 These are three gentlemen who have had a real hand in building this U.S.-Vietnam relationship over the last 20 years from different perspectives. Scott, as you've heard from the very beginning as a career Foreign Service Officer, building the bricks and mortar of the relationship from a policy perspective. Chris Brose, who is with Senator McCain's office, I think everyone here recognizes that Secretary Kerry and Senator McCain are probably two of the pillars of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship. Their work on the relationship has been tireless and has moved from making critical assessments to trying to support some ambition and, I guess, as the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned, imagination. And Murray Hebert, who is my colleague here at CSIS, and for those of you who, like me, grew up reading his articles in the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Wall Street Journal, has been on this beat literally for a couple decades, really working on looking at the relationship from the ground up. These gentlemen have agreed to talk a little bit about the relationship as we launch our new study. And so let me turn first to Scott. You get the first cut, if you would, and then I'll invite the others to make their comments and then we'll open it up for question and answer. Thank you. Thanks, Ernie. I didn't make, prepare any remarks. I thought I would just offer a few observations. It's interesting that, I mean, we all know the history between the United States and Vietnam, and it was really in the mid-to-late 1980s that people began to work together between the two countries, focused first and foremost on the MIA issue, accounting for our missing servicemen from the war, which is, in a way, an unusual way of starting a relationship, but in this case, a very necessary and appropriate way. And the movement toward normalization involved progress on that front, as well as Vietnam agreeing to remove its troops from Cambodia and allowing people in reeducation camps to leave and some other things. That was a long time ago, but it was an important way of starting the relationship. And since that time, as I mentioned when I introduced the Deputy Prime Minister, it's been a relationship that's really developed based on a very pragmatic approach, I would argue, a very strategic approach from both governments, that there were areas in which we could work together that would benefit the American people and the Vietnamese people. Certainly on the trade and economic side, that's been a big part of it. First developing a bilateral trade agreement and, of course, now working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which should create a lot of opportunities in both countries. As the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned, very much building the people-to-people relationship, including with a large Fulbright program, opportunities for Vietnamese students to come and study in the United States and more and more exchange programs back and forth. Certainly in the diplomatic realm, where we work together quite well in ASEAN, obviously we're not a member of ASEAN, but we work a lot with ASEAN in the East Asia Summit in APEC, basically trying to promote regional peace, stability, security, and cooperation, and we found Vietnam to be a good partner. But increasingly in recent years, we're working together on things like health and energy and the environment, climate change. Since Vietnam is a country that's already being affected by climate change and could be deeply affected by climate change rising waters. So these are regional and global issues where we've developed, I think, a very good cooperative effort. The security, the military-to-military relationship has gone a little bit more slowly, which I think reflects some caution on both sides. I won't speak for the Vietnamese government, but on our side, certainly continuing concerns about human rights in Vietnam, about which we have a pretty open and regular dialogue, as the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned. Nonetheless, we've seen continued cooperation in these areas. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, was out recently in Vietnam for a very good discussion about very practical cooperation, including a lot on humanitarian assistance and working together in the region. So that's been, as I said, a slower area, but an important area. And last but not least, addressing still some of the legacies of the past and on the humanitarian side for us still accounting for missing Americans, very important. Also doing what we can to help the Vietnamese account for their missing, but working together also in dioxin remediation. I was visiting our project at Denang Airport on that just a month or so ago. So it's become a good, broad, healthy, and in many ways very normal relationship that I think there's every reason to believe it can continue to grow. Certainly, that's our commitment under the comprehensive partnership. The one area where we tend to have some differences and slows us down is human rights. We have to just keep working on that area in a very professional and appropriate way, and we'll do that. I'll stop there and pass it on to Kristen, it's my right. Well, thanks a lot. Thank you, Ernie, for giving me the opportunity to be here. You're very kind in your introduction. I am most certainly not a Vietnam expert. I'm surrounded by Vietnam experts. I commend the report that Murray has written along with his co-authors to you. And as you heard, Scott has been working on this relationship since 1993. And I mentioned to him, for my own sake, I will not mention to you what I was doing in 1993. Needless to say, it would further the argument that I'm not a Vietnam expert. What I want to do is just give you a couple minutes of sort of how the Hill has viewed the U.S.-Vietnam relationship recently. Some ways in which we have been engaging on this would completely agree with the comments earlier that from the very beginning of this process of normalization, the Congress has played a really critical role from the POW-MIA issue that my boss and then-Senator now, Secretary Kerry, helped to lead through the process of consultation all the way up to where we are currently. And I think where we are now is there's a lot of business that Vietnam has before the Congress, the 123 Civil Nuclear Agreement, which was just brought into force. The whole question of TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership this year, possibly next year, Congress has and will have, you know, obviously an important role to play in that. And then there's the question of the lethal arms embargo, which is not maintained under statute or in law. It's maintained under executive action. But the Congress will have a political role to play because this is something that I think the administration rightly recognizes as previous ones have that they don't want to move forward without a degree of congressional support. And what I'd say is just kind of a macro point on this is you look at a lot of these foreign policy issues and you see a lot of bipartisan rancor and a lot of executive legislative sort of pushing and shoving. And I think on this issue on the US-Vietnam relationship, and I think it's a broader point on US policy toward Asia, I'd argue there's a good degree of bipartisan cooperation and a good degree of executive legislative cooperation. You know, on this in particular, you know, I'll just offer one area where I think recently, you know, we have been working quite well together. And that is on the lethal arms issue. You know, this is something, as I mentioned, that the executive maintains under its own authority. And there are a number of people on the Hill who rightly look at this, as does my boss, through the lens of sort of how we balance on the one hand, you know, the sort of strategic and trade issues with the Vietnamese internal issues, governance, human rights, and the aspirations that we have on that. And I think where we've kind of come on the lethal arms embargo, which was sort of memorialized recently in a resolution, Senate resolution that Senator McCain introduced with Senator Pat Leahy, Senator Cardin, Senator Corker, and others, you know, is a prudent step of looking at the real national and sort of strategic interests that we have in deepening our cooperation with Vietnam in terms of regional security issues, mill to mill issues, and recognizing that Vietnam has recently taken some steps, you know, by no means what we would like to see fully, but certainly some steps to improve its human rights record. And this has essentially created some space, you know, the executive and the legislative branches working together to land at a point where I think we are saying essentially, you know, what we would like to see is the embargo be used for the purpose of maritime security and coastal defense. You know, it's very difficult to envision sort of human rights abuses occurring with maritime assets. So let's sort of move out on that for reasons of mutual interest, but we would expect to see sort of further improvements in governance and human rights for us to envision moving much beyond that, particularly getting into internal security issues and dual use items and things of that sort. So, you know, what I would say is I think it's a good progression, and hopefully it's sort of a harbinger of things to come as the executive branch works together with the Vietnamese government, as we work together with the executive to sort of move this partnership forward across all lines of effort. So I'll stop there and happily get into the rest of this with questions. Thanks, Chris. Murray? Thanks, everybody. You know, actually, ironically, the first time that I met Scott, I don't know if he remembers us, there was a, when he was in the, setting up the embassy, beginning the work on setting up the embassy, he hosted a congressional delegation and he, not hosted, but maybe he hosted, I don't know what your exact role was, but you were setting up meetings for them, visiting, and I think they were from the banking committee or something, and you asked me to come and meet with them, and I think that's the first time I remember meeting you in the old Metropole Hotel. It's had a considerable facelift since that time. We've gone the other way, at least me, I've gone the other way, but so what I thought I would do, we've talked a lot already about what all the stuff that's happened in the relationship over the last 20 years, a lot of it quite positive. I thought what I would do is pick up some of the points, some of the recommendations from our report that are very specific, that'll help, hopefully, as the minister, deputy minister alluded to, deputy prime minister alluded, would take us to the next level. And one that's kind of obvious, but maybe needs to be stated, is that it would be really good for President Obama to visit. Next year is the 20th anniversary, APEC and the East Asia Summit are both in Southeast Asia, so it's just a small jaunt to stop in Vietnam along the way, Scott. I was just kidding. The other, I want to get a little bit also into, the second thing I want to mention is the arms bar go, the lifting of the arms ban. It is really would represent a significant step forward and for many people as both Scott and Chris alluded to, human rights isn't as a key issue on this. And there's been an improvement at a lot of levels, there is a dialogue happening at, particularly between State Department and the foreign ministry, but as we were working on the report and working on this issue, one of the things we thought might be useful is if the US started talking more regularly to the Ministry of Public Security. I know they are in a little different place, they're not exactly involved in foreign policy and weren't foreign engagement with foreign diplomats, but I think this is a ministry that with which we probably have to learn to work more. And then I think it would also be useful for Vietnam to allow in more international human rights groups like it did early this year by allowing amnesty to come in, amnesty international. And I'm going to, the third point I want to make is about the TPP. I think everybody agrees that it would be good for Vietnam within a decade, its GDP would just by having a strong TPP would grow 36%. But there's considerable work that needs to be done, I think on both sides, to get rid of some trade restrictions and protectionism. Often, forgive me for those of you that work on trade here in the US, often a lot of the criticism is directed at Vietnam, which is probably warranted, but they have some concerns about the United States that probably should be well mentioned in an environment like this. But for Vietnam, they're in the process of proposing an excise tax on carbonated drinks. That really only affects a couple of foreign investors. That's really not a terribly smart non-tariff barrier to introduce. But at the same time, the US with some members of Congress have introduced some highly protectionist trade, is highly protectionist health inspection measures against the import of catfish from Vietnam. That is clearly aimed, it's clearly very protectionist and aimed at protecting US catfish farmers and is not a very competitive trade policy. I'm not sure what the administration can do about that, but it is, as we don't recognize often the differences that within Vietnam, how trade policy gets formulated, they'd often don't understand, and to them this looks like a move to keep out one sector of Vietnam's economy. Vietnam wants to address issues like state-owned enterprises, labor, or the US rather wants Vietnam to address state-owned enterprises, labor, environment, and the TPP. But when you talk to the Vietnamese negotiators, they say, yeah, we recognize particularly on the state-owned enterprises we need to address that, but we need to make it politically palatable and Vietnam, we need a good market access offer from the United States on garments. And we know why that's sort of bogged down right now between the US and Japan, but that's also an important issue to recognize. And then the other thing that sort of sticks in the Vietnamese craw is this issue of US having imposed or there was an agreement when Vietnam entered the WTO that Vietnam would agree to having non-market economy status. As Vietnam liberalizes its economy, as the two countries launch their comprehensive partnership and move toward a TPP, it really would be incumbent on the US to find ways. I know there are very specific regulations to get Vietnam lifted, but when you talk to the Vietnamese, they say we can name you probably about 80 countries in the world that are less free than us that don't have the status. And so it would be good to start talking about this non-market economy status for Vietnam. Then I'll mention a few things that we talked about on the people-to-people side. One thing that would help on the education side is allowing in Peace Corps volunteers to teach English in the countryside. It seems rather mundane, but it would really boost, help boost the Vietnamese education system. The other thing, we've mentioned Fulbright here several times, there is now the setup in 1994, the Fulbright Economic Teaching Program. There's now talk of expanding that into a full-fledged Fulbright University. It would be good. And does President Saang mention that when he was here? Secretary Kerry mentioned this in Vietnam. It would be really good to start looking for ways to, for both sides to work together from the public-private sector to fund this thing. And for Vietnam's education ministry to agree to have a fully independent Board of Trustees. And then Scott mentioned this already, as did Chris, the dioxin cleanup. It really does go a long way to improve some of the image after the war. And there's a good remedial effort underway in Da Nang, and it'd be good if the similar program was started soon in the Binghua Airport. So with that, Ernie, I'll turn it back to you. Thank you for the thoughtful comments, all three of you. I'd like to floor two questions and observations. David? Have a microphone coming, sorry. Thank you. It's David Brunström from Reuters. I was wondering if I could ask both Scott and Chris on the arms embargo issue. For Scott, what specific progress may be necessary on the human rights issue to allow a decision to be made on that from the administration's point of view? And as far as the Hill is concerned, what sort of process, this is for Chris, are you talking about when you say there needs to be sort of more political activity on that? I mean, how does it actually, I mean, what actually practically needs to be done to clear the way? Thanks, I'll start on the first question. What we've said consistently to the Vietnamese for some time is that the overall, that progress on human rights is important to our ability to continue to strengthen the overall relationship, including on security relationship. We've tended not to do the sort of, if you release three dissidents, we'll do X for a whole host of reasons, because what we want to see is broad progress rather than, and we certainly don't want to get into, you know, if a couple of people are released, we'll do X, YZ, we don't think that's a healthy thing. So we're looking at basically is the overall trend on human rights, and as is usually the case, there's some positives, there's some negatives, I mean, and different people would debate. My own view is that there are, there is a lot more space in Vietnam than there was five, 10, 20 years ago for people to debate and talk and express their views. That said, there's still clear restrictions and people who get detained for advocating multi-party democracy. There's certainly area for improvement on the legal side, criminal justice code, these sorts of things. So we, you know, are hoping to see as we continue to build a relationship, hoping to see continued progress, but it's not a specific explicit quid pro quo link. Yeah, thanks. And on the US side, I mean, it's not, because this embargo is not maintained in law, it's not a matter of congressional action to repeal legislation, to change something in statute. I mean, it's more nebulous than that in the sense that this embargo is maintained under executive action. What the president and the administration, I think, is looking for is some degree of signal from the Congress that they will have the political support to move forward. What moving forward means, I think, is very much, you know, up to the administration and the Vietnamese government to work out what that process looks like. I think what the Congress has said, you know, is generally, you know, the kind of framework by which we're thinking about this is, we recognize that there is a, you know, immediate strategic interest in maritime cooperation. We also recognize that there have been things done by Vietnam that we think warrant easing the embargo for the purpose of maritime security cooperation. But in order to go forward, we are gonna need to see additional steps from the Vietnamese government. That's something that, you know, the Hill is not gonna get into the business of writing into law, you know, the following 15 demands have to be met or else. I think it's more a matter of, you know, congressional leaders, members of the Congress who are visiting Vietnam, many of whom are visiting, you know, quite, you know, with sort of increasing regularity because of events in the region and events in the bilateral relationship. So I think more members of Congress are paying attention and are interested. And I think just the broad point when it comes to human rights, I completely agree with what Scott said. I mean, I don't think we wanna get into a, you know, we'll give you this ship if you give us these people. It just doesn't make sense. I think what we sort of continually try to make clear is what we hope to see are the kinds of changes to law and policy in Vietnam that will eliminate the sort of arbitrary use of power, which is what ends up with the sort of abuses that we've typically seen. So I think it's really a matter of sort of, you know, the institutional change going together with the sort of immediate steps of releases and actions that can be taken like that. But I don't think Congress certainly is not gonna get into the business of saying, you know, what specific thing needs to be done in return for what specific action. And in terms of the pathway forward, again, you know, there's nothing particularly to be done legislatively. I think the resolution that senators introduced recently, you know, be up to the administration to determine. But I think, you know, our view was to send a signal to the administration that there is political support for certain actions, but then also make clear that we also expect to see more done in order to move further with the sort of increasing easing of the embargo. To be determined. Sorry. You're agreeing with that? Yeah, okay. Thank you. Paolo von Schirach, Schirach report, in line with some of the other considerations that you've made about institutional changes, you were referring to the political side of things, on the economic side of things, given the opportunities for bilateral relations. I had the good fortune of being in Hanoi in 1997 to do work for UNDP about public administration reform, which focused primarily on ideas of, you know, the future of state-owned enterprises. And you can imagine what that was at the time, 1997. The entire country was owned by the government in terms of assets. How do you, gentlemen, assess the progress? Of course, it's been 20 years of progress and liberalization, but you mentioned the fact that Vietnam still doesn't have the coveted status of a free economy. What does it take to get there? And specifically, how do you evaluate the process of privatization and what percentage of national assets and critical sectors are still controlled by the state? And is that, do you see that as a significant impediment in the bilateral economic and trade relations going forward, or is this something that we can deal with as things are? Thank you. As you know, in the TPP, there is an effort to have, to level the playing field between private sector economies and state-owned enterprises. So, but the Vietnamese also recognize that the TPP might help to jumpstart. It's really funny, you know, I've been going in and out of Vietnam for a long time, also, and as a journalist there in the mid-90s, I was writing these privatization stories, but I read them today and they sound exactly like what I wrote 20 years ago. And so, that's to tell you that the progress has been very slow, very slow. And they don't even call it, they call it equitization rather than privatization. It is a drag on the economy where it is a drag, particularly is on the credit side. They get the lion's share, the state-owned enterprise get the lion's share, a bank credit, means the private sector has trouble getting credit of significant quantities, and it really is holding them back. And a lot of officials recognize that and they hope the TPP, if it's implemented, will help them to give this whole equitization, privatization thing a jumpstart. Thank you. I'm gaining good voice of Vietnamese Americans. I'm an American, and I thank the State Department, I thank the Secretary. And I also like to thank Senator MacKinn for his leadership and Marie Herbert for all your work. I have three questions for the three of you. First, regarding the human rights, I agree with you of their approach. And, but I feel also that it's universal that Vietnam is a member of the UN and we feel that we need to support Vietnam together with the UN and the EU and many other countries also wanted to support human rights. And it's more importantly for the legitimacy of the current government that they show the 90 million Vietnamese that they honor the human rights declaration by the United Nations that they now remember. That will be tremendous confidence to the people first to uphold the current administration. And so that's the question that I'm asking the State Department in your dialogue with Vietnam, would you show that we have supporting them because they are afraid that we're turning them or whatever, we're supporting them by supporting civil societies. And I'm asking for more support from the State Department for the civil society if that is on the table. For Senator McCain, I thank him for his trips and I support the lift of the lethal weapons for Vietnam. But I want to ask if the senator in the foreign committee affairs of the Senate pay attention to what the foreign minister said that they are in a strategic relationship with China. Would that create a question for us as a United States if we happen to be in conflict, direct conflict with China and Vietnam is in the strategic relationship with China. So our lethal weapon would that in a way affect our national security, the US security. For Marie Herbert, my question is with the TPP, I thank you for all the suggestions you have including the Fulbright University, I think that's tremendous. My question has to do with journalism. So one of the key point for free market is freedom of information. So would you support freedom of internet? Can we have free independent magazines, journals, media in Vietnam, not controlled, not censored by the government? That's the only key to the free market so that we can exchange information. And also we need to have independent labor union, independent labor union, that's the key for the free market. Thank you. Thanks. Scott, you wanna start? Sure, thanks for your question. I would say when we look at Southeast Asia as a whole, not just Vietnam, what's the US interest? We have an interest in peace, stability, increased prosperity and broad-based prosperity and democracy and increased respect for human rights, whether it's Vietnam or any of the other countries. We wanna see a strong Southeast Asia that's doing well and that includes Vietnam. And our argument to get to your question specifically, when we talk to the Vietnamese, when I talk to the Vietnamese government, it's very much in the, we're not in the business of trying to change regimes or we're in the business of trying to create space and opportunities for people economically and politically, and we think it actually will make Vietnam stronger if to the extent to which they're able to allow people to have more opportunities, more space. So very much in that mode, including for civil society because we think it makes the country stronger. So I absolutely agree with you. Chris. Yeah, thank you. You know, just briefly, I think in terms of how we are thinking about this, we're not at all trying to say to Vietnam, you have to pick the United States or you have to pick China, nor are we trying to gang up against China with Vietnam. I mean, that's not what this is about. I think the way we're looking at it is exactly to the point that Scott just made. We want to see a strong ASEAN and we want to see the independence and sovereignty of ASEAN countries protected. We want those countries to have the ability to stand up for their own rights, and I think that's how we're looking at this in terms of the context of the relationship with China. Jeannie on freedom of the press and freedom of the internet, I totally believe in it. I spent a lot of time working in that space and I think it's really very important and it helps countries to have more transparent government and helps economies to work better. So I totally agree. Jeannie, you've got three questions, please. Next question, Andre. Hi, Andre Silverzo and I'm the partner and chief representative for a company in Detroit called the Interstate Traveller Company in Vietnam and some other things that you know about. Anyway, wonderful panel. Thanks for everything so much. I just, you know, maybe people feel it could be the human rights thing to death but I'd like to just ask, I'm asking for some intellectual ammunition because I'm a businessman, I go to Vietnam regularly as you know and this comes up with Vietnamese friends in the government and all. So what is a answer I can give when somebody asks me as they have? Well, the United States can export weapons to Saudi Arabia or countries that just, you know, for atrocities that wouldn't occur in Vietnam are pretty routine and so what do I, you know, what's the difference in, I mean, here we have 25% women in the National Assembly and you know, freedom from religion pretty much and just watch my answer. Nope, sorry, it's not. Andre, hey, are you still staying at the Army Hotel when you go there? I just got to ask you. I'm still staying at the Army Guest House. All right, man, I'm just checking on you. Some things will never change. Some things will never change. All right, it's a good question. I guess the answer would be, you know, every relationship has its own unique history and so on and so, you know, in an ideal world there'd be perfect consistency but the reality is that this relationship has a very unique history as you know, better than almost anyone and, you know, we started doing and having no relationship as you know and have gradually built up so I think it was in 2005 that we lifted the complete ban on any military equipment. So, you know, we're working our way forward to the extent that the relationship allows it but I mean, I think that's the point and I think you can tell your Vietnamese friends. I mean, we've been really good partners and we've delivered what we've said that we were gonna deliver for Vietnam and as they continue to make progress, I think we'll be able to move ahead as well. I'd like to say what everybody think. Nguyen Minh Ngong, Jackson Mason University. I have a question that is totally different. We talk a lot about maritime security. We also briefly mentioned dispute in South China Sea and the Asian country and America wants China to observe international law and you want dispute to be sold by international law and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also promised that if they need it, we can have two. My question for all of you and particularly for Mr. Brose is that what is your reading of the Hill positions on the ratification of the UN clause? When they do anything about it or they would never do anything about it? This is all off the record, right? I, no, of course. You know, we are not in the position of determining the agenda for the Senate. What I can safely say is that the law of the Sea Treaty will not be ratified this year. Next year is anybody's guess. Ask me after November, but no luck. I mean, there was a real push made on this a year ago and came up short, you know, every two years you see what the balance of power looks like and what the leadership of the Senate wants to try to do together with the administration and I could argue it either way, maybe, but also depends on who wins these seats, you know, what Republicans in particular. I would stick with my initial position which I'm not putting a lot of money on this happening in the near future. Okay, I think we'll wrap up there. I would just like to say that the US-Vietnam relationship I think you all could agree over the last 20 years has gone into incredible areas and I think Vietnam is important intrinsically to the United States for the reasons that these gentlemen have discussed and I do think that the view of Vietnam's role in ASEAN has significantly changed here in Washington and for me and myself, I think that they have become a much more strategic thinking or viewed as a much more strategic thinking partner for the United States and that's very important and I think the energy behind the US-Vietnam relationship means to me that these issues that you guys have discussed today, including the mill to mill relationship are truly going somewhere. So stay tuned, folks. I think you're gonna see some interesting developments over the next year and thank you all for coming. I really appreciate your time and energy. Thank you. Thank you.