Vietnam Warns It Won’t Bend on Rights Issues : Asia: Hanoi thanks Clinton for recognition but won’t overhaul system to suit U.S. demands.

Vietnam served notice Wednesday that, despite the U.S. decision to normalize diplomatic relations, it will make no concessions on demands for more democracy or the question of political prisoners.

Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet went on national television early Wednesday to express his gratitude for President Clinton’s announcement that Washington would establish full relations with Hanoi after 41 years.

Kiet said the decision contributes to the peace and stability of Southeast Asia. He pledged that the Vietnamese government would “do its utmost” to help resolve questions about the fate of more than 2,200 U.S. servicemen still officially listed as missing in the Vietnam War.

In a message directed at overseas Vietnamese living in areas such as Orange County, Kiet said he believes that normalization of relations will allow those expatriates to get closer to their homeland.

He encouraged Vietnamese communities in the United States to “join in the shared endeavors with fellow Vietnamese inside the country to build a strong Vietnam with a prosperous people and a just and civilized society.”

Diplomats said the appeal seemed aimed at getting the overseas Vietnamese community to mute its strident criticism of the Communist Party’s continuing monopoly on political power and harsh treatment of dissidents.

Overseas Vietnamese were among the most vocal critics of Clinton’s decision.

Despite the conciliatory nature of Kiet’s speech, Deputy Foreign Minister Le Mai, a senior Vietnamese diplomat who has spent most of his career negotiating an end to Vietnam’s long isolation, indicated that his country has no plans to overhaul its political system in response to Clinton’s gesture.

“I do believe the choosing of any political system is the right of every nation,” Mai told the news conference. He said it is a principle all nations should respect.

Like China, Vietnam has allowed market reforms to transform the country’s economy, which is now one of the fastest growing in Asia. But the Communist Party remains firmly in control of the state and brooks no criticism, even when made in disguised literary form.

On the question of political prisoners, Mai said the government regards them all as criminals. “All prisoners, as well as those on temporary detention awaiting trial, are Vietnamese citizens who have violated Vietnamese law,” he said.

Amnesty International, a non-government London-based human rights organization, lists at least 60 people it describes as “prisoners of conscience” being held by the Vietnamese government. They include writers, a doctor and a Buddhist monk, all of whom are being detained for what Amnesty describes as a “peacefully held belief.” Most have been charged with what the Vietnamese government considers “counterrevolutionary activity,” including one case in which a membership in Amnesty International was the criminal act, earning a doctor 20 years in prison.

Mai added that while Vietnam would be willing to conduct a dialogue on human rights, it should be “considered in the broad context of its global nature and it is not a subject between Vietnam and the United States.” This apparently suggests that the Hanoi government believes human rights should be discussed in the United Nations and other international bodies.

The Vietnamese have always considered the Communist Party’s monopoly on power as non-negotiable, although in recent years non-Communists have been allowed to contest elections to the National Assembly and city councils.

But the hard line on political prisoners suggests trouble ahead if the Clinton Administration tries to proceed to the next step in the normalization process, which would be to grant most-favored-nation trade status to Vietnam.

While the status would allow Vietnamese exports, especially of textiles and footwear, to compete with products of other low-wage countries, the question is likely to face a bruising battle in the GOP-controlled U.S. Congress if Vietnam is still holding prisoners of conscience. A trade treaty must be negotiated before special trade rights can be granted.