 Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I'm Ernie Bauer, the Chair, the Smeetro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies here, and welcome to the Banyan Tree Leadership Forum. We have a very special guest as our speaker today, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Vietnam, Pham Minh Minh, is going to address us today. And we're very lucky to have Scott Marcel to introduce him. Before we start, let me do some administrative guidance. We invite everyone to tweet using the hashtag, hashtag CSIS Live, and this event will be live tweeted by CSIS staff. We're happy to announce the launch of our recent report, A New Era in US-Vietnam Relations, authored by Murray Hebert, Phong Nguyen, and Greg Polling. And after the Minister speaks and takes some questions, we will have a panel that will talk about the findings of that report and give you some insights into the political, economic, and security situation between our two countries. So please stay seated after the Minister speaks. I will walk him out and then we'll reconvene the panel after his remarks. Let me now introduce Scott Marcel. He is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Southeast Asia. Scott's got a great Vietnam story. For those of you who've known him as long as I have, he actually was one of the first Americans, official Americans, to be stationed in Hanoi. And as we come up to 20 years of the relationship to celebrate 20 years of our normalization, I think we can really look to Scott because he was stationed, I think, in the Missing in Action POW office in Hanoi. He laid the groundwork for the early US representation. And then, of course, he went on to a great career in the State Department that he's in the middle of. He was ambassador, our first US ambassador to ASEAN, and he was also most recently, before he came back to Washington for his current position, he was the US ambassador to Indonesia. So please join me in welcoming Scott Marcel. Scott. Thanks very much, Ernie, very kind of you, although it does make me feel a little bit old to think back those just over 20 years ago that I got to Hanoi. And it's really an honor for me to be here, particularly to introduce the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. It's remarkable looking back over the last 20 years how much we all together have accomplished in building a relationship, particularly after the unique and not always wonderful history between our two countries that we've made a lot of progress and it's because of the work of a lot of people who've been really dedicated and focused on what's going to benefit the people of the United States and what's going to benefit the people of Vietnam. And I think that's been the hallmark of the building of this relationship. And Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tham Minh Minh has certainly been one of the key players in this as well as in Vietnam's broader diplomatic efforts. And if you look at Vietnam now, how active it is in the region, on the world stage, it's really a great story. And I think we look at Vietnam as a very constructive player in the region, a good partner in many areas and a growing player certainly in ASEAN and the East Asia Summit and increasingly globally. So just a few words about the Deputy Prime Minister. He is a career diplomat who became Deputy Prime Minister in November 2013 after becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs in August 2011, a long series of very important jobs in the foreign ministry and broad. He was a couple of assignments in the United States once as the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York and once as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington at the Vietnamese Embassy. He was one of the first Fulbright scholars from Vietnam to come to the United States and he went to I have to say the premier school, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and graduated from there with a master's degree in 1994. He graduated from that school 11 years after me but moved rapidly past me in the career progression which just gives you a sense of how smart capable he is. And the last thing I would say is a lot of our secretaries of state and other leaders have had the privilege of working with the Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister in recent years and have always found him to be extremely thoughtful and always very focused on how we can build closer relationship and closer cooperation. So it's really a great honor for me to introduce Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Bingming. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for the kind introduction. I think that it will shoot me to the sky, to the moon now. I'm so glad to be back to the CSIS. I came here also last year with the President of Vietnam to give a speech at this CSIS. And also, I believe that this institution is a world-class think tank, renoted not only in the United States but all over the world. Many ideas from CSIS, reports and roundtable discussions, inputs for policy makers, it's also a nice surprise to know that some Vietnamese scholars are working among you here. And this testifies to the vibrant growth of the all-round relations between Vietnam and the United States which have expanded to all fields, including the research on social sciences. There is now a lot of potentials for the two countries to work together for the benefits of the peoples of the two countries and for peace, prosperity and development in Asia and the Pacific. That is why more than one year ago, President Chung Tung Sang and President Obama announced the establishment of our comprehensive partnership to provide an overarching framework for bilateral cooperation in all areas to capture those potentials. We are, however, even eager to learn more ideas about how to promote even further the U.S.-Vietnam relations. In that spirit, I welcome the launch of the report titled The New Era in Vietnam, U.S. Relations, Deepening Ties After Two Decades of Normalizations, by Mure Hynh-Boeh, Gregory Bolling and Phuong Nguyen. Thanks, Mure, for your efforts and leadership in this project and also the recommendations in the report. I highly value the quality of the report, as well as some constructive policy recommendation written in the report. And the report quoted Secretary of State John Kerry as saying that no two countries have worked harder, done more and done better to try to bring themselves together and change history and change the future than Vietnam and the United States relation. I can agree more. The dramatic progress of the Vietnam-U.S. relations in the past 19 years is simply unimaginable even for the strongest supporters of the normalizations of relations such as then-Senator John Kerry. As we look forward to the 20th anniversary of the normalizations of relations between Vietnam and the United States, both countries can take pride of ourselves on the journey we have made as well as we changed, we surpassed. We as well as challenges we surpassed. Within just 20 years, our bilateral trade volume has increased 130 times, reaching $30 billion in 2013. We are negotiating the ambitious 21st century trans-Pacific partnership. People-to-people contacts between the two countries have exploded. Each changes of visits are enhanced. Vietnam now ranks first among Asian countries in terms of the number of students studying in the United States, totally over 16,000 Vietnamese students. We are having dialogues in various areas such as political security defense, labor, and even human rights. Through these dialogues, we exchange all the issues including the differences in direct, frank, and constructive manner. Relations in other areas have also been promoted to a higher level. Civil and nuclear cooperation is one of the examples. We are happy to see the one, two, three agreement between Vietnam and the United States was approved by the U.S. Congress and taken to effect last month. This will open great opportunities for both countries to work together in this important area. Our relations have been expanded beyond our bilateral framework to many multilateral issues such as sustainable development under the Lo Mekong Initiative framework, climate change, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, and even U.N. peacekeeping operations. While moving forward, we are still working hard to, we are working hard on the war legacy issues such as Agent Orange, unexploded ordinance, MIA, et cetera. Ladies and gentlemen, to further deepen the comprehensive partnership, I particularly pay attention to the recommendations of the report. Many of the recommendations are quite constructive. And I believe that's sometime over long overdue. Looking towards the 20th anniversary of our diplomatic relations, both countries should redouble our efforts but also to work to deepen our bilateral relations and work within the ASEAN framework and with other partners to maintain peace, stability, and prosperity in our region and beyond. Our two countries should also work harder together and with other members countries to conclude the TPP. As ASEAN builds the community by 2015, Vietnam will spend no efforts to deepen partnership between ASEAN and the United States. Peace, prosperity, and security in the Asia Pacific requires a strong Vietnam, a United ASEAN, and vibrant engagement of all major stakeholders in the world, especially the United States. We cannot change history, but we can change the future by working together with your strategic vision and the special importance you attach to Vietnam-US relations. All of you here at the CSIS can help shape the future of our comprehensive partnership between our two countries. And with that, you will help shape the future of the Asia and Pacific. It's my wish that the CSIS will do more, work harder with Vietnamese counterparts to make even greater contributions to deepening the ties between Vietnam and the United States for the sake of the mutual interest of both peoples as well as that of peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia and Pacific. I thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Minister. The minister has agreed to take a couple of questions, and so we would like to open the audience for that opportunity. The gentleman back here. Xiaoyang Xia from Wenhui Relation High China. Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, you mentioned that Vietnam is to double your effort to strengthen the Vietnam-US relation. The question is, how would Vietnam handle its relation with China in the future in view of their bilateral dispute over maritime issues? Thank you. Thank you very much for the questions. Now that we had the foreign policies of diversifications, multilateralizations, meaning that we develop relations with all countries. We have set up, we have established the relations with all major countries. With China, we have the strategic partnership. With the United States, we have the comprehensive partnership. We develop relations with one country. It does not hamper any relations with our countries, with other countries. So it is our policy. It does not depend on one country when we develop relations with other countries. Gentleman here in the front. Could you wait for the microphone? Thank you. The question about relations with other countries tells New Agency Russia. Sir, can you tell me, can you tell some updates about the situation with Kamran, Navy Base, Kamran? Don't you know about Russian efforts to go back there? And don't you know if some other countries express their interest about this base? Thank you. No Kamran Bay, and we develop Kamran Bay as a port, a civilian port. And we welcome all the support and assistance for the development of that Kamran port. And that is not a military port. And we do not, you know, keep that Kamran port to any countries. That is our policy. Mr. Minister, I'd like to ask a question using the prerogative of the moderator. And in this town, there's been a lot of discussion recently about lifting the embargo on military sales to Vietnam and moving the mil-to-mil relationship forward as part of normalization, full normalization during our 20th anniversary year. How would Vietnam look at these issues? And are you planning on having discussions about this with your counterparts here in the United States? Yes, I have one occasion to talk about these issues when I was in New York to, in the forum of Asia Society. I also have that question. I can say that we welcome all the decisions to make our relations more normal because we believe that we have normalized the relations already. We had the normalizations of the two countries since 1995. And believe me, at that time, people could not imagine how fast our relations developed. Over the next 20 years, we have established the comprehensive partnership. I like the world of Einstein, I quote, imagination is much more important than knowledge. So I believe that we can have more imaginations in the future. Maybe in the back here, James. Thank you, Annie. Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister. Recently there have been calls for China to declare an EEZ of 200 nautical miles over the largest land features in the South China Sea and the Spratly Islands. This would help with identifying the undisputed areas which the Southeast Asian claimants can proceed to develop and identify the disputed areas which China, together with the Southeast Asian claimants, can jointly develop. Would Vietnam, on its part, be amenable to such a move? Sure. Recently there have been calls for China to declare a 200 nautical mile EEZ over the largest land features in the South China Sea. This would allow the Southeast Asian claimants to proceed with development of the undisputed areas so Vietnam can go ahead and develop its areas clearly marked out as its own EEZ and then get China and the rest of the Southeast Asian claimants to jointly develop the disputed areas which have been identified as a result of China declaring a clear EEZ rather than a nine dashed line over almost the whole South China Sea. Would Vietnam be amenable to such a suggestion? First of all I can say that the nine dotted line is groundless and any country which has a sea under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is entitled 200 nautical miles as exclusive economic zone. You know that under the international law, exclusive economic zone is not disputed area so any operations without the consent of the country which that exclusive economic zone belongs to is the violations of the international law. The same thing happened with the auric China Park in the exclusive economic zone of Vietnam. There is if a real disputed area should be a cooperation among the countries but within the undisputed area I mean the exclusive economic zone. So that is not a disputed area. Thank you. Lisa Schroeder with the Dow Chemical Company and Mr. Minister thank you for your time today and thank you for your government's efforts to streamline and strengthen the business climate in Vietnam. One particular area has been regulatory reform. The Vietnamese government has really been a leader in streamlining the bureaucracy, removing outdated regulations and making the regulatory process much more efficient. Do you see opportunities where Vietnam could help lead efforts in ASEAN especially as we move to AEC 2015 to promote that same type of more efficient streamlined regulatory harmonization? Thank you. In ASEAN we have to build three pillars. In ASEAN the political security pillar, the economic pillar and social and cultural pillars and of course in the economic to build the economic pillar of ASEAN we have a kind of some measures which we have the same regulations in order to facilitate business community to do business in the favorable conditions in one country in ASEAN and at the same time in other countries like in Vietnam. To do that Vietnam also we have to have some reform in the institutions in order to facilitate the business community. One final question the gentleman here. Michael Yehuda from George Washington University. As perhaps you can correct me but my understanding is that Vietnam disputes with China the whole of the Spratlys Islands. What is the basis on which Vietnam claims that? Let me rephrase that one. We have the sovereignty over Paracel Islands and Spratlys Islands and Paracel Islands were taken away from us by China in 1956 and 1974. We continue to claim the sovereignty over that Paracel Islands. For Spratlys Islands there are five claimant states over the sovereignty of Spratlys Islands. Seven, five states and one territory. They are Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei and one territory is Taiwan, China and with the Spratlys Islands we believe that we have to solve the dispute through peaceful means, multilaterally meaning because we have not only between Vietnam, China, between Vietnam and the Philippines but among the claimant states over Spratlys Islands. Ladies and gentlemen please join me in thanking the Prime Minister. Deputy Prime Minister. Sorry.