PANO – Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is attending the ASEAN-US Summit held in California, the United States (US), at the invitation of US President Barack Obama. The summit will last from February 15th to 16th.

The ASEAN-US dialogue was set up in 1977 and the two sides stepped up their relationship to the enhanced partnership in 2005.

Over the past time, the ASEAN-US cooperation development has left seen results in various fields such as security-politics, economy and trade cooperation, and culture.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in a photo with other leaders at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Malaysia last year. Photo: phnompenhpost.com

In terms of political-security cooperation, the US attaches special importance to its relationship with ASEAN, considering the bloc as the core in its rebalancing strategy and supporting the central role of ASEAN in the shaping of the regional structure. The US gives high priority to supporting ASEAN in ensuring security, especially maritime security on the bilateral basis via regional forums. The two sides also actively cooperate in anti-terrorism, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, cyber-security, and combat against ting transnational criminals involved in crimes such as terrorism, and human trafficking…

On the economic and trade cooperation front, the US is one of the top trade partners and investors of ASEAN. In 2014, the ASEAN-US trade turnover came attached US$216 billion, accounting for 8.2% of ASEAN’s trade value, and US investment in ASEAN reached US$226 billion. In 2014, there were nearly 3.2 million US tourist arrivals in ASEAN, representing 3.2% of the total number of tourists to ASEAN.

As for socio-cultural cooperation, ASEAN has encouraged the US to strengthen cooperation in science and technology, and education; enhance scholarships for ASEAN students; promote cooperation in dealing with epidemics; promote cooperation in the Mekong region; and enhance cooperation in ensuring energy security, disaster management and dealing with climate change while people-to-people exchange and biodiversity cooperation has also been promoted.

Cooperation in coping with climate change is one of the priorities in the ASEAN-US relationship. At the 2nd ASEAN-US Summit held in November 2014, ASEAN and the US issued a Joint Statement on Climate Change, which declares the US support for ASEAN in mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change through support to implement the ASEAN Action Plan on climate change response.

Apart from the ASEAN-US relationship, as a member country of the bloc, Vietnam has seen positive achievements with the US in both scope and scale, which is increasingly more substantive and strategic.

Since the US visit of President Truong Tan Sang in July 2013, and with the establishment of the “Comprehensive Partnership,” the two sides have enjoyed new and substantial developments in of the bilateral relationship in many areas, and the mutual understanding has also increased. Both sides have sent high-ranking delegations on visits to the other. Especially, during the historic US visit paid by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in July 2015, the two sides signed the “Vietnam-US Joint Vision Statement on Relations,” thereby deepening the comprehensive partnership and directing the more substantial and stable development of the relationship in the coming time.

Since 2005, the US has become the biggest export market of Vietnam. The Vietnam-US two-way trade turnover has kept growing at the rate of more than 20% in recent years, standing at US$36.6 billion in 2014, while Vietnam has always enjoyed a trade surplus. By October 2015, the total Vietnam-US import-export turnover reached more than US$37.34 billion, up by 23.3% over the same period in 2014, of which Vietnam exported more than US$26 billion to the US market.

On May 6th 2014, Vietnam and the US officially signed the Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation (Agreement 123) and started to cooperate in space exploration.

Cooperation in education and tourism is also increasing. In 2015, there were around 17,000 Vietnamese students and apprentices studying in the US, highest among all ASEAN countries, and ranking the 8th among countries sending students to the US. Iin August 2015, there were more than 336,800 US tourist arrivals to Vietnam, increasing by 6.2% compared to the same period in 2014, only after behind only China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan.

At the 3rd ASEAN-US Summit held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in November 2015, ASEAN and the US decided to upgrade the relationship to a strategic partnership and passed the Action Plan for the period of 2016-2020 to implement the ASEAN-US strategic partnership. On that occasion, President Obama officially invited ASEAN countries to the US to join the ASEAN-US Summit in the State of California on February 15th and 16th.

The ASEAN-US Summit this time is of holds special significance, for it is an important international conference in 2016 and the first summit held between ASEAN and a partner country after the formation of the ASEAN Community. This is also the first time the ASEAN-US Summit has been held in the United States. The summit shows the mutual respect for the ASEAN-US strategic partnership and will discuss the direction and measures to implement the ASEAN-US Strategic Partnership, substantially deepening the cooperation in both scope and scale, and exchange views on global and regional issues of mutual concern.

We strongly believe that the special trip to the ASEAN-US Summit of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will be a success and will turn over a new leaf in the relationship between Vietnam and the US in particular, and between ASEAN and US in general.

The People’s Army Newspaper

Translated by Huu Duong