THE WORLD : VIETNAM : It’s Time To Stop Fighting the Last War

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an acerbic Administration critic and former POW, rarely agree on foreign policy. So when they do, especially on a deeply divisive issue, it’s probably wise to heed their advice. Both are urging President Bill Clinton to put America’s collective (and his personal) past behind and forge a new ties with Vietnam.

Why now, 20 years after the last U.S. helicopters lifted off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon? For starters, principle and credibility: We set the terms, the Vietnamese are meeting them. That alone should be enough, were it not Vietnam. Even so, a combination of progress on the American MIA issue and new geopolitical, diplomatic and economic realities have reached critical mass. Not least is a growing concern about China’s role in Southeast Asia--ironically, the very issue that led to U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Yet, these considerations have barely registered in a debate fixated on the fate of American MIAs. To balance the U.S. goal of resolving the MIA issue with Hanoi’s desire for relations with Washington, the Bush Administration, in 1990, devised a “road map” for normalizing ties. Hanoi would cooperate in resolving the Cambodia conflict; obtain the fullest possible accounting of MIAs, and release officials of the former South Vietnam regime held in “re-education” camps.

Hanoi has essentially met all these conditions--even while cynically manipulating the MIA issue. However grudgingly, its officials steadily revealed information they previously claimed not to know or to possess. The United States responded by gradually relaxing its trade embargo, lifted last year by Clinton, and opening a liaison office in Hanoi.

Normalizing relations will not end MIA searches. Hanoi’s cooperation did not falter after Clinton lifted the embargo--it increased. The process is now well-institutionalized in both governments and will continue apace. Such logic persuaded the conservative Veterans of Foreign Wars to endorse normalization.

Renewing diplomatic ties with Vietnam will also put U.S. policy back in step with trends in the region. While the United States has obsessively pursued closure of the war experience, Asia and Vietnam have entered a new era. Symbolic of its integration into the region, Vietnam will officially join the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this month. The six-nation group has become America’s fifth-largest trading partner.

One reason ASEAN is welcoming former adversary Vietnam with open arms is the China factor. China’s emergence as a major economic and military power has been underscored by its aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, where Bijing has made bold nationalist claims. Specifically, it has occupied territories in the Spratly islands that are claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei, while refusing offers to negotiate a solution. There have been occasional military clashes with Hanoi over the Spratlys; earlier this year, Beijing occupied a reef that is well within the Philippines 200-mile economic zone, triggering a war of nerves with Manila.

The Beijing-Manila dust-up led the Clinton Administration to issue an unusually strong statement condemning the use of force, defending freedom of the seas and urging a negotiated solution. Normalizing relations with Vietnam, complete with military-to-military ties and a port-access arrangement, as the United States has with other ASEAN states, would signal to Beijing that Washington’s desire for a peaceful solution to the islands dispute is more than rhetoric.

There is also a strong economic case to be made for relations with Vietnam. Since 1987, Vietnam has pursued market-oriented reforms in some areas, bolder than those in China. The results are impressive: Vietnam has become the world’s second-largest rice exporter, enjoyed an annual growth rate of 8% since 1991 and has attracted some $10 billion in foreign investment. Prosperity and privatization are likely to nurture respect for human rights, and as a middle class takes shape, moves toward political pluralism.

U.S. firms, highly competitive, especially in telecommunications, infrastructure and oil, are eager to get into Vietnam’s booming market of 71 million. Currently, U.S. exports and investment are dwarfed by those of Asians and Europeans, in no small measure because U.S. companies are playing with one hand tied behind their backs. Without tax and trade treaties, insurance and finance programs that must await full diplomatic relations, U.S. firms operate at a disadvantage.

If Clinton procrastinates on normalization, the issue will almost certainly get caught up in the silly season of presidential politics, thus postponing new ties until 1997. Already, renewing relations with Vietnam has divided Republicans, some of whom seek to block the use of any funds to open an embassy in Hanoi.

But Clinton has little to lose by doing the right thing. MIA activists and opponents of normalization are unlikely to vote for him whatever he does. Despite dire warnings, there was little outcry when he lifted the trade embargo, in part because the Senate passed a resolution calling for an end to embargo, which provided Clinton with political cover. The Senate will try to give Clinton a similar mandate on normalization in mid-July.

Regardless, beginning a new chapter in U.S. relations with Vietnam would be an act of leadership that only a President can provide. Failure to act would have some geopolitical and economic cost. But most of all, the lingering specter of a great power haunted by its past would bode ill for America in the Pacific and beyond.