John Kerry is to bring down the curtain on the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia with a trip to Vietnam, a country at the heart of the international security struggle over the region’s seas, The Financial Times reports.
The trip is intended to consolidate the US pivot to Asia, but human rights activists are likely to use the trip to draw attention to the Communist authorities’ latest crackdown on civil society.
Le Hong Hiep, a research fellow at Singapore’s Iseas Yusof Ishak Institute think-tank, said: “The US is likely to maintain its rebalancing to Asia, and Vietnam will remain one of its key security partners in the region. However, Vietnam is somewhat uncertain about this prospect, and wants to hedge its bets by continuing to expand ties with other major powers and stabilising its relations with China.”
