Senator Urges Vietnam Ties to Curb China

The United States should normalize relations with Vietnam as a means to counter Chinese domination in the region, Sen. John McCain, who spent six years in a Hanoi POW camp, said Sunday.

“We need a strong Vietnam in the region as part of a counterweight to what is a disturbing pattern of behavior on the part of the Chinese,” the Arizona Republican, a leading voice of those supporting relations with Vietnam, told NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.”

President Clinton is expected to announce as early as this week his intention to establish relations with the Hanoi government that defeated the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government in 1975. Last year, Clinton lifted the trade embargo on Vietnam, citing Hanoi’s cooperation in accounting for those still missing in action from the Vietnam War.

Vietnam’s efforts to provide information on about 2,200 MIAs from the war would be the main justification for taking the next step to full relations, but the recent deterioration of U.S.-China relations has added a new factor to the equation.

China and Vietnam, while both Communist states, are rivals for power in Southeast Asia. Vietnam defeated China in a border war in 1979, and the nations are currently at odds over possession of a group of islands in the South China Sea.

U.S. relations with China have been soured recently by trade disputes, a visit to the United States by the president of Taiwan, alleged Chinese missile sales to Pakistan and China’s arrest of a Chinese-American human rights activist on espionage charges.

Others appearing on NBC were divided on how normalization of relations could affect the political future of Clinton, who avoided military service during the Vietnam War.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), an outspoken critic of relations with Hanoi, said the diplomatic move is “going to deny [Clinton] a second term for sure.”

But Sen. John Kerry, (D-Mass.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said most Americans would support Clinton. “I think the President will be applauded for taking that courageous action,” he said.