U.S. to pay new visit to Vietnam
Mattis returning amid concerns about China
WASHINGTON — By making a rare second trip this year to Vietnam, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is signaling how intensively the Trump administration is trying to counter China’s military assertiveness by cozying up to smaller nations in the region that share American wariness about Chinese intentions.
The visit, starting Tuesday, also shows how far U.s.-vietnamese relations have advanced since the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War.
Mattis, a retired general who entered the Marine Corps during Vietnam but did not serve there, visited Hanoi in January. By coincidence, that stop came days before the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive in 1968. Tet was a turning point, when North Vietnamese fighters attacked several objectives in the South, surprising Washington and feeding anti-war sentiment though the North’s offensive turned out to be a tactical military failure.
Three months after the Mattis visit, a Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, made a port call at Da Nang. It was the first such visit since the war and a reminder to China that the U.S. is intent on strengthening partnerships in the region as a counterweight to China’s military might.
The most vivid expression of Chinese assertiveness is its transformation of contested islets and other features in the South China Sea into strategic military outposts. The Trump administration has criticized China for deploying surface-to-air missiles and other weapons on some of these outposts. In June, Mattis said the placement of these weapons is “tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion.”
This time Mattis is visiting Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s most populous city and its economic center. Known as Saigon during the period before the communists took over the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975, the city was renamed for the man who led the Vietnamese nationalist movement.
Mattis also plans to visit a Vietnamese air base, Bien Hoa, a major air station for American forces during the war, and meet with the defense minister, Ngo Xuan Lich.
The Mattis trip originally was to include a visit to Beijing, but that stop was canceled amid rising tensions over trade and defense issues.