries should not stop there, but we need to continue building a more strategic and stable economic relation and TPP is the best way to realize it.

Huynh Phan: Besides promoting economic relations between the two countries, what are priorities in your term in Vietnam?

Ambassador Shear: Economic priority includes promoting TPP negotiation and exports of US to Vietnam. The two-way trade is expected to exceed $20 billion in 2011.

I also want to stimulate US investment in Vietnam. I’ve visited some American factories in Vietnam. Each factory employs hundreds of Vietnamese workers.

My second priority is speeding up the establishment of strategic partnership between the two sides.

The third priority is building better ties between the two people, focusing on education, healthcare and environment.

Another priority is human right dialogues, when we still have difference in this area. But I think that we and Vietnamese partners can continue discussion to diminish difference.

Huynh Phan: Do you think that there is a big difference between the way of thinking of Western and Asian people?

Ambassador Shear: They are different from each others firstly in lifestyle and then the way of thinking. But if we really want to and try to understand each others, we will understand each others. I think that instead of any difference, from the very deep of us, we still have common things to communicate with each others and finally, we will understand each others.

Huynh Phan: Each ambassador defines his own priorities and the way of approach to achieve his goals. How is your approach?

Ambassador Shear: I think the best way to achieve the goals is building mutual-trust at the highest level between me and Vietnamese officials who I have to work with. Going to provinces like this is also a way to build mutual-trust.

Huynh Phan: I’m really curious that about the two places that you visit today. One is the HIV/AIDS Prevention Centre and the museum.

Ambassador Shear: (Smile) We have a project to help detect and prevent HIV/AIDS throughout Vietnam and we spend around $6 million in this project. So when I visited Thai Binh, I had to go to the center where this project is implemented.

The museum is related to the Ambassador Foundation on Culture Heritage Preservation, a global program of the US Department of State. I participate in many projects in Vietnam and I’m waiting to see the results.

Huynh Phan: You have been to some provinces and cities of Vietnam. Do you see big difference among them?

Ambassador Shear: The more I travel, the more diversification of culture, ethnic groups… in Vietnam that I see. So every trip is interesting. For example, I’ve been to Son La in the northwestern region, Bac Lieu in the Mekong River Delta and today I went to Thai Binhof the Red River Delta, to see the difference in lifestyle, culture, etc. I think that that diversification has created the contemporary face of Vietnam.

Huynh Phan: What do you think after the visit to Thai Binh Museum?

Ambassador Shear: That’s a plentiful collection of historical relics. And I’m very happy to cooperate with the museum to preserve those cultural heritages. That’s a good project and I will keep an eye on it.

Huynh Phan: Back to your career. Is Japan the first countries where you worked as a diplomat?

Ambassador Shear: Yes. After that I returned to Washington. In the late 1980s I went to the US Embassy in Beijing. I returned to Washington again and then went to Tokyo and after that to Malaysia…

Huynh Phan: What cultural characters of each culture where you have been lived and worked as a diplomat, from Japan to China, Malaysia and Vietnam?

Ambassador Shear: It is difficult. Though they are all in Asia, even in East Asia but they have different characters. For example, Japanese has been a sea power. They are extremely diligent.

China was a colony for a long time and it was also the home to revolutions for a long time. That’s why they have been so interested in developing economics in recent decades. Certainly, the Chinese have great ambition and national pride.

Vietnamese people are also very diligent, hard-working and give prominence to education. That’s the way the American see Vietnamese through Vietnamese students in the US. So I have said that Vietnam sends to the US many good ambassadors.

Americans who have been to Vietnam are surprised about economic development in Vietnam. In general, they are satisfactory.

Huynh Phan: Do you think that Chinese’s national pride is a bit excessive today?

Ambassador Shear: I think that they have grounds to be proud of their nation because they have passed a long way since they conducted reforms and opened their door in the late 1970s. I do not doubt that the Chinese economy and society will continue developing.

The US and China still maintains good relations and we continue exchange high-ranking visits. Of course, I talk about it when the ties between the USA and Vietnam and with the remaining part of Southeast Asia are being strengthened and developed, and the presence and involvement of the USA in Southeast Asia is clearer and deeper. All aim to ensure a stable and prosper future in this region.

Huynh Phan: Today, you are a state diplomat or a representative of US people?

Ambassador Shear: Both. When I met with Thai Binh’s officials or signed a financial assistance agreement for the local museum, I was a state diplomat. When talked or took photo with the museum’s employees or when we talked in the coffee shop, I was a representative of the US people.

Huynh Phan: You have been in Vietnam for only four months but it sounds that you understand Vietnam very clearly. Did you talk with experts about Vietnam before you came here?

Ambassador Shear: Yes. I had an interesting meeting.

In late July, after I was ratified as the US Ambassador to Vietnam, the Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Le Quoc Cuong invited me to the Vietnamese Embassy to talk with his experts about the Vietnam-US relations. I’m grateful to Ambassador Cuong for that meeting because I got a lot of useful information. We have been still maintained periodical exchange and Mr. Cuong has helped me a lot.

Huynh Phan: Have you still kept contact with your Vietnamese language tutor?

Ambassador Shear: Who?

Huynh Phan: Senator Jim Webb.

Ambassador Shear: (Laugh) Senator Jim Webb paid a visit to Vietnam only one day after I went to Hanoi to assume office. My first important mission as the US Ambassador was accompanying him for three days to important meetings. But that was the best way for me to be introduced to Vietnamese colleagues and to understand more about Senator Jim Webb. They were the three memorable days in my life.

Huynh Phan: What do your Vietnamese colleagues in Washington who you met before think about the prospect of the US-Vietnam relations?

Ambassador Shear: We both agreed that the US-Vietnam relations have made great progress in the last 2-3 years and the both sides are very enthusiastic to promote it. Our mission is turning that enthusiasm into specific results.

Huynh Phan: Thank you!

TVN

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