U.S. Navy visits former base in Vietnam's strategic Cam Ranh Bay

 

U.S. Navy visits former base in Vietnam's strategic Cam Ranh Bay

Ex-defense official has said U.S. presence in area would send firm message to China.

  The U.S. Navy's oldest operational ship is visiting Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, a strategic waterway in the South China Sea that has stirred the interest of military powers from Russia to China.

The flagship USS Blue Ridge, in addition to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Waesche, is paying a port call from Monday to Friday at what was a naval and air base for the U.S. in the Vietnam War and then for the Soviet Union and Russia until 2002, when Hanoi stopped allowing foreign militaries.

According to publicly available information, U.S. vessels previously paid port calls at Cam Ranh Bay in 2016 and 2017.

Vietnam is cautious about which warships sail into Cam Ranh, which also has hosted friendly visits by Chinese, Japanese and Australian vessels. The communist country -- the only government to host the presidents of Russia, the U.S. and China in the past year -- has a policy against foreign bases and alliances. But foreigners are wondering how firm the policy will remain.

The U.S. can't reopen a Cam Ranh base but should "come as close to basing as possible" because that would "signal to Beijing that Washington will not be simply a passive observer of China's efforts to cow its smaller neighbors," former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim wrote in The Hill in 2020. He called this "the finest deepwater shelter in all of Southeast Asia."

The U.S. has been supportive of Vietnam, which vies with China for ownership of islands in the South China Sea. Cam Ranh, some of which has been transformed into all-inclusive beach resorts, is closer to the islands than any U.S. base.

"The 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy's largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific," a navy statement said of the fleet now in Cam Ranh.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month made a rare state visit amid the war in Ukraine, flying to Hanoi despite an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest. Half a year earlier, his military made a port call to Cam Ranh.

"For more than two decades, [Cam Ranh] has faithfully and truly served as a logistical support point for" Russia's navy, the Tass state news agency quoted the Russian consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, Timur Sadykov, as saying at the time. "It was here that the traditions of brotherhood and friendship between the peoples of the Soviet Union and Vietnam were established."

 Russian foreign policy analyst Nikola Mikovic told Nikkei Asia the U.S. is monitoring such developments.

"Washington will likely turn a blind eye to the growing Russo-Vietnamese trade balance, although it will almost certainly pressure Hanoi not to allow Russia to return to Cam Ranh Bay," he said.

The U.S. says it is dispatching more ships since upgrading relations with Vietnam in September, when President Joe Biden visited. A year ago, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan paid a port call to Da Nang, in central Vietnam. As part of stepped-up ties, Washington also has donated three coast guard cutters to Hanoi.