Vietnam - America's strategic partner.

[Indofred]

Christians intimidated and arrested in Vietnam Barnabas - Christian persecution

Government-hired assailants are alleged to have been behind an attack at a Christian centre in Binh Duong Province, Vietnam, on 12 November. After breaking in, they tried to intimidate the Christians while police filmed the incident.

Christians in Vietnam must register their church with the government, even if it's a home prayer meeting.
Failing to do so risks arrest, and the church (or home) demolished.

If you dislike this, perhaps you should have a word with your congressman, asking why America is arming and assisting Vietnam.

Of course, the Vietnamese government may have their reasons.

 

[Sunni Man]

I wonder why Jeremiah hasn't mentioned this?? .....

 

[Indofred]

Attacks on Christians and their churches in Vietnam seem to go unreported in the US press.
Fashion seems to dictate what they report, or perhaps they're paid not to mention it.

 

[gipper]

Attacks on Christians and their churches in Vietnam seem to go unreported in the US press.
Fashion seems to dictate what they report, or perhaps they're paid not to mention it.

The msm fails to report heinous actions against Christians, not only in Vietnam, but worldwide.

 

[waltky]

Obama ends arms embargo against Vietnam...

Obama banishing Vietnam War vestige by lifting arms embargo
May 23,`16) -- Eager to banish lingering shadows of the Vietnam War, President Barack Obama lifted the U.S. embargo on selling arms to America's former enemy Monday and made the case for a more trusting and prosperous relationship going forward. Activists said the president was being too quick to gloss over serious human rights abuses in his push to establish warmer ties.

After spending his first day in Vietnam shuttling among meetings with different government leaders, Obama will spend the next two days speaking directly to the Vietnamese people and meeting with civil society groups and young entrepreneurs. It's all part of his effort to "upgrade" the U.S. relationship with an emerging economic power in Southeast Asia and a nation that the U.S. also hopes can serve as a counterweight to Chinese aggression in the region. Tracing the arc of the U.S.-Vietnamese relationship through cooperation, conflict, "painful separation" and a long reconciliation, Obama marveled during a news conference with the Vietnamese president that "if you consider where we have been and where we are now, the transformation in the relations between our two countries is remarkable."

President Tran Dai Quang said later at a lavish state luncheon that he was grateful for the American people's efforts to put an end to "an unhappy chapter in the two countries' history," referring to the 1965-1975 U.S. war with Vietnam's communists, who now run the country. The only war America has lost, the conflict killed 57,000 American military personnel and as many as 2 million Vietnamese military and civilians. Quang added, though, that "the wounds of the war have not been fully healed in both countries." Still, Quang said, both sides are determined to have a more cooperative relationship. That mindset was evident in the friendly crowds that lined the streets as Obama's motorcade zigzagged around Hanoi on Monday. And when Obama emerged from a tiny Vietnamese restaurant after a $6 dinner with CNN personality Anthony Bourdain, the president shook hands with members of the squealing crowd and waved as if he really didn't want to get back in the limousine.

Obama was to address the Vietnamese people on Tuesday morning. A White House official said the president would use his address to stress the importance of having a "constructive dialogue" even when the two nations disagree - including on human rights. But that is unlikely to mollify activists, who said the president had given up his best leverage for pressing Vietnam to improve its rights record by lifting the arms embargo - and done it just when the Vietnamese government had "insulted" him by arresting six activists in recent days, in the words of John Sifton, Asia policy director for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. "Today President Obama rewarded Vietnam even though its government has done little to earn it: It has not repealed any repressive laws, nor released any significant number of political prisoners, nor made any substantial pledges," Sifton added.

Duy Hoang, U.S.-based spokesman for Viet Tan, a pro-democracy party that is banned inside Vietnam, said that until Vietnam makes progress on human rights, the U.S. should not sell it military gear that could be used against the population. "The U.S. should also reiterate the message that closer security cooperation is to bolster Vietnam's external security and that the proper role of the Vietnamese military is to protect the nation, not the current political regime," Hoang said by e-mail.

MORE

See also:

In the attempt to contain China...

Why Lifting the Vietnam Arms Embargo Is All About China
Like LBJ, he's fudging about what’s happening

President Obama issued his own Gulf of Tonkin resolution Monday, declaring that his decision to end a 50-year old U.S. arms embargo on Vietnam was “not based on China.” The statement had a whiff of the original 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution. That’s when President Lyndon B. Johnson misled the American people and Congress about a naval skirmish to justify a mammoth deployment of U.S. troops into what became the Vietnam War, which eventually killed 58,220 U.S. troops.

In fact, Obama’s decision to “fully” end the arms embargo was driven by China’s growing aggressiveness in seeking control of nearly all of the South China Sea, actions have unnerved Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan—as well as Vietnam and the U.S. “It’s all about China,” says Anthony Zinni, a retired four-star Marine general who fought in Vietnam. “No matter how much he denies it.” If Obama had linked the embargo’s end to China’s actions, some Pentagon officials believe, it would have signaled to China that its moves have triggered a military reaction. Denying any linkage, they believe, simply delays an inevitable day of reckoning.

Tom Pepinsky, a southeast Asian expert, says lifting the embargo is all about China. “This decision is ultimately driven by regional concerns, with Vietnam emerging as a key strategic partner for the United States,” says the associate professor of government at Cornell University. “Although the Obama Administration denies that continued tensions in the South China Sea are at the heart of its decision to resume arms exports to Vietnam, this decision signals U.S. plans to contain China’s regional ambitions with Vietnam as a partner.” Obama declared the end of the embargo with Vietnam’s new president, General Tran Dai Quang—former chief of Vietnam’s notorious Ministry of Public Safety—by his side. “The fact that Vietnam’s Politburo chose Quang to be president indicates a great deal about their priorities,” Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Obama last month. Zinni says that the U.S., in its effort to curb China’s expansionist aims, is letting pragmatism trump Hanoi’s horrible human-rights record.

Human Rights Watch recently called Vietnam a “police state,” and Obama said any arms sales to Hanoi would be dependent on an improving human-rights record. Vietnam, whose nearly 2,000-mile coastline is the western rim of the contested South China Sea, would like to check Beijing’s pressure with patrol boats and anti-submarine airplanes. But the sale of more sophisticated U.S. fighter jets, missiles and radars could follow. The U.S. also wants Vietnam to open up the port of Cam Ranh Bay, which served as a key base for the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. Defense Secretary Ash Carter agreed with his boss, although he tossed in a dash of nuance when it came to explaining why the U.S. is lifting the sales ban. “There’s no question that China’s actions [in the South China Sea], particularly those over the past year, have heightened concern in the region, and that’s another factor that causes everyone to want to work with us,” Carter said. More nations in the region “are coming to the United States to do more and more with us because of their general concern with the security environment.”

Why Lifting the Vietnam Arms Embargo Is All About China