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00:00Obama called it a difficult relationship. That's that's really understating it isn't it isn't it. Yes it is understanding it but we in America generally speaking has short memories so it's not gonna be that difficult. It'll be difficult for pockets of anti-communist Vietnamese particularly in Southern California to swallow this one but I think China itself has made this a little easier with some of the worst public diplomacy I've seen in a long time. And so here you have it the two adversaries that you know we killed off sixty thousand American soldiers in the Vietnam War and now we're making nice professor I'm going to come to the China dynamic in all this . But Vietnam is a scar that runs in the US psyche. Would you not agree and you can forget other conflicts. Perhaps this one runs deeper though doesn't it . Yes and no it's not an anti Vietnamese scar. It's it's a scar in terms of national wisdom and and decision making and involvement but it's not you know a kind of a Vietnamese hatred as you might say with the Turks and the Armenians or or something of that nature. It's really just kind of a blunder scar. And of course we'll have to see in 10 15 20 years how the Iraq invasion by President Bush looks in the national psyche as we live we have to live with all these soldiers that come back in terrible terrible condition . Professor let's bring in China. This because then today the rise of that country is probably left both Hanoi and Washington needing each other like they never have done before Well I think you know from your business perspective they are hedging their bets. And the fact that the party secretary himself from Illinois came is very telling and very symbolic not the foreign minister not the president but the party secretary because there's been a split in Hanoi between those who say the purist and then those who are might be the reformers as you would you might put it and to simplify it and it's basically generational. And the younger ones want to get on with the changes they want to go even beyond communism. So it was they were socialists so excuse me socialism with Chinese characteristics that socialism with Vietnamese characteristics and really get on with turning up the economy. So for the pro Beijing party secretary to go to Washington to be seen in the Oval Office is very very significant . Well absolutely. And how will that visit be viewed in Beijing . Well again Vietnam will hedge because that because they sent the fine. That means that Beijing will be totally informed word for word nuance for nuance. What happened. The way in the White House Oval Office. What was said what was agreed to. So that's kind of a way of hedging that bet the same time. It also means definite forward movement as famous British diplomat said We have no eternal friends or enemies. We only have eternal interests and it is now in Vietnam's interest really to make sure that they're not left alone. Remember in the 1979 border skirmish it was as it was call the Chinese actually benefited from U.S. intel surveillance and otherwise and then Vietnam if there is going to be a dust up doesn't want that to happen again . So this is a creating a C D a certificate of deposit with Washington that if there is some sort of military conflict there will not be a repeat of the intel providers that occurred in 79 nearby you could have asked the British prime minister Lord Palmerston there. He also said something else which was to look at a country's foreign policy you have to look at their trade policy. So how much of this is really dictated to by an economic imperative . Well I think it's the economics to flow flow back to Clinton . You think someone was nice to say that I was the first American columnist to call for Clinton to break the ice with Vietnam and he did of course but I. Economics are always involved but at the end of the day politics will trump. And here you have some geopolitical pushing by by China and my own view is it's not as scary as it's being made out to be but it's it's being accompanied by the worst public diplomacy by China that I've seen in a long time and that their public diplomacy is just way way behind their you know their the way they think about economics .

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It's in Vietnam’s Interest To Not Be Alone: Plate

Loyola Marymount University Distinguished Scholar and Asia Pacific Media Center Founder Tom Plate discusses President Obama meeting Nguyen Phu Trong, the head of Vietnam’s Communist party at the White House and what it means for relations between the two countries. He speaks to Bloomberg’s Rishaad Salamat on “Trending Business.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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