President Obama and President Quang of Vietnam Hold a Press Conference [HD] Live

• Report rights infringement
• published: 23 May 2016
• views: 85523

Live coverage of this event has concluded. Drag the counter along the timeline below the stream to replay. The full video will be posted to www.whitehouse.gov/videos momentarily. Welcome President Barack Obama to Vietnam! The beautiful HANOI, Vietnam — President Obama arrived in the steamy capital of Vietnam ahead of schedule on Sunday night to begin three days of meetings in hopes of luring yet another Southeast Asian country away from China’s tight embrace.He was greeted on the tarmac by a young woman in a long yellow dress who handed him a bouquet of flowers. Several second-tier Vietnamese officials shook the president’s hand before he climbed into his limousine for a quick trip to his hotel after nearly 24 hours of travel. Quiet clusters of people on the dark streets watched his motorcade pass. Except for the small groups, the streets seemed to have been completely cleared. Since Air Force One had been scheduled to land after midnight, or about three hours later, the official arrival ceremony with high officials in attendance was postponed until Monday morning. Maybe then Mr. Obama will see the kind of emotional outpouring that greeted President Bill Clinton in 2000, when he became the first United States president to visit the country since the Vietnam War. But it is possible that relations between the two countries have reached a stage that the arrival of an American head of state no longer seems so unusual.Mr. Obama will meet with the country’s newly installed prime minister and president on Monday, then get together with the country’s real power — Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party.Mr. Obama’s visit is an important step in a complex dance that Vietnam has carried on with China for centuries. Most of Vietnam’s illustrious historical figures made their reputations by battling Chinese invaders. The population here is deeply nationalistic and anti-Chinese sentiment is visceral. The American War, as it is known here, is mostly forgotten, particularly since half of the population is under 30. Vietnam relies on China for trade, investment and even the water that feeds the vast Mekong Delta, so the leadership knows it can poke the dragon only so much.Indeed, Vietnam had mostly sought to appease China since a brief and bloody war between the countries in 1979, and had shrugged off a series of provocations as China sought in recent years to assert its dominance over the South China Sea, which extends the length of Vietnam’s 2,000-mile coast.But in 2014, China placed a giant deep-sea drilling rig to explore for oil and gas right off the Vietnamese coast, and Mr. Trong could not even get his telephone calls to Beijing returned. The confrontation touched off angry protests in Vietnam that led to the deaths of two Chinese and the destruction of Taiwanese and South Korean factories. Today’s Headlines: Asia EditionGet news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day in the Asian morning.Since then, Vietnam has stepped up its contacts with the United States. Neither the United States nor Vietnam is ready for a formal alliance, but Vietnam may grant American warships access to its ports, and Washington seems certain at least to widen exceptions to its longtime arms embargo and may end it altogether.Human rights remain a barrier to closer ties. Government-backed thugs routinely attack dissidents, and recent protests over a toxic spill that killed vast numbers of fish led to beatings and arrests by the police. While the country does have elections — polling places were packed Sunday for a parliamentary election — candidates must be approved by the Communist Party. Mr. Obama plans to meet with some dissidents and civil society leaders on Tuesday before making a speech. Brad Adams, the Asia director at Human Rights Watch, suggested that the president “should start by calling for the right of all people to stand for election, voice critical views of government, associate with others and freely choose candidates.” American help in reforming Vietnam’s economy is also high on the agenda for leaders of both countries. While Vietnam has grown robustly — the transformation of this city’s airport and skyline over the past two decades is astonishing — the country remains saddled with a bloated state sector that dominates telecommunications and other crucial parts of the Truy cập Facebook tại địa chỉ:https://goo.gl/zbo45P Tổng Thống Obama Chủ Tịch Nước Trần Đại Quang trong cuộc đối thoại 23 -5-2016- President Obama and President Quang of Vietnam Hold a Press Conference