President Barack Obama has announced that the United States is fully lifting the ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam, which has been in place for decades.
In a joint news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Obama said the removal of the ban on lethal weapons was part of a deeper defense cooperation with the country and dismissed suggestions it was aimed at countering China’s growing strength in the region, CNN reported.
Instead, it was the desire to continue normalizing relations between the US and Vietnam and to do away with a ban “based on ideological division between our two countries”, he said.
The Vietnam War ended in April 1975 with the fall of Saigon—now called Ho Chi Minh City—after the US withdrew combat forces and the North Vietnamese launched a massive offensive to reunite their homeland under communism.
While Vietnam and China are neighbors that share a Communist ideology, China has aggressively claimed territory in the South China Sea, irking Vietnam and its other Southeast Asian neighbors and also raising concerns internationally.
In a recent and provocative show of force, China flew two jets close to US aircraft stationed in airspace above the disputed region.
At a press briefing by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Monday, ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said that it was appropriate for the ban to be lifted.
“(The) arms sales ban was a product of the Cold War and should no longer exist,” she told reporters.
“We hope the lifting of all such bans will benefit regional peace and development. And we are happy to see the United States and Vietnam develop normal cooperative relations.”
Human Rights Concerns
Obama defended the decision to lift the arms ban despite Vietnam’s dismal record on human rights—involving the jailing of dissidents and stalled political reforms—saying sales would be evaluated on a “case-by-case” basis.
However, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth said via Twitter that Obama was opting to “arm Vietnam as (an) anti-China ally rather than care about its ongoing repression”.
In 2014, the US eased restrictions of an arms ban that was originally instated during the Vietnam war.
Obama also thanked Vietnam for its continued aid in addressing what he called “the painful legacy of war”, referring to attempts to locate veterans missing in action, the removal of landmines and the cleaning up of Agent Orange.
