Marc Knapper, US Ambassador to Việt Nam. VNA/VNS Photo

The year 2023 marks a remarkable improvement in US-Việt Nam relations as the two countries officially upgraded their bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership for peace, cooperation and sustainable development on September 10.

As the lunar year draws to an end, Vietnam News Agency reporter Hồng Nhung speaks to Marc Knapper, US Ambassador to Việt Nam for his insights on how this diplomatic elevation will open up opportunities for both countries in the years to come.

How do you evaluate the Việt Nam-US relations and cooperation prospects, especially after they elevate the ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership?

It has been a spectacular year for the US–Việt Nam relationship. Starting off in the beginning of the year, we were very much looking forward to celebrating the 10-year anniversary of our comprehensive partnership, of course with the hope that we would be able to upgrade our relationship to the next level over the course of the year. We had so many visitors from Washington, with a quarter of the US cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and USAID Administrator Samatha Power. Besides, we welcomed several high-level congressional delegations, and aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan over the summer. I think all of these visits are significant, which really did reflect the importance with which Washington looks at Việt Nam, and the importance with which Washington evaluates the US-Việt Nam relationship.

But of course, the big news of the year was President Joe Biden's visit and then the double upgrade from Comprehensive Partnership to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. And this was really significant, I think for two reasons. One, it was a reflection of where the US and Việt Nam, frankly, already were. Our partnership was already comprehensive already strategic. When you look at the activities and the efforts the US and Việt Nam make together in so many different areas, whether it's health cooperation, energy cooperation, or security cooperation, you’ve already known these are fundamental sort of strategic issues in which Việt Nam and the US plan together and work together and cooperate together. So really, the upgrade, I think, was significant in that it was a very public acknowledgement of how far our relationship had come in the 28 years of normalisation but it is also significant in what it said about our hopes for the future.

The visit by the president was a public and resounding statement of hope by the US and by Việt Nam, about where we want this relationship to go. It was a very public statement that our two countries’ futures are now inextricably linked to the fact that the success of the US is Vietnam’s success, and Việt Nam’s success will be the US’ success, whether it's in terms of promoting prosperity, promoting security, promoting the health of our peoples. Right now, the US and Việt Nam are partners whose paths are aligned and whose paths going forward are shared between our two peoples or two countries. I think we saw for example, the pledges the US made to work with Việt Nam on semiconductors, and help create a high-tech, innovation-led economy were extremely significant because it's all about promoting US high-tech investment. It is also about workforce development and training and education so that Việt Nam can have the engineers and computer scientists and IT workers. The country needs up to 80,000 over the next several years, and the US is a part of this story. We want to be part of this shared effort with Việt Nam.

So I think what we're seeing now in terms of semiconductors is just the beginning. I think we are going to see a lot more in terms of the Việt Nam-US cooperation in high-tech industries going forward. Looking at just how much and how far we've come in just four months, we’ve done to get to where we are now, it didn't happen overnight. It took years of hard work, and dedication and commitment to this relationship by friends in both Việt Nam and the US. I'm very excited about what we look forward to next year.

Trade, economy and education are among key players in the bilateral ties. However, cultural exchange and tourism have not been tapped to the fullest level. So what are your recommendations for the two countries to enhance cooperation in these areas? And please share your plans to promote cooperation in 2024?

Education is a great example already. Our education ties are very strong. We have 30,000 Vietnamese students in the US, which makes Việt Nam the No.5 source country of foreign students in the US. That's something we're very proud of. And we hope we can raise that to No.4. But it's really significant if you look at who are No.1,2,3 and 4. It's India, China, the Republic of Korea, Canada and then Việt Nam. And I think it reflects greatly the confidence that Vietnamese students and Vietnamese families have in American education. But even though we have 30,000 Vietnamese students, physically present in the US, if you count online courses, summer camps or short-term exchange programmes , homestays, the number actually jumps to 300,000 Vietnamese every year. 300,000 Vietnamese every year have some kind of interaction with American education programmes. That’s just an amazing testament, as I said, not just to the strength of our two countries’ ties but also it pretends great things for the future.

The one thing I would like to see is more American young people coming this way to study and to teach English. I think if we can get more Americans here, we can continue even more strongly the process of building bridges to promote understanding between our two countries. We already have a Peace Corps programme here which Americans come to teach English in the past year in Hà Nội, we will have another group of Americans starting very soon in HCM City as well. We've got the Fulbright University of Việt Nam in Hồ Chí Minh City, which has become a real hub of learning with the American style education, and we hope that that will continue to grow thanks to the support of the Vietnamese government but also the Ho Chi Minh City authorities. We look forward to other American institutions partnering with counterparts here in Việt Nam, whether it's with other partners or with VinUni, which has been very active particularly in high tech areas. And so I fully expect that as we continue to deepen and accelerate our efforts to work with Việt Nam on building a high-tech, innovation economy, we're going to see many more American universities, American research institutions coming here to Việt Nam, either establishing their own sort of independent facility or partnering with an existing one here. So that's going to be a very exciting story next year and in the years to come. VNS