HANOI — Secretary of State John Kerry told a group of Vietnamese officials and business leaders Friday that improvements in human rights here would lead to deeper ties between the United States and Vietnam.
“Progress on human rights and the rule of law will provide the foundation for a deeper and more sustainable strategy and strategic partnership between the United States and Vietnam,” Kerry said in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between the former wartime adversaries.
“Only you can decide the pace and the direction of this process of building this partnership, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that America’s closest partnerships in the world are with countries that share a commitment to certain values,” he added.
Kerry arrived here in the Vietnamese capital Thursday night for talks on trade and security issues, his final stop on a five-nation trip to the Middle East and Asia.
The United States and Vietnam are both concerned about China’s growing military power and its claims in the South China Sea. Last year, the Obama administration partly lifted its longtime arms embargo on Vietnam so that lethal assistance could be provided to the Vietnamese Coast Guard.
Economic ties have also grown. Vietnam is one of the nations involved in the negotiations to draft a landmark Pacific trade treaty that President Obama is promoting, and trade between the two countries has increased to more than $36 billion, from $451 million two decades ago.
Kerry served in Vietnam as a young officer before emerging as a vociferous critic of the war. In his address, Kerry recalled the role that he and Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and was a POW in Vietnam, played in resolving questions over the possibility of missing Americans from the war, a step that facilitated the normalization of relations between the nations.
“We are not still in the process of reconciliation,” Kerry said. “The big news today is that the United States and Vietnam have reconciled.”
But Kerry also spoke of the challenges the two countries still face, especially over human rights. While the number of political prosecutions in Vietnam has declined somewhat, Vietnam is still an authoritarian, one-party state, and US officials say legal reforms are needed.
Kerry emphasized the importance of allowing independent labor unions, as the pending Pacific trade pact requires.
“The United States recognizes that only the Vietnamese people can determine their political system,” he said. “But there are basic principles we will always defend: No one should be punished for speaking their mind so long as they are peaceful; and if trading goods flow freely between us, so should information and ideas.”
Vietnam’s deputy prime minister, Pham Binh Minh, said his government was taking steps to improve its legal system, but the country’s human rights record should be viewed in its “cultural context.”