The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson will visit the port of Da Nang in March in the first ever visit of a US carrier to Vietnam.
The decision was made during a meeting between US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Vietnam’s Minister of National Defense Ngo Xuan Lich on Thursday. Mattis is on a two-day trip to the country where he also met with President Tran Dai Quang.
“Consistent with the growing defense relationship, both leaders agreed to work toward a visit by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to Da Nang in March 2018,” the Defense Department statement said.
The Pentagon said Mattis and Lich also discussed the regional security environment during their get together. They said they would enhance defense cooperation based on a three-year plan of action agreed upon in October 2017, with a focus on maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and peacekeeping operations.
“Secretary Mattis highlighted the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which reaffirms the United States’ commitment to work with partners such as Vietnam to sustain the rules-based order in a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the Pentagon statement added.
The US deployed a number of aircraft carriers off Vietnam’s coast during the Indochina War. However, none of the carriers ever docked in South Vietnamese ports. Other US warships have visited Vietnam as the two continue to step up military cooperation to counter Beijing in the South China Sea. But the visit of the Nimitz-class super carrier Carl Vinson to Vietnam carries considerably more symbolic importance.
It’s interesting how the U.S. uses "freedom of navigation" and peace to justify its presence within the South China Sea but chooses to partner with Vietnam to pursue those goals. Vietnam’s claims in the South China Sea are in conflict with more countries than China’s are (all the same countries but Indonesia too). Additionally they’ve attacked Indonesian and Philippine ships over their claims. Vietnam was the first country to engage in land reclaimation activities in the South China Sea, establishing the norms at present. They also have militarily occupied many islands and reefs on the South China Sea and militarized almost all of them. This partnership demonstrates that the U.S. has no principled stance in the area and is only interested in militarily "containing" China.
Good someone needs to keep an eye on china
Leave Ph alone US. Abandoning Philippines for the Nth time after its 1898 invasion to steal minerals of Ph land. Then left Ph to rebuild after WW2.
Schemer
Obama lacked balls during Scarborough standoff.
He did nothing during the island buildings and screamed at puppet president Noynoy Aquino to stand down during PH China Scarborough srandoff. .
Thats how Pathetic US commitment is in ASPAC. Asia Pacific in defense.
China can do better in Asia.
American money has flowed INTO Philippies far far far more than out. what a joke you dirty leftist.
Sonny Bardin
Are you talking about trade? Then you are familiar with "margins". Such ignorance. Tsk tsk.
By the way, did US compensate for the endless thousands killed and land (minerals) stolen by America from Phil from 1898-1945?
No. Uncle Sam erased your shameful imperialist past and ideals sugarcoated its genocide and massacre with "pacification" (Bud jao Massacre, Balingaga massacre).
Who’s dirty now?
By the way, I like Trump’s ideals way better than Obama’s pathetic policies. And you’re calling me a leftist. Lol
It’s even more interesting how China claims all of the West Philippine Sea and Vietnam’s East Sea on the basis of ancestral rights – as if the Vietnamese and Philippine people didn’t have ancestors who fished in those waters. It’s also interesting how China’s man-made islands are vastly larger than all of the other claimants combined. And it’s interesting how China threatened to go to war with the Philippines if they tried to extract oil in their own exclusive economic zone… talk about principled stance…
It’s also interesting how all the trouble in the South China Sea started when these new nations, whose previous cultural groups had never challenged China’s claims to the South China Sea, first made overlapping claims which they had never made before. And second, when they would unilaterally occupy islands and reefs, completely changing the situation on the ground. Then China had to react, not by getting into military conflicts, but by containing their territorial expansion through peaceful means and adopting similar tactics which they themselves were using but to greater effect. You’re right, this is potentially the most principled stance preventing aggressive and militaristic expansionism the world has ever seen.