Vietnam's 2010 ASEAN Chairmanship

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 000925 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/12/11 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM ECIN ASEAN SENV KFLU BM KN VM SUBJECT: Vietnam's 2010 ASEAN Chairmanship REF: A) HANOI 101; B) HANOI 848; C) HANOI 803; D) STATE 103203 E) HANOI 895; F) HANOI 859; G) HANOI 861; H) HANOI 917 CLASSIFIED BY: Virginia Palmer, Deputy Chief of Mission; REASON: 1.4(B),(D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Vietnam considers its turn as ASEAN chair to be the leading foreign policy priority for 2010. Substantively, Vietnam's leadership wants to be seen as a responsible member of the international community -- professional and well-briefed, acting as an "honest broker" when possible -- but has no discernable policy agenda of its own. MFA officials bluntly tell us that Vietnam will focus on implementing ASEAN's new charter. Even with limited ambitions, however, Vietnam realizes that Hanoi cannot afford to be entirely passive. Bracketed by Thailand's "lost year" and what are anticipated to be weak chairmanships by Brunei and Cambodia, Vietnam is feeling the pressure of "high expectations" to deliver on Burma, regional security, and economic integration. Vietnam's ASEAN year offers an opportunity for the United States to promote its interests at a time when ASEAN's own institutions are reforming. Senior officials and influential track II academics have offered to work with us on issues ranging from climate change in the Lower Mekong to economic integration to Burma and North Korea. ASEAN as an institution is not at all nimble and neither is Vietnam's decision-making; we will miss these opportunities if our objectives are not articulated early and often. The GVN continues to press hard to host the U.S.-ASEAN summit in Hanoi next year, and would consider a POTUS visit the highlight of its chairmanship. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Vietnam is approaching its 2010 Chairmanship with a fair amount of confidence, according to contacts in the MFA and think tank community. Most Vietnamese observers express satisfaction with Vietnam's 2008-2009 tenure as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, noting that Vietnam's representatives acquitted themselves professionally and weathered difficult votes on Iran, North Korea, Kosovo, Georgia, and Somalia without alienating any of Hanoi's major international partners (ref A). Vietnam confronts its ASEAN chairmanship without the sort of anxiety that preceded Vietnam's joining the Security Council or its hosting of APEC in 2006, according to the MFA's Deputy DG for ASEAN Affairs, Vu Ho. �00A; ¶3. (C) At the same time, with increased confidence comes heightened expectations, and Vietnam feels considerable pressure within ASEAN to demonstrate that it can succeed. Ho characterized Thailand's term as ASEAN chair as a "disaster." Others view Thailand's tenure as ASEAN chair as a "lost year" (actually a year and a half),as the Philippines Embassy's Political Chief Maria Arugay put it bluntly, adding that Brunei and Cambodia, which will succeed Vietnam as ASEAN chairs in 2011 and 2012, were not expected to exercise strong leadership. Arugay's counterpart from the Singapore Embassy, First Secretary Lee Boon Beng, concurred, emphasizing that Vietnam would likely be consumed with logistical arrangements for two ASEAN leaders' summits; foreign and defense ministerials; ARF, "+3," and "+1" meetings and related bilateral events; and dozens of other senior official and working-level meetings throughout the year. ¶4. (C) While confident, Vietnam is not approaching its ASEAN chairmanship with specific policy goals in mind. At this stage, Vietnam appears content to be seen as a responsible steward -- and an honest broker, when appropriate -- with an emphasis on process rather than substance. Lee and Arugay both told us that there was little expectation within ASEAN that Vietnam would push its own agenda. DG Ho told us openly that Vietnam would focus on implementing ASEAN's new charter. "Vietnam is not the type of country that proposes initiatives," the Deputy Director General of the Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies at the MFA-affiliated Diplomatic Academy, Nguyen Vu Tung, conceded. Rather, Vietnam will seek to provide a "safe place" for other HANOI 00000925 002 OF 003 countries (Tung mentioned Indonesia specifically) to put forward ideas. ¶5. (C) Vietnam's stated intention to facilitate discussion without pushing its own policy agenda extends to ASEAN's "+1" dialogue partners, the United States in particular. Over the past three months, senior leaders from President Nguyen Minh Triet (refs B,C) to the Foreign and Defense Ministers (refs D,E) have repeatedly urged the United States to help make Vietnam's ASEAN chairmanship "a success" and have offered to work with us to promote U.S. interests within ASEAN and regionally. We have pushed for specifics, but our Vietnamese counterparts appear focused mainly on securing visits from Secretaries Clinton and Gates and, they hope, the President. A Presidential-level U.S.-ASEAN summit -- hosted by Hanoi in conjunction with the city's 1,000-year celebrations and the 15th anniversary of U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic relations -- would be, as the MFA's DG for Policy Planning Pham Huu Chi put it, the "single greatest success" of 2010. More darkly, the Vice President of the Diplomatic Academy, Dang Dinh Quy, noted that the absence of high-level U.S. engagement would leave the field open to the Chinese: "a disaster" in Quy's estimation. ¶6. (C) MFA officials and foreign policy academics welcomed the U.S. policy review on Burma (ref F). Recognizing the drag that Burma has had on ASEAN, they have offered to facilitate discussion with the Burmese regime. Of particular interest is the Diplomatic Academy's proposal for a track II discussion on how Vietnam's experience might be applicable to Burma, which we have been invited to attend (ref G). The MFA also claims to have ramped up its efforts to pressure the Burmese regime to be more conciliatory to Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD -- not out of any great love for Burmese democracy but with a cold recognition that Rangoon is considered the scofflaw of ASEAN, and a bad Burmese election could jeopardize what Hanoi dearly hopes will be a successful run as ASEAN chair (ref H). (Comment: This recognition of the importance of Burma's election to the success -- or just non-disaster -- of Vietnam's ASEAN chairmanship seems primarily to be an MFA perspective, not shared by the CPV. During consultations in Hanoi last week, the UK Ambassador to Burma Andrew Heyn had good meetings with the MFA but was read the riot act by the CPV External Relations Commission, according UK Political/Economic Counselor David Edmondson. End comment.) Eager to appear helpful, DAV scholars have repeated suggestions made in February that the ASEAN Regional Forum could serve as a spur to dialogue with North Korea (ref I). Vietnam has responded positively to our suggestions that ARF's defense-related meetings be more substantive and has argued strongly that the ADMM needs a robust partnership with the United States. ¶7. (C) Within ASEAN, Vietnam's attention will be primarily be on institution building. The MFA's Deputy DG for Southeast Asia, Ta Duy Chinh, offered that Vietnam would be happy to lend its good offices, for example, to Thailand and Cambodia if they wished to discuss the Preah Vihear dispute, noting that DPM/FM Pham Gia Khiem had sent a letter late last to his Thai and Cambodian colleagues urging restraint in the spirit of ASEAN friendship and solidarity. Mostly, though, Vietnam will be focused on making the new ASEAN charter effective and in ensuring that the new institutions associated with ASEAN's three "pillars" (political/security, economic, and social/cultural) function as efficiently as possible. To that end, DDG Ho told us, Vietnam is assigning primary interagency coordinating responsibility to DPM/FM Khiem, with the MFA taking the lead on political/security matters, the Ministry of Industry and Trade responsible for economics, and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs handling social and cultural issues. Comment: Why We Need to Act Now -------------- HANOI 00000925 003 OF 003 ¶8. (C) ASEAN is not a nimble organization, and its consensus-driven decision-making favors the lowest common denominator. Vietnam's own political calendar will only exacerbate this, as the Party/state apparatus increasingly focuses inward in anticipation of the January 2011 Party Congress. Essentially, there are two vectors in play, operating in opposite directions: On one hand Vietnam wants to give life to ASEAN's new institutions and is eager to seize 2010 as a chance to be seen as a regional leader. On the other hand, Vietnam's capacity to absorb new initiatives, limited in the best of circumstances, will degrade steadily through 2010 as pre-Congress sclerosis sets in. The departing head of the HCMC External Relations Office, Nguyen Vu Tu, recently told the CG that the United States has until Tet (October 2010) to accomplish what it wants in Vietnam. Tu may be overstating things, but not by much. We have done an excellent job demonstrating our commitment to the region, a point Vietnam's leadership appreciates. To give substance to this commitment, to push U.S. objectives on economic integration, public health, climate change, nonproliferation, and human rights and democratic governance, we need to articulate our goals clearly, early on, and forcefully -- and senior visitors will be key to keep the momentum and the pressure on. Michalak