Washington: Just like US troops struggling with desperate evacuation from Afghanistan, Vice President Kamala Harris began Friday on the way to Vietnam, the site might be a more famous American military disaster.
Southeast Asia’s journey, also took in Singapore and a virtual meeting with ASEAN regional representatives, planned long before Taliban’s victory last weekend triggered a US race from Afghanistan.
Harris had taken flakes, especially from the right-wing commentator who saw Vietnam’s choice as, most, tones.
The authors “Veep,” the television comedy series insinuated as a poor vice president, “could not hit this better,” Tweeted Sean Spicer, former Secretary of the White House press for President Donald Trump.
But US officials emphasized that Vietnam’s choice regarding the geo-political challenge to come – not a trauma far from Saigon 1975, when the US helicopter carried the final Evakare of the embassy roof, when the Viet Cong forces advanced.
Vice-President “focused on the threat of the future, not from the past,” said a senior White House official who asked not to be named.
The official acknowledged that the focus of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy was currently set in the crisis at Kabul Airport, where several thousand US troops tried to evacuate potentially tens of thousands of US citizens and local allies.
But when China challenged our sway and deep in the Indo-Pacific region, Southeast Asia was “strategically important and economically important for this country.
It did not change with Afghanistan,” White House official said.
“We can do more than one thing at once.” Officials expressed confidence that disasters in Afghanistan would not endanger allied beliefs in US commitments for extensive strategic purposes throughout Asia.
“We believe that our partners throughout the Indo-Pacific sees the United States as a steadfast partner.
And it will certainly be one of the things empressed by the Vice President on this trip,” an official said.
Harris, an Asian-American mother from India, will be the first Vice President of the US visiting Vietnam.
Before arriving at Hanoi on Tuesday night, Harris will visit Singapore and meet, starting on Monday, with President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
He will also stop at the Changi Navy base, where he will overcome our sailors above USS Tulsa visiting, underlining the American security commitment to Singapore.
Harris will hold a meeting of the Vietnam government on Wednesday and will attend the opening of the Southeast Asian regional branch from US centers for disease control.
The global response to Pandemic Coronavirus will dominate the meeting of ASEAN countries that Harris will join.
In his last event on Thursday, Harris would meet civil society representatives in the Communist Vietnam to “underline the importance we put on supporters of civilians as drivers of social change,” said an official.