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Published: Sept. 10, 2023, 10:13 p.m.

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eal in hand to draw yet another one of China\\u2019s neighbors closer to the United States.\\xa0

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In just the last five months, Biden has hosted the Philippines\\u2019 president at the White House for the first time in over a decade; he has f\\xeated the Indian prime minister with a lavish state dinner; and he has hosted his Japanese and South Korean counterparts for a summit ripe with symbolism at the storied Camp David presidential retreat.\\xa0

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At each turn, Biden\\u2019s courtship and his team\\u2019s steadfast diplomacy have secured stronger diplomatic, military and economic ties with a network of allies and partners joined if not by an outright sense of alarm at China\\u2019s increasingly aggressive military and economic posture, then at least by a growing sense of caution and concern.\\xa0

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The latest page in the US\\u2019s Indo-Pacific playbook will come via the establishment of a \\u201ccomprehensive strategic partnership\\u201d that will put the US on par with Vietnam\\u2019s highest tier of partners, including China, according to US officials familiar with the matter.\\xa0

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\\u201cIt marks a new period of fundamental reorientation between the United States and Vietnam,\\u201d a senior administration official said ahead of Biden\\u2019s arrival in Hanoi, saying it would expand a range of issues between the two countries.\\xa0

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\\u201cIt\\u2019s not going to be easy for Vietnam, because they\\u2019re under enormous pressure from China,\\u201d the official went on. \\u201cWe realize the stakes and the President is going to be very careful how he engages with Vietnamese friends.\\u201d\\xa0

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The US\\u2019 increasingly tight-knit web of partnerships in the region is just one side of the US\\u2019s diplomatic strategy vis-\\xe0-vis China. On a separate track, the Biden administration has also pursued more stable ties and improved communication with Beijing over the last year, with a series of top Cabinet secretaries making the trip to the Chinese capital in just the last few months.\\xa0

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The latter part of that playbook has delivered fewer results thus far than Biden\\u2019s entreaties to China\\u2019s wary neighbors, a dichotomy that was on stark display as Biden attended the G20 in New Delhi, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not.\\xa0

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The president did not appear overly concerned when questioned Saturday about his Chinese counterpart\\u2019s absence at the summit.\\xa0

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\\u201cIt would be nice to have him here,\\u201d Biden said, with Modi and a handful of other world leaders by his side. \\u201cBut, no, the summit is going well.\\u201d\\xa0

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As Biden and Xi jockey for influence in Asia and beyond, merely showing up can be seen as a power play and Biden sought to make the most of Xi\\u2019s absence, seizing the opening to pitch the United States\\u2019 sustained commitment both to the region and to developing nations around the world.\\xa0

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In Vietnam, it\\u2019s not only China whose influence Biden is competing with. As he arrived, reports suggested Hanoi was preparing a secret purchase of weapons from Russia, its longtime arms supplier.\\xa0

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On Monday, Biden plans to announce steps to help Vietnam diversify away from an over-reliance on Russian arms, a senior administration official said.\\xa0

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As China\\u2019s economy slows down and its leader ratchets up military aggressions, Biden hopes to make the United States appear a more attractive and reliable partner. In New Delhi, he did so by wielding proposals to boost global infrastructure and development programs as a counterweight to China.\\xa0

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Beijing and Moscow have both condemned a so-called \\u201cCold War mentality\\u201d that divides the world into blocks. The White House insists it is seeking only competition, not conflict. Biden told reporters on Sunday that he is \\u201csincere\\u201d about improving the United States\\u2019 relationship with China.\\xa0

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\\u201cI don\\u2019t want to contain China, I just want to make sure we have a relationship with China that is on the up-and-up, squared away, and everyone knows what it\\u2019s all about,\\u201d Biden said. \\u201cWe have an opportunity to strengthen alliances around the world to maintain stability. That\\u2019s what this trip is all about, having India cooperate much more with the United States, be closer to the United States, Vietnam being closer with the United States. It\\u2019s not about containing China. It\\u2019s about having a stable base \\u2013 a stable base in the Indo-Pacific.\\u201d\\xa0

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Still, the desire to pull nations into the fold has been evident.\\xa0

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Squeezed by rival giants\\xa0

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On Saturday, Biden held a photo op with the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa \\u2013 three members of the BRICS grouping that Xi has sought to elevate as a rival to US-dominated summits like the G20.\\xa0

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If there is a risk in that approach, it is leaving nations feeling squeezed by rival giants. For Biden, however, there is an imperative in at least offering poorer nations an alternative to China when it comes to investments and development. The president on Sunday acknowledged that China\\u2019s economy has faced \\u201csome difficulties\\u201d recently, noting stalled growth and an unfolding real estate crisis in the country, but attempted to tamp down the idea that the United States was rooting against China\\u2019s economic success, telling reporters, \\u201cI want to see China succeed economically, but I want to see them succeed by the rules.\\u201d\\xa0

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\\u201cWe\\u2019re not looking to hurt China, sincerely, we\\u2019re all better off if China does well \\u2013 China does well by the international rules,\\u201d he added.\\xa0

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But increasingly, China\\u2019s neighbors \\u2013 like Vietnam \\u2013 are seeking a counterweight to Beijing\\u2019s muscular and often unforgiving presence in the region, even if they are not prepared to entirely abandon China\\u2019s sphere of influence in favor of the US\\u2019.\\xa0

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\\u201cWe\\u2019re not asking or expecting the Vietnamese to make a choice,\\u201d the senior administration official said. \\u201cWe understand and know clearly that they need and want a strategic partnership with China. That\\u2019s just the nature of the beast.\\u201d\\xa0

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Days before Biden\\u2019s visit and the expected strategic partnership announcement, China sent a senior Communist Party official to Vietnam to enhance \\u201cpolitical mutual trust\\u201d between the two communist neighbors, the official Chinese Xinhua news agency reported.\\xa0

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Asked about Biden\\u2019s upcoming visit to Vietnam, China\\u2019s Foreign Ministry on Monday warned the US against using its relations with individual Asian countries to target a \\u201cthird party.\\u201d\\xa0

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\\u201cThe United States should abandon Cold War zero-sum game mentality, abide by the basic norms of international relations, not target a third party, and not undermine regional peace, stability, development and prosperity,\\u201d ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a daily briefing.\\xa0

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Vietnam has also sought to maintain good ties with China. Its Communist Party chief was the first foreign leader to call on Xi in Beijing after the Chinese leader secured an unprecedented third term last October. In June, Vietnam\\u2019s prime minister met Xi during a state visit to China.\\xa0

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But even as it seeks to avoid China\\u2019s wrath, Vietnam is increasingly pulled toward the US out of economic self-interest \\u2013 its trade with the US has ballooned in recent years and it is eager to benefit from American efforts to diversify supply chains outside of China \\u2013 as well as concern over China\\u2019s military build-up in the South China Sea.\\xa0

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Experts say those tightened partnerships are as much a credit to the Biden administration\\u2019s comprehensive China strategy as it is a consequence of the way China has increasingly aggressively wielded its military and economic might in the region.\\xa0

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\\u201cChina has long complained about the US alliance network in its backyard. It has said that these are vestiges of the Cold War, that the US needs to stop encircling China, but it\\u2019s really China\\u2019s own behavior and its choices that have driven these countries together,\\u201d said Patricia Kim, a China expert at the Brookings Institution.\\xa0

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\\u201cSo in many ways, China\\u2019s foreign policy has backfired.\\u201d\\xa0

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From foes to friends\\xa0

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The upgrading of the US-Vietnam relationship carries huge significance given Washington\\u2019s complicated history with Hanoi.\\xa0

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The two countries have gone from mortal enemies that fought a devastating war to increasingly close partners, even with Vietnam still run by the same Communist forces that ultimately prevailed and sent the US military packing.\\xa0

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There were signs during Biden\\u2019s visit that some of those differences remain. Reporters representing US media outlets were physically held back from covering events at the Communist Party Headquarters \\u2013 an event the White House and Vietnamese officials had agreed would be covered by the American press.\\xa0

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The episode only served to underscore the extent to which Biden is elevating US strategic and economic interests despite human rights and press freedom concerns.\\xa0

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Vietnam is the world\\u2019s third-largest jailer of journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders, and the country ranks 178th out of 180 countries on the organization\\u2019s World Press Freedom Index.\\xa0

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The White House has defended its engagement with autocratic regimes around the world, insisting that Biden raises human rights and democracy issues privately.\\xa0

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While the upgrading of that relationship has been a decade in the making, US officials say a concerted drive to take the relationship to new heights carried that years-long momentum over the line.\\xa0

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A late June visit to Washington by Vietnam\\u2019s top diplomat, Chairman Le Hoai Trung, crystallized that possibility. During a meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the two first discussed the possibility of upgrading the relationship, according to a Biden administration official.\\xa0

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As he walked back to his office, Sullivan wondered whether the US could be more ambitious than a one-step upgrade in the relationship \\u2013 to \\u201cstrategic partner\\u201d \\u2013 and directed his team to travel to the region and deliver a letter to Trung proposing a two-step upgrade that would take the relations to their highest-possible level, putting the US on par with Vietnam\\u2019s other \\u201ccomprehensive strategic partners\\u201d: China, Russia, India and South Korea.\\xa0

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Sullivan would speak again with Trung on July 13 while traveling with Biden to a NATO summit in Helsinki.\\xa0

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The conversation pushed the possibility of a two-step upgrade in a positive direction, but it wasn\\u2019t until a mid-August visit to the White House by Vietnam\\u2019s ambassador to Washington that an agreement was in hand. Inside Sullivan\\u2019s West Wing office, the two finalized plans to take the US-Vietnam relationship to new heights and for Biden and Vietnam\\u2019s leader, General Secreatary Nguyen Phu Trong, to shake hands in Hanoi.\\xa0

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The trip was still being finalized when Biden revealed during an off-camera fundraiser that he was planning to visit. The remark sent the planning into overdrive.\\xa0

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Still, US officials are careful not to characterize the rapprochement with Vietnam \\u2013 or with the Philippines, India, Japan and Korea, or its AUKUS security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom \\u2013 as part of a comprehensive strategy to counter China\\u2019s military and economic heft in the Indo-Pacific.\\xa0

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\\u201cI think that\\u2019s a deliberate design by the Biden administration,\\u201d said Yun Sun, the China program director at the Stimson Center. \\u201cYou don\\u2019t want countries in the region or African countries to feel that the US cares about them only because of China because that shows a lack of commitment. That shows that, \\u2018Well, we care about you only because we don\\u2019t want you to go to the Chinese.\\u2019\\u201d\\xa0

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- by Jeremy Diamond and Kevin Liptak, CNN

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