With an eye on increasing Chinese influence in the region, US President Barack Obama held historic talks with the Vietnamese Communist Party’s leader at the White House, marking a significant transition of former enemies into “comprehensive partners”.
“Obviously, there has been a difficult history between our two countries in the 20th century. And, there continue to be significant differences in political philosophy and political systems between our two countries,” Obama said in his remarks at a joint media appearance with Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Trong is Vietnam’s first party general secretary to visit the US, and he met Obama on Tuesday at the Oval Office of the White House. “But because, I think, of the efforts of leaders in both parties here in the US, as well as the leadership in Vietnam over successive years, what we’ve seen is the emergence of a constructive relationship that is based on mutual respect, and that has benefitted the peoples of both countries,” Obama said.