Blinken seeking to upgrade Vietnam ties as Hanoi treads narrow path

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visits Vietnam this week hoping for progress towards upgrading relations with a key trade partner that shares U.S. worries about China’s growing might.
For Hanoi, it will be a delicate test: how to show openness to the United States without angering China, a giant neighbor that supplies key inputs for Vietnam’s vital export trade, or Russia, another traditional partner.
It is a balancing act Vietnam has excelled at but one that is turning more complex in a world appearing to divide into opposing blocs, with the U.S. and its allies on one side and China and Russia on the other.
Blinken arrives in Hanoi on Friday and will meet Vietnamese leaders on Saturday before heading to Tokyo for a meeting of the Group of Seven rich nations.
It will be the first Hanoi visit by the secretary of state of the Biden administration, which took office in 2021, although Vice President Kamala Harris visited in August of that year.