Vietnam

The United States attends National Dialogues, often referred to as just simply dialogues, with foreign nations to discuss the terms of foreign relations between the two countries. Normally, these dialogues happen annually as a one-on-one between the United States and the other country, however, the most recent dialogues have been postponed one year due to COVID-19. The overarching purpose of these dialogues are to assess the past of the countries’ relationship, and evaluate and organize the future of the relationship and how they can improve moving forward. On September 12th, 2022, the Vietnam-United States Defense Policy Dialogue was held in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Tensions in the South China Sea have escalated between certain countries and have also de-escalated with others. Vietnam—who shares a border with China—is particularly concerned about China’s aggressiveness in the region. Beijing has recently engaged in oil drilling in the Sea near Vietnam’s territorial waters. China placed a deep-water oil rig in the Sea close to the Paracel Islands but later removed it when Vietnam said that the rig was violating its territorial rights (Zhou, Laura. 2019). In further confrontations with Vietnam, Chinese coast guard ships have repeatedly entered Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone. A Chinese survey ship came within 56 nautical miles of Vietnam prompting Hanoi to dispatch naval vessels to counter the aggression. These events show that Vietnam is still highly engaged in defending its own territorial sovereignty in the Sea.