FOREIGN POLICY : Recognizing Vietnam Helps Search for MIAs

WASHINGTON — Twenty years after communist troops stormed Saigon, Vietnam continues to divide America. President Bill Clinton’s decision to normalize relations with Hanoi has prompted yet another round of public anger and recrimination. Some in Congress have gone so far as to declare their intent of undermining the Administration’s decision by cutting funds necessary to operate our diplomatic mission in Hanoi.

The deeply felt views of those who oppose the move--including many in my own party--are understandable. After all, Vietnam was, in the truest sense of the term, a tragedy. It remains one for the families and friends of the 58,000 Americans who lost their lives there. As a people, we can never forget the sacrifice of those who died or the suffering of those who survived.

Nonetheless, the President is right to establish full diplomatic relations. By doing so, he builds on the policies of the Bush Administration aimed at using expanded ties with Vietnam to ensure the best possible accounting of American MIA’s. Recognition will expand the U.S. presence in one of the world’s most economically dynamic and strategically important regions. And it will also help close, finally, a painful period in U.S. history.

Some who oppose establishing diplomatic ties argue that recognition somehow means an official U.S. endorsement of the Vietnamese government. There is, admittedly, much to dislike in the Hanoi regime. Its human rights record, though vastly improved over 20 years ago, remains poor. And long after the collapse of communism in its former patron, the Soviet Union, Vietnam remains nominally Marxist.

But diplomatic recognition has never implied some sort of U.S. seal of approval. We maintained official relations with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. And, in the 1970s, we established diplomatic relations with China--yet another strategic adversary and one, moreover, we had fought in Korea. With Russia and China during the Cold War--as with Vietnam today--recognition was simply a tool of U.S. foreign policy, a means to advance our national interest.

Our interest in expanding and deepening relations with Vietnam are clear-- particularly in the economic realm. Despite a per-capita gross domestic product of only $200, Vietnam represents, in terms of population, the world’s 12th largest market. Moreover, it is rapidly expanding. The Vietnamese economy has grown at an annual rate of 8% for nearly a decade. In the first three months of this year alone, Hanoi approved close to $2 billion in foreign investment. Two-way trade between the United States and Vietnam was more than $8 billion in 1994. By recognizing Vietnam, Washington can ensure that U.S. firms operate on an equal footing with their European and, especially, Asian competitors.

Moreover, expanded relations with Vietnam will help serve our strategic interest in a region, Southeast Asia, with a long history of instability. Vietnam’s cooperation was critical in bringing a U.N.-brokered peace to war-torn Cambodia in 1991. Today, the regime in Hanoi is far more eager to attract foreign capital than it is to export what remains of its tattered Marxist ideology. Vietnam is no longer the “Prussia of Asia” that created fear in its neighbors in the 1970s. Thanks to economic liberalization, it is, instead, a possible source of stability. With China poised for a potentially turbulent transition to the post-Deng era, the United States would be wise to hedge its strategic bets through an expanded official dialogue with Vietnam.

Most important, establishing formal diplomatic ties with Hanoi will advance our single most important interest in Vietnam: the most comprehensive, detailed accounting possible of American MIAs. It was for this reason that we in the Bush Administration, against domestic opposition, established a “road map” for expanding U.S. contacts with Vietnam. Our strategy reflected a step-by-step, carrot-and-stick approach. Those efforts, spearheaded by Gen. John W. Vessey, paid off. The Clinton Administration has continued this step-by-step “road map,” with similar results. By any reckoning, Vietnamese cooperation on the MIA issue has steadily improved. Recognition will likely improve it further.

Establishing diplomatic ties with Vietnam will mark a step forward in our search for an accounting of MIAs. To argue, as some do, that recognizing Vietnam will mark an end to this process misses the point: By an expanded official presence on the ground in Vietnam, the United States can gain more, not less, access to the all available facts related to Americans missing in Southeast Asia. A more open Vietnam is in our interest.

It is important to recall that official recognition is reversible. Any Vietnamese backsliding on cooperation about the MIAs can be met by Washington with a downgrading, or even termination, of diplomatic relations. The often heard idea that the MIA search is being sacrificed on the altar of commercial advantage is a canard--and a cruel one to the loved ones of the missing.

This is why there is such strong support for recognition among those who served and suffered during the Vietnam War. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, held prisoner for six years in the “Hanoi Hilton,” and Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam, both support recognition. So does the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Of course, other veterans--and groups like the American Legion--oppose establishing diplomatic ties. But their views, though honorable, are, in this case, off the mark.

So are efforts to raise Clinton’s draft record in the context of normalizing relations with Vietnam. During the Vietnam era, I supported the war effort. Then, as now, I had little regard for those who manipulated the draft system to avoid military service. The fact remains, however, that Clinton is President of the United States and, therefore, possesses full constitutional responsibility and authority for the conduct of foreign policy. I have always opposed congressional efforts to undermine that authority, whether by Democrats or Republicans. Blocking funding for diplomatic ties is congressional micro-management of foreign policy at its worst.

Clinton’s conduct during his country’s agony over Vietnam was inglorious, to put it charitably. However, he not only has the authority to extend U.S. recognition to Vietnam, he is right to do so. He also avoids making recognition a campaign issue next year--when partisan passions will be at a fever pitch. More important, he is helping bring one of the most contentious and painful chapters in U.S. history to its overdue conclusion.