Rapprochement Between Vietnam and the United States: A Response‪.‬

Vietnam is perhaps the only country in the world to have engaged in so many intensive and marathon negotiations with the US over the past few decades. These include the Paris peace talks of 1968-73, negotiations on the normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties (1992-95), the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) (1996-2000) and on Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) (2003-06) which paved the way for Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 1 January 2007. These negotiations underscored the complexity of the relationship, yet were also instrumental in helping Vietnam and the US to better understand each other. It is difficult to appreciate how far and how quickly the Vietnamese-US relationship has evolved without having a good grasp of the difficulties bilateral ties have experienced over the years. In his article, Professor Brown presents a detailed and comprehensive account of the decades-long rapprochement process in which the national interests--including strategic interests--of both the US and Vietnam influenced the nature and intensity of negotiations.