Twenty-five Years of US-Vietnam Cooperation—Don’t Let “Decree 06” and Ongoing Piracy Spoil It!
How time flies! That is a truism we are all familiar with, but it was brought home to me forcefully when I was reminded by friends still living in Vietnam that this year, 2020, marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam. These two nations fought one of the most protracted, divisive and bloody wars in recent history, yet they have both been able to put this behind them and work together to create, in Vietnam, one of the most dynamic economies in the region. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries on July 11, 1995, and the conclusion of the US-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement five years later, Vietnam has continued to open its economy. It joined ASEAN in 1995, became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2007 and is one of the eleven founding members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which came into effect for Vietnam in early 2019. Its export-led economy, a hybrid capitalist-guided socialist model, has enabled it to increase its GDP ten-fold over this period and it has embarked on a number of domestic economic reforms that have opened up many sectors of the economy, including in areas close to copyright.
The US has provided considerable assistance in terms of funding over the years, ranging from health initiatives to capacity-building in the area of policy development. Vietnam has largely opened to the world, both in terms of tourism (until COVID hit earlier this year), manufacturing and services, and the Vietnamese people have greatly benefited from these developments. At times there have been setbacks and even missteps, but the overall thrust has been forward.
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