The Rising East: Peace Erupts on APEC Sidelines
Peace broke out yesterday along the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference here.
President Truong Tan Sang of Vietnam, with which the United States fought a long and bitter war that ended in 1973, said his nation was ready to take an already robust reconciliation with America to the next level and to forge a strategic partnership between Washington and Hanoi.
And the leader of Taiwan’s delegation to the APEC gathering, Dr. Lien Chan, held a cordial meeting with President Hu Jintao of China and told the press later he had urged the Chinese leader to agree to negotiate a peace treaty that would end 90 years of rivalry between the Nationalists and the Communists.
In the nearly 20 years of hostilities between the U.S. and Vietnam, 58,000 American soldiers, sailors, marines and aviators were killed. An estimated 266,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 1.1 million Viet Cong and North Vietnamese fighters lost their lives. Several million Vietnamese civilians died.
President Sang, who grew up in the Mekong Delta of what was then South Vietnam, served with the Viet Cong communist guerrillas and was once a prisoner of the South Vietnamese army, allies of the U.S. He was later the top political official in what was Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, now Ho Chi Minh City.
Yesterday, the Vietnamese president asserted that good relations with the U.S. were important for Vietnam. Speaking through an interpreter at the East-West Center, he said: 鈥淭he potential for cooperation is enormous.鈥 He said that 60,000 Vietnamese are studying in the U.S. today, some at the East-West Center and the University of Hawaii.
President Sang was emphatic in defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which he said was called the East Sea in Vietnam. His position on that issue was close to that of the U.S., which was reiterated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier this week, also at the East-West Center.
In contrast, China claims that much of those waters, through which pass more shipping than through the Suez and Panama Canals combined, is within Chinese territory. This conflict is among the most serious in Southeast Asia and has the potential for open hostilities if a settlement is not negotiated.
An unusual aspect of President Sang鈥檚 remarks was his insistence that his audience ask questions. In most cases, politicians shy away from answering questions in public, no matter the nationality or political system. In response to one query, he said inflation in Vietnam was running at 18 percent but would be down to 10 percent next year.
In the meeting between delegates from Taiwan and China, Lien Chan, who is a former vice president but now a private citizen, said he brought greetings from President Ma Ying-jeou to President Hu. He added that President Hu returned the gesture.
Lien said he noted that the financial crisis was disrupting world鈥檚 advanced economies and suggested that Taiwan and China should cooperate to help resolve the crisis. He said President Hu agreed, but apparently did not offer specifics.
When Lien, who spoke in Chinese but was translated into English, was asked a question that concerned the status of cross-strait relations, an aide brought him a copy of a prepared statement that he read in careful Chinese. It was a repeat of known positions and broke no new ground.
Similarly, when reporters from Taiwan sought to draw Lien into speculation about Taiwan’s current presidential and legislative political campaign leading to an election in January, he demurred. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to talk about that,鈥 he said, with a tone of finality.
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