Comment on Obama buries another Cold War relic in Vietnam

isaac@politico.com (Edward-Isaac Dovere), Politico
Tue, 05/24/2016 - 3:43am

Obama buries another Cold War relic in Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam — President Barack Obama brought his 2016 the Cold War Is Really Over tour here Tuesday, after his big speech in Havana in February and looking ahead to his final NATO summit scheduled for July in Poland.That’s a message that he stressed repeatedly in his televised address to the Vietnamese people, even as he prepares to head on Wednesday to Japan for a meeting of the G-7 world leaders, the specter of a booted-out Russia still in the background.And it’s a message delivered to a Communist Party that greeted him at its headquarters Monday afternoon in a cavernous, red-carpeted room under a giant gold bust of Ho Chi Minh that seemed quite confident that it’s not going anywhere or changing its approach any time soon, despite Obama’s nudging jabs, including pointing out publicly in a meeting with civil activists Monday that “there were several other activists who were invited who were prevented from coming for various reasons.”“I think it’s an indication of the fact that, although there has been some modest progress and it is our hope that through some of the legal reforms that are being drafted and passed there will be more progress, there are still folks who find it very difficult to assemble and organize peacefully around issues that they care deeply about,” Obama said.The renewed relationship between America and Vietnam, Obama said in his big speech, should be a model of cooperation around the world in the 21st century — “mindful of the past, mindful of the difficult past, but focused on the future.”The point, according to the president, who wrapped up a two-day stop in the capital before heading south to Ho Chi Minh City to continue his trip, is not just about opening embassies and making peace, or even about ending the arms embargo that had been in place since the Vietnam War: It’s about moving into new areas of cooperation in trade, business and education.“Now we can say something that was once unimaginable: Today, Vietnam and the United States are partners,” Obama said, not “prisoners of the past.”Obama was born the year the embargo of Cuba was put in place.

 

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