AN EMAIL SENT TO FRIENDS AFTER THE CLINTON VISIT TO HANOI
Several months ago when a friend told me that a New York Times reporter had contacted her regarding the visit of President Clinton to Vietnam, I knew immediately that I wanted to be involved in this historic event. I had no idea how I was going to do it. I wanted it so much that I made a promise to myself that it would happen. Two weeks ago the US Embassy in Hanoi contacted me with an invitation to work as an interpreter for US Trade Representative Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky during her visit to Vietnam with President Clinton. So here are my accounts of President Clinton's visit to Hanoi (Nov 16-18, 2000) and how I was involved.
News of President Clinton's visit had been made official weeks before it took place. As soon as the news came out, rumors, often exaggerated, of the magnitude of this visit; the number of people, helicopters, guns, dogs, anything else that tickled people's curiosity, started to spread among social circles of Hanoi and gathered more mystical strengths as they went around. Social events, concerts, plays, ballet performances were scheduled and tailored with the expectation that the First Family would honor the events with their presence. Hearing all these myths, common folks were the ones most worked up. In the past, Hanoi has hosted many foreign dignitaries but it was the first time I had seen such uniform enthusiasm about one.
As for getting excited, I was definitely not an exception. Exactly ten years ago one day in the fall of 1990, my father sat me down and asked me "politely" to drop French and to consider taking English instead. His reason being English was more widely used and fast becoming the dominant language of international communications. I, on the other hand being the romantic one, had a vision of walking down the Champs Elysees singing La vie en rose. Faced with a total cut of funding for the foreign language department, I had no choice but to sign up for an English evening class. My father's forceful approach must not have worked too well because at the end of that 6-month course I still couldn't construct a simple question in English. Then this one time I embarrassed myself not being able to ask how many languages this one Englishman spoke. My formal education of English literally ended then as I decided to learn the language on my own with my own methods. Since then, after thousands of encounters with speakers of the English language, I have been my own teacher with teaching assistance provided by the tourists that have walked the streets of Hanoi since Vietnam opened its door to the world. Today, even in Vietnam I speak more English than Vietnamese on a daily basis. English is the most powerful tool I have that helps me survive everywhere I go. My father was right after all.
The reason I am giving you a bit of my history is not to put myself in the center of what I am going to tell you here. In a moment, I will humbly step aside to give the stage to William Jefferson Clinton, the President of the United States of America, and his entourage. But being a bi-linguist and an interpreter of English and Vietnamese, I must say that the best someone like me can do is to give assistance to a visit of the US President to Vietnam. Having that secured merely a few days prior to the V-Day of US-Vietnam relationship, I truly felt like the Queen of England.
I felt sentimental sitting there in the lobby of the Daewoo Hotel Hanoi waiting for the President to arrive that night. I had come there to collect my credentials that had been kept till the last minute due to some problems that caused delays in the security clearance process and decided to stay for a while. The Daewoo, the largest 5-star hotel in Hanoi, had shunned guests away days before and there were surprisingly few people scattered about the spacious lobby. As I was sitting comfortably on a big couch facing the entry where a metal detector cum X-ray scanner had just been set up, I felt I was a close witness of a new chapter of history in the making.
President Clinton was scheduled to arrive at midnight on November 16. I heard that starting as early as 8pm that night people had already lined up on both sides of the 15-mile road that linked the city and the airport, all voluntarily. As I looked to the other side - the dark side - of the street that ran by the hotel, I could see people standing in large numbers. From a distance I could not make out the features of their faces because the trees that lined the sidewalk overshadowed them. A dark, almost motionless block they were --I wondered what had made them come out there and then what was going through their mind.
Having a long day ahead, I decided to go home to get a good night's sleep. My parents, members of those generations that lost their youth because of the Vietnam War, sent me to bed with these words: "Son, go to bed early so you can be there on time tomorrow. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance so do not mess it up." For a couple hours, I was just lying there awake. As my country was now approaching the very moment of reconciliation with the worst part of its past, my thoughts kept wandering back to the common history shared by the US and Vietnam. These two, worst enemies in the past, but because of what they had done for me, one gave me birth and the other an intellectual identity, have become best friends as far as I was concerned. It was time that the ordinary people shared the joys of this new relationship.
***
President Clinton visited Vietnam with an entourage of approximately 2,000 people, 20 bullet-proof custom-made sedans, 300 other vehicles, 2 helicopters, a platoon of dogs, 15 guns, all carried on board 4 large planes that had made 13 sorties into Hanoi before Air Force One arrived. Among the most noted members of the delegation were First Lady Senator-elect Hillary Clinton, her mother, Miss Chelsea Clinton, and several members of the Cabinet and Congress. That friend of Vietnam Senator John Kerry was among the most expected guests while Senator John McCain preferred to stay home.
In the morning of November 17, all roads leading to the Daewoo Hotel were blocked. There were many people waiting in the lobby for the President to come down before he would go to the State Reception Ceremony at the Presidential Palace. There were whispers of "critical mass" and "herding cats" among those waiting, possibly as a mild form of criticism for the massive human effort of this visit. As the news broke out that the President would leave the hotel through the side entrance rather than the front one, everybody flooded outside.
At 10, President and Mrs. Clinton walked out to a cheering crowd outside the hotel. More people had gathered along the road that the motorcade would take to the Palace. There were secret service agents from both sides trying to stop the excited crowd from running over to shake hands with the President. Well, those secret agents were not exactly that secret because they could be singled out as the only people there who did not want a handshake with the President.
That morning, President Clinton met with Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong and other officials of the Vietnamese government. News of the visit made headlines in all Vietnamese newspapers. There were large crowds waiting to greet him everywhere the President went. A taxi driver commented to me: "These Americans treat us better than the Russians. We were good friends with them for years and they never once sent the Party General Secretary to visit us."
Ambassador Barshefsky had a separate agenda from that of the President’s. At noon on November 17, she was invited to lunch with the Vietnamese and American business communities. There we talked about the newly signed US-Vietnam Trade Agreement and the prospect of trade between the two countries. This agreement is still waiting for congresses of both countries to ratify. Once ratified it will allow Vietnam to have the Normal Trade Relations status that will substantially lower the duties imposed on Vietnamese goods imported into the US market.
In the afternoon, we went to National University of Hanoi to listen to the President's speech. This speech was televised on VTV, Vietnam's national TV station. In the past, both French President Chirac and Japanese Prime Minister Obuchi had been invited to speak on TV but this was the first time that a foreign leader had been given the honor of a live broadcast. The speech took place in a newly constructed auditorium with an audience of about 700 including the press. From the loft where most of the press, embassy staff, and members of the delegation sat, I could see the students waiting anxiously for President Clinton to arrive. In order to be chosen as a student representative at this important event out of a student body of about 30,000, each student must have been the best in his/her classes. As the President started speaking, all the students looked engaged and only a small number of them needed the assistance of headphones that carried simultaneous translation. Again I wondered what they were thinking seeing how differently they showed their interest in the speech. Some sat with their palms supporting their chins, others with arms crossing, many closed their eyes while more than a few looked bored. On the left side of the first row, there were several female students dressed in Vietnamese traditional costumes áo dài holding flowers, on the right side sat the President, the First Lady, and the management of the university. Second, third and fourth rows were all occupied by faculty members, all dressed in the same color and style suits as if they had rented the suits from the same place.
The reason I was so interested in this speech was because my father taught at this school exactly 28 years ago and my mom was his student so this was her Alma mater. This time in 1972 when the war suddenly escalated, my father, then a young professor in Earth Sciences, volunteered to join the Army at the same time his junior and senior students were mobilized. Had he not left academia back then never to return to a teaching career in the civilian world, chances were that he would have been sitting in the same auditorium, on the second, third or fourth row dressed in that cheap looking suit and I might not have been there at all. It appeared to me that somehow my father and I had exchanged places in a strange twist of fate. I was also interested in the speech because I wanted to hear what message President Clinton wanted to convey to the Vietnamese youth. In a country where more than 60% of the population is younger than 25, young people are truly the drive of Vietnam's future. It was a wise move of the President to choose this segment of the population to entrust America's first message to Vietnam in his groundbreaking speech. Whatever the message was, it was going to be retained for quite some time.
I must admit that I had had a preconception that the speech was going to be some sort of flexing of the muscles, most of which probably would be a reminder to Vietnam that although “the battle not to the strong, neither yet bread to the winner”. I soon realized how wrong I was. President Clinton, not failing his reputation a bit, gave the best speech I had ever heard. He started with a few words of Vietnamese, not passing the accent test of course but by far succeeded in calming down the nervous audience. Most of what the President said had to do with how Vietnam and America should divert our attention from that “painful, painful” past to a future of cooperation and friendship. He emphasized that there are no two countries in the world having a common past similar to that of the US and Vietnam. The potential for cooperation therefore, he concluded, was great.
The President also touched on two issues of high sensitivity. First, although he did not make an affirmative statement of the effects of dioxin (the main component of the defoliant we know of as Agent Orange) on human health, he promised that the US would help Vietnam conduct studies on its possible effects. At least a million tons of Agent Orange was spread in Indochina during the conflict; birth defects, leukemia, cancer, etc have been observed in great numbers among children of those who were exposed to it. Second, he made a few subtle comments on human rights issues. Now, this seemed to be expected by his host, the Dean of the University, who delivered a written counter-argument on human rights as soon as the President had finished. President Clinton was not given a second chance, as there was no Q&A session after the speeches.
Back to the Daewoo hotel for a meet-and-brief session with the US Embassy staff. During this meeting, once again the President expressed his optimism about the future of the US-Vietnam relationship. He praised US Ambassador Peterson and Senator Kerry for their work in improving this relationship; these two and the First Lady then praised him and one another. It was all fun and happy.
The next morning, the General Secretary of the Communist Party Le Kha Phieu received President Clinton. On TV, GS Le Kha Phieu, a nostalgic Army general, asked in his speech: “Why did the US invade Vietnam if Vietnam had never invaded the US?” He then mentioned names of several US antiwar activists. This meeting was more looking back than forward.
I went to a meeting with Ambassador Barshefsky and Minister of Trade Vu Khoan to discuss the Bilateral Trade Agreement. The Vietnamese side was informed that questionnaire results showed great support from both candidates Al Gore and George Bush for better relationship with Vietnam. It was expected that the US Congress would ratify the BTA in the first quarter of 2001. The US would give Vietnam technical assistance to help the latter implement the provisions of the BTA through a joint-committee soon to be set up. Minister Vu Khoan, a career diplomat, became the Minister of Trade not very long ago. Very open, kind, and competent, he is well liked by the members of the USTR delegation.
We then went to another meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Manh Cam. Mr. Cam had been Ambassador to the Soviet Union then Minister of Foreign Affairs for quite some time before he took this post four years ago. Those who consider themselves reformists look to him for leadership and guidance. His assistant, Vu Quang Minh, like me went to Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and got his MPA in 1995. This was a pure diplomatic reception so we did not discuss anything of substance. As we were walking out after having had our pictures taken with Mr. Cam, he turned to me and asked: “So what do you do?” I answered that I had done this and that but right then I did not have a job and I asked him if he had one for me. This got everybody laughing I think because you are not supposed to ask the Deputy Prime Minister so casually for a job.
That afternoon I took Joe Damond, the deputy USTR and also an alumnus of the Woodrow Wilson School, out for lunch and a little shopping on the back of my motorbike. This was the 16th time or so Mr. Damond had been to Hanoi but it was the first time he had ever sat on the back of a motorbike, the most common form of private transportation in Vietnam. We sat in this garden café smoking while talking passionately about the future of the relationship between our countries. We could not have been more optimistic.
That night, the Presidential delegation flew to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) to continue their visit. I went home totally exhausted after only two days of work, which seemed like two weeks, and I kept on thinking.
***
In her book "Between Past and Future", Hannah Arendt mentioned that moment between things that are no longer and things that are not yet and called this the moment of truth. This is exactly where we Vietnamese stand now. President Clinton's visit to Vietnam was the symbolic closure of that past you call the Vietnam War and we call the American War. Today, almost 30 years after it was over, we still use it as justification for both our economic failure and our pride. Having made peace with both the US and ourselves, we find this justification no longer valid. Where will we go from here? And what are the implications of this moment of truth for us Vietnamese?
The truth is harsh. Today Vietnam remains one of the poorest countries in the world. We have no friends or allies. Those countries that we are associated with in one multilateral organization or another treat us with contempt because of our poverty and vigilance because of our ideological difference. Inside Vietnam, the absence of the rule of law is the cause of widespread corruption, divided loyalty among civil servants, erosion of the state's legitimacy and accountability, lack of transparency and credibility. We live here trusting no one and often cannot be trusted. Years of wars and mismanagement have crippled not only the Vietnamese economy but also the Vietnamese soul. Instead of trying to forget the past, maybe the best thing we can do now is to look back in an attempt to identify all that has happened and left us today so out of shape. Once we have done that, we can take steps to correct them, and to divert Vietnam to a new course toward a better life for the people. Only then, I believe, can we truly forget the past.
For years, private citizens have been denied the right to participate as an equal partner in the economy. I see this as the most serious reason why we are not yet developed. In a command system dominated by a bulky and inefficient state sector, there are no performance-based penalties and incentives and thus no push for development. What I would like to see in Vietnam is an economy where the private sector is the dominant one. These private entities will compete within the regulatory framework provided by the state. Out of this competition, good business practices will emerge to build a foundation of honesty, trust, and good governance. We will revive not only our crippled economy but also our crippled soul.
In this age of globalization, the only way Vietnam can develop is to become an active and competent player in the world economy. The visit of President Clinton to Vietnam did not only open up a new and positive chapter in the US-Vietnam relationship, but will also facilitate Vietnam's integration into the global economy. It is now Vietnam's responsibility to make the best out of this integration. To do so it would have to adopt many changes to its system; some of these changes can be very painful.
President Clinton's visit marked the highest point of an exploratory process during which the US and Vietnam studied the possibilities of improving their bilateral relationship as well as the benefits that each country would receive from it. From an original point of hostilities and suspicion, the US-Vietnam relationship is becoming one of cooperation and trust. There seems to be a tacit agreement between the two governments to put aside any divisions, barriers, and differences and to focus only on areas where the potential for economic development and cooperation is the most promising. Because the starting point of this friendship was so low it is certain that it will only get better from now. In the warmth and enthusiasm with which they welcomed President Clinton last week, the ordinary people of Vietnam testified to the fact that the unique historical context of this relationship would always ensure one country a special place in the heart of the other.
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