U.S. President Joe Biden and prime executives from main U.S. expertise corporations, together with Google and Intel, met with Vietnamese business leaders on Monday after the 2 nations agreed to extend cooperation as Washington seeks to counter China’s rising energy.
Biden and Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party chief – the nation’s paramount chief – struck a “comprehensive strategic partnership” as Washington pushes to spice up its community of allies round Asia and the Pacific.
The United States sees manufacturing dynamo Vietnam as an vital a part of its plan to lower reliance on China for provides of strategic assets, and the brand new pact consists of agreements on semiconductors and uncommon earths.
Executives from tech behemoth Google, chipmakers Intel and GlobalFoundries, and aviation large Boeing joined Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for an “innovation and investment summit.”
They held talks with senior figures from a bunch of main Vietnamese tech and manufacturing corporations, together with electrical carmaker VinFast, web agency VNG and digital pockets Momo.
At the talks, Biden introduced that flag provider Vietnam Airlines had agreed to a $7.8-billion cope with Boeing to purchase 50 medium-haul 737 airliners.
Other offers introduced embrace Microsoft growing a “generative AI-based solution tailored for Vietnam” and NVIDIA teaming up with native corporations to deploy synthetic intelligence within the cloud, automotive and well being care sectors.
Semiconductor safety
The new partnership consists of an settlement on semiconductors, with the U.S. committing to assist Vietnam develop its capabilities and develop manufacturing, together with by funding workforce coaching.
Tiny semiconductors are important to trendy life and are present in each digital system, from kids’s toys and smartphones to electrical automobiles and complex weapon programs.
Biden moved final month to limit U.S. funding in Chinese expertise in delicate areas, together with semiconductors, quantum computing and AI.
With Washington trying to diversify and strengthen its provide chains after a sequence of shocks hit the worldwide financial system, it’s more and more trying to Vietnam, which has the world’s second-largest deposits of uncommon earth – one other strategically important useful resource – after China.
The White House highlighted U.S. funding in chipmaking in Vietnam, pointing to a brand new $1.6 billion manufacturing unit close to Hanoi because of begin operations quickly.
China difficulties
Biden insisted Sunday that he didn’t wish to “contain” China however accused Beijing of “seeking to change the rules of the international order.”
And of their joint assertion, Biden and Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong launched a contemporary broadside at Beijing within the sprawling, multistate territorial row over the South China Sea.
They warned in opposition to “threat or the use of force” days after the newest Chinese vessel conflict. They insisted the competing claims to the strategic waterway should be settled underneath worldwide norms.
Beijing claims nearly your entire sea, by way of which trillions of {dollars} in commerce passes yearly, and has ignored a global courtroom ruling that its assertion has no authorized foundation.
The president met Chinese Premier Li Qiang – the nation’s No. 2 chief – on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Delhi on Sunday.
Biden mentioned the main financial issues Beijing was wrestling with would restrict its scope for motion, significantly on Taiwan – which China regards as a renegade province.
“China has a difficult economic problem right now for a whole range of reasons that relate to the international growth and lack thereof and the policies that China has followed,” he mentioned, pointing to excessive youth unemployment and actual property points.
“I don’t think it’s going to cause China to invade Taiwan. As a matter of fact, the opposite – it probably doesn’t have the same capacity that it had before.”
Vietnam has its personal squabbles with Beijing, notably over the contested South China Sea.
Hanoi’s state media on Monday hailed the cope with former struggle foe U.S. as “historic.”
Biden will finish his go to by paying his respects at a memorial to his good friend John McCain, the previous U.S. Senator shot down in Hanoi as a pilot in the course of the Vietnam War.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
