US–Vietnam relations have come a long way. In 1982, in his report to the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), Secretary-General Le Duan claimed that US–China collusion constituted ‘a factor constantly threatening world peace, and especially seriously menacing security and stability in Asia’. Today, Vietnam considers the US to be a stabilising factor in the Asia Pacific. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told the Shangri-La Dialogue on 31 May 2013 that Vietnam welcomed the strategic engagement of the United States as a Pacific power and expected that, together with China, it would assume ‘the biggest role in and responsibilities to the region and the world’.
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