Remarks by Ambassador Michael W. Michalak

Ambassador Michael Michalak Remarks to Students and Faculty of The Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam

Questions and Answers

March 26, 2008

Ambassador Michalak: I want to make this sort of an informal meeting because I’m not a really formal kind of person. I’d be much more comfortable just speaking from my seat here rather than standing up and delivering a big speech. Not only that, but I’m going to take off my jacket because I’ve been here for six months but I’m still not used to warm weather here in Vietnam. [Laughter]. So if you guys want to get comfortable, you go right ahead.

I want to thank you first of all for inviting me to come and speak to you. This is one of the really fun parts of my job. I find that I spend an awful lot of time talking with people like the President and the Prime Minister and various Ministers, but to tell you the truth, you guys are the real future of Vietnam. The way that Vietnam goes in the future is very much dependent upon the things that you learn and the ideas, the concepts, the terms and the other people that you're exposed to. So I hope that one of the things that we’re going to do here is try to get to know each other a little bit better, and later on after I finish my formal remarks I’d be happy to answer questions on absolutely anything you want to know about.

I’ll tell you right now, my favorite color is blue, so don’t ask that question. But just about anything else is fair game.

I guess the first thing that I want to do is congratulate you all, and particular Deputy Director Thao because you are no longer the Institute of International Relations, you are now an Academy. I thought well, big deal, what does that mean? [Laughter]. But it turns out it means not only that you get more money so that you can have bigger projects, but it also means you have a lot more autonomy, a lot more independence and a lot more ability to determine your own academic directions. I think that is something that is truly great, so I congratulate you on that because it clearly reflects the importance that the government places on this institution and on the caliber and quality of its students.

I know that sounds kind of funny. I remember when I used to sit in meetings like this and people would come in and say, “Oh, you guys are so smart, it’s so nice to see you here. You’re all just really great students,” and all that. Well, you are. It’s really true. I know it sounds really funny, and my own daughter would probably kill me for saying it, but I do believe that you are among the best and brightest in Vietnam, and I hope that as you go through your careers that we’ll keep in touch. I’d like to make sure that when you guys grow up to be presidents of companies and what not, maybe you’ll hire me and that way I can earn a lot of money too. (Laughter.)

My visit here is coming at a great time. I’ve now been in Vietnam since August 20 of last year so it’s been about six months. I have been studying Vietnamese for about four of those months and my Vietnamese is really bad, so let’s not try to test it today. I can speak Japanese and I can speak Chinese, and Chinese also has tones. Chinese only has four tones; Vietnamese, of course, has six or more, depending on how you speak it. But I find that in Chinese if I miss a tone, most of the people I talk to can kind of understand what I’m saying. In Vietnamese if I miss a tone, I’m saying something totally different and often quite embarrassing. [Laughter]. That’s why I’m not going to try to speak any Vietnamese today.

Let’s try and talk a little bit about the U.S.-Vietnam relationship. I’m going to talk about it in terms of the same thing that I said to President Triet and to Prime Minister Dzung and other high-ranking members of the Vietnamese government. I have three main priorities that I’m going to be working on very hard during my time as Ambassador. One of them is human rights, another is the economic development of Vietnam including commercial affairs, and my other priority is education.

During the six or seven months that I have been here we’ve seen examples of the broadening and deepening of the U.S.-Vietnam relation which I hope to continue during my time here, and I’ll be here for three years. That’s the term of my office.

We had the Secretary of Commerce, our own Minister of Commerce if you will, Carlos Gutierrez who came late last year and brought a trade mission of 22 companies to see for themselves what the economic growth story is here in Vietnam. It was a hugely successful visit.

We very recently had the visit of Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. He is one of my bosses. Like you, I have many bosses but he’s an important one. He came to talk about the broad range of issues in our bilateral relationship. We talked about economics and trade; we talked about Vietnam’s position on the United Nations Security Council; we talked about human rights; we talked about education; we talked about cultural exchanges; we talked about a whole wide range of issues.

Then most recently, in fact I think he left just today, we had Dan Price here. Mr. Price is an Advisor to the President for International Economic Relations. Mr. Price also has the unique history of having worked on the Bilateral Trade Agreement, the BTA, which was in many ways the beginning of our economic and commercial relationship with Vietnam. This was a return visit to Vietnam to talk to government officials about how to take the economic relationship to the next level.

I mention all these things to say that we have had a remarkable number of high level visits between the United States and Vietnam and high level visits are some of the best ways in which we make progress. Every bureaucracy and every country in the world moves slowly, but when a high level visitor comes the bureaucracies have to produce what we call deliverables. They have to produce papers to sign; they have to produce press statements; they have to resolve issues. That’s what makes a good relationship - getting together, talking about the issues, resolving them as Dr. Thao said, on the basis of respect for each other’s sovereignty and respect for each other’s governments.

Let me talk a little bit about the economic relationship since that’s one of the biggest things that we have going here. As I mentioned, I think our economic relationship started with the conclusion of the Bilateral Trade Agreement which went into effect in 2001. We followed that pretty quickly with negotiations on WTO, World Trade Organization membership for Vietnam. That was a long process and it took a lot of time because Vietnam not only had to negotiate with the United States, but with the other 149 members of the WTO.

For the United States, we had a unique hurdle to overcome and that was to pass permanent normal trade relations with Vietnam. We worked very hard on that. We hoped to get it done in November of 2006 for APEC, but unfortunately, due to our own form of government we ran into some political issues in the Congress so it finally got done in December 2006. But it did get done. So when Vietnam joined the WTO in January of ’07 and became the 150th member of the WTO, the United States and Vietnam were able to mutually exchange all of the benefits that we had worked so hard to negotiate.

I think the development of the economic commercial relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam paralleled in many ways Vietnam’s accelerated development process. Doi Moi began in about 1986 and made excellent strides, particularly in agriculture and out in the rural areas in the early years. But it was only at the beginning of this century that the trade relationship with the rest of the world and the manufacturing and services relationship with the rest of the world really took off. The government during that time decided not only to adopt doi moi in terms of domestic economy, but also decided to integrate Vietnam more fully into the global economic and political community. And I think that integration continues to this day and is proceeding at a very rapid and very good pace.

In terms of our bilateral trade, I don’t think I’m going to bore you with a bunch of statistics. Let’s just say that the U.S. is Vietnam’s number three trade partner, almost number two depending on how you fiddle with the numbers. But two important facts about our being number three or number two. One of them is that Vietnam sells to the United States about four times the amount of goods and services that the United States sells to Vietnam. Which means that we have a huge trade deficit with Vietnam. The other fact is that Vietnam now, as it becomes more wealthy, as the middle class expands, is beginning to buy more from overseas and our exports to Vietnam rose by 72 percent last year which is a very good story and helps us politically as well as economically. If you want more information on that we can get into that in the question and answer period.

In everything that I say, I think it’s important to note that there is always a good story and there’s always a not so good story. The good story on the economic side is our relationship is booming, American companies want to come into Vietnam, they want to invest in Vietnam, they see Vietnam as a potential hub for exporting from Vietnam to the rest of Southeast Asia and even back to Northeast Asia. In fact one person told me that Vietnam is unique because it is in one sense, the western-most part of Northeast Asia. You can also say that Vietnam is the eastern-most part of Southeast Asia. So you're right in the middle. You have the opportunity to go both ways. You have a lot of Chinese influence in your history -- some of it not so good, but that’s the way it goes; but you also have a lot of Southeast Asia in your history as well. So I think Vietnam has a number of unique qualities that make it very attractive to investors.

On the other hand, the investment climate can be improved in a whole number of ways, mainly through improvement of the legal framework. I know in 2008 there is going to be a big push within the National Assembly to revise the criminal code and the commercial code and a number of laws and regulations. This is something that we definitely support because it will go a long way towards improving the investment climate here in Vietnam.

One of the other major roadblocks in investment or in the economic development of Vietnam is education. I will talk about that separately when I get to education, but many observers -- Vietnamese and foreign observers alike, believe that education is probably the single biggest roadblock that Vietnam is facing today.

There are a number of other issues. There are issues on intellectual property rights. There are issues with decisionmaking on investment projects. There are issues of distribution rights and trading rights. There are a lot of issues which any two countries anywhere in the world have. We have set up between the United States and Vietnam a process called TIFA. That is the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. This is an agreement between our two countries where we agree to get together on a quarterly basis, four times a year, to talk about the various economic and trade issues between our two countries. This is a very useful process. We just finished the second round of TIFA talks here in Hanoi last week and they went very well. We were able to clear up a number of issues, make progress on others. We need to continue to talk more, but this is a very useful process.

So the good news is that we have an excellent economic commercial relationship that’s getting deeper and broader.

The next thing that I want to talk about is education. Education is something that I have had a great interest in all my life, mainly because it feels like I’ve been going to school all my life. I went through my undergraduate degree in a school near Detroit, Michigan, and I have an undergraduate degree in physics, specifically in optical physics. Then I went to work for NASA, the United States Space Agency. I was working on designing testing instruments for satellites. I did some work on the Apollo moon project. I did some work in helping to design an optical computer which is a computer that doesn’t use electricity, but uses light beams. While I was at NASA I had to do a Master’s degree, so I did a Master’s degree in physics.

Then I got into diplomacy. I joined the Foreign Service and the first thing you have to do when you join the Foreign Service is you go to school. So I went to school again and learned how to speak French. After I learned how to speak French they sent me to Australia, so I really have never used my French and I can’t speak French any more at all. [Laughter]. But then during my career they also sent me to Harvard and I went to Harvard to the John F. Kennedy School and got a Master’s degree in Public Administration. So I’ve been going to school all my life. And before I even came to Vietnam I talked to a number of people and heard that one of the really important challenges for Vietnam is to strengthen its educational infrastructure.

So when I went before the Senate for my confirmation hearings - because every ambassador has to be approved by the U.S. Senate before they can go out to their post – I told the U.S. Senators that one of my goals in coming to Vietnam was to double the number of students going from Vietnam to the United States to study. And I think looking at the statistics on student visas that we have issued, the student visas are way up, so we’re well on the way towards doing that.

The United States education system I believe is among the best, no, it is the best in the world. We have probably about 4,000 different institutes of higher learning, so there is literally a school for everyone in the United States.

Education is one of the most important things that we can work on, that I can work on during my time here in Vietnam.

We’re doing that in a number of different ways. We’re doing that first, by trying to get my consular officers out to schools, high schools, universities, all kinds of institutions, to talk about the process for getting a student visa. Everybody’s scared of getting a student visa. Oh, you're going to get turned down, it’s going to be terrible, you’ll never be able to go to the U.S. and all these kinds of things. It’s just not true.

Going into the consulate to get your student visa, you’re just going to go in to have a conversation with a consular officer. Now some companies in Vietnam, actually this happens in many other countries too, but there are companies that say to you, “You want to go to the U.S.? You give me $2,500, I will get you a perfect set of fake documents and you just go in there and those consular officers will be so fooled they won’t know anything and you’ll get your visa right away.”

That’s just not true and don’t believe it. Our consular officers are actually trained to look for fake documents. It’s very rare that fake documents get by our people. And it’s very rare that you need fake documents, to tell you the truth. There are three things that you’ve got to do in order to be able to get a student visa. One of them is you’ve got to really want to go to the U.S. to study. Not just to go there and play and meet boys or meet girls. You’ve got to be willing to go there and study as hard in the U.S. as you study here in Vietnam.

The second thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to show that you have a plan for how to pay for the education. Whether that plan is you’re going to get student loans or you’re going to get a scholarship or a company is going to finance you or you’ve got savings or whatever. The important thing is that you have a plan, so that we are reasonably confident that if you go to the U.S. you’ll be financially secure.

The third thing you have to do is you have to make sure that the consular officer understands that you do intend to return to Vietnam. Our visa law has a certain part in it that says that every consular officer by law has to assume that every applicant intends to stay, wants to illegally immigrate to the United States.

Now most people have no desire to stay illegally in the United States. Visit? Study? Yeah. But just stay there there? No. Most people want to come back. So you’ve got to make sure you tell the consular officer no, look, I'm not going to live in the U.S., I’m going to study there and then I’m going to come back to Vietnam.

So if those three things are in order I would say you’ve got a great chance of getting a student visa. So that’s one of the things we’re trying to do on the education side. We’re also working with a number of U.S. companies and American universities to try to publicize the kind of scholarship programs that are available, the kinds of financial assistance programs that are available, and what other programs are available to try to make it easier for students to go to the United States to study.

Finally, within the U.S. government we’re doing our best to try to expand our Fulbright program, expand our English teaching program and other programs to try to, again, to help facilitate Vietnamese students going to the United States.

I think on education, again, I think we’ve got a good story to tell. I think there is a lot that needs to be done here in terms of Vietnamese education and we’re working on that with cooperative and regulatory reform type projects - that sort of thing. So I think that is another good story to tell.

The third thing I want to talk about is human rights. When President Triet visited Washington last year President Bush said, “In order for our relations to grow deeper it’s important for our friends to have a strong commitment to human rights and freedom and democracy.” In general, what does that mean here in Vietnam? Here in Vietnam there are a wide range of issues that I talk to the government about very very often. Some of the hardest issues are issues around freedom of expression. There are laws that the government of Vietnam has which we disagree with, which we would like to see them changed. They basically allow the government of Vietnam to arrest anybody that they think is harming the interests of the state and harming the interests of the state is a very broad term. We think it would be better to narrow that down a little bit.

One of the basic tenets of United States policy is that we believe that everyone should have the right to freely express their political views. We do not believe anybody has the right to violently overthrow any government anywhere, and in fact the United States recently prosecuted and convicted at least one Vietnamese American for attempting to bomb a Vietnamese embassy in Thailand, and there are at least two or three other individuals who are under investigation by the FBI for suspected terrorist actions against the government of Vietnam. These are American citizens. So we do not support any violent overthrow of a government and we will take steps to prosecute whenever we find evidence that merits prosecution. But we do think it’s all right to talk about democracy, to talk about issues of freedom.

We like to see free and open elections. We like to see a number of ways in which the people can have free and open participation in the affairs of the government.

Another facet of our discussions on human rights is religious freedom. I think here we have a very good story to tell in Vietnam. About three years ago, the government of Vietnam passed two laws on religious freedom, and these laws have been extremely effective in allowing people all over Vietnam to freely practice their religion, to set up seminaries, to train priests and participate in other activities. In fact most recently, as you know, there have even been demonstrations by various churches over land rights, which is not really a religious issue, but in the past that never would have happened. So we’re seeing some good progress on religious freedom and in fact we have removed Vietnam from a list of countries of particular concern for religious freedom.

Some of the other areas that we look at are freedom of information. There are certain radio stations that are jammed by the government of Vietnam and we’re working to try and remove that. We believe that the internet should be completely free and open and you should be able to go to any site that you want to, and you should be able to write in chat rooms or blogs or e-mails anything that you want to as long as it’s not illegal or some sort of violent kind of thing. So we talked with the government of Vietnam about that because some restrictions remain there.

One of the other restrictions which really strike me as completely unnecessary is on foreign journalists. You know that in Hanoi we have a number of foreign news outlets. I think the Wall Street Journal is here, Reuters, the Associated Press, Press Agency of France, and a number of others. They travel, from time to time down to Ho Chi Minh City to do reporting. But they are not allowed to open an office in Ho Chi Minh City. I just think why? What is the issue there? I can’t think of any reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to open offices in Ho Chi Minh City.

Having a press that is free and open is only going to be in Vietnam’s favor. There are many times when we receive stories from the United States which are based on, quite frankly, inaccurate information. We don’t have a counter-example. We don’t have somebody who’s been there to say no, that story is inaccurate. Whenever we investigate these stories, and we do find that some are just wrong, we go back and we tell people in Washington that they’re wrong. But having a freer press, having foreign newspapers that can open offices in Ho Chi Minh City will only increase the number of positive stories that are being circulated throughout the world.

There are a number of issues that we are working on on human rights, and I think we do make progress on some of these things. We have an annual human rights dialogue with the government of Vietnam. In fact I believe our next human rights discussion with the government will take place sometime in May and we will go over a number of issues. I think it’s important for you to know that not only the United States but many countries in the world believe that human rights are important. In fact Vietnam believes human rights are important. It’s just that we often have different beliefs and different definitions on what they ought to be. So it’s important for us to continue our dialogue and to try to come to some kind of mutual understanding on those definitions.

Having said that, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that U.S.-Vietnam relations are all about human rights. No. U.S.-Vietnam relations are about human rights but they are also about economics and commercial development. They’re about working together on education. They’re about working together on the world stage. Vietnam this year has become a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. That’s the most powerful body that the UN has and probably one of the few UN bodies that actually gets things done sometimes. We don’t always vote together on issues, but sometimes we do, and most recently we voted together on strengthening sanctions on Iran to prevent that country from continuing programs to develop nuclear weapons and their means of delivery.

What I want to leave you with is that we have a very broad, complex relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam. We cover a broad range of issues, most of which we absolutely agree on, some of which we don’t. But even where we don’t agree we have ways and means that we deal with them. So I think it’s important for you guys to know all the wide range of these issues because some day you may be dealing with them just the same way that I’m dealing with them today.

There’s on last thing I want to talk about. You may have heard, but we’re having an election in the United States and I have to say this is one of the most amazing elections that I have ever seen in the United States, and I’ve seen quite a few.

The Republicans I believe have already chosen their nominee, that will be Senator McCain, but the Democrats are really having a real dog fight to try and figure out who their nominee is going to be. The interesting thing is that whoever the Democratic nominee is, it’s going to be someone who has never run for President before. It’s either going to be a woman or it’s going to be an African American. I am really amazed and really proud that we’ve had the kind of development through the years in the United States that allows us to come to this point without some of the divisive debates and demonstrations that we’ve seen in the past over issues of race and gender.

So I want to let you know that at the U.S. Embassy in our public affairs section we’re going to be following the election very very closely. In fact Dr. Thao and I were just talking, and we would like to try to organize a series of seminars for you guys about the U.S. elections, if you’re interested. We’ll be able to talk in a lot more detail about all of the issues in the elections and the personalities and all the press coverage. There’s lots of fascinating things to talk about.

So this is an exciting time for me to be here in Vietnam. I hope I haven’t talked too long and made everybody go to sleep. I’ll be quiet now and let you guys do the talking. Thank you.

[Applause].

 

Ambassador Michael Michalak Questions and Answers at The Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam

March 26 2008

 

Dr. Thao: Thank you, Ambassador Michalak. We have enjoyed the Ambassador’s introduction of himself and his studies and how he came to work in Vietnam. We enjoyed hearing about his priorities as U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam - these are about education, about economic development, about human rights.

And lastly the Ambassador has proposed a very interesting seminar about elections in the U.S. So now it’s time for you to ask questions.

Question: Thank you so much for your very interesting and exciting speech. I want to ask a question concerning human rights.

I believe that, and I think that many people believe as I do that a state has sovereign rights to exercise authority over its citizens by use of laws and rules. So I don’t know why the U.S. has such concern about the laws governing human rights of Vietnam, why don’t you just take care of your own country? But you have to take care of other countries’ affairs.

Ambassador Michalak: Very good, thank you. There’s another girl who sounds like she came from southern California. [Laughter].

You’re absolutely right. Of course it is a sovereign right of every country to have their own laws and to have their own regulations, but that does not stop people in other countries from commenting or expressing views on them. We do that every year. We have a human rights report, as does the United Nations and as do many other international organizations. So we’re not the only ones who make those comments.

In terms of what we do domestically in the United States, you’re absolutely right. We debate our laws all the time. We have a huge industry in the United States that is in place so that if you have a point of view which disagrees with the existing law, it works on how you would get that law changed. The way you get that law changed is that you begin to talk. You begin to talk to other people within your district or within the country, and you try to convince them of your point of view. If enough people believe that your point of view is better than the existing law, then the Congress might change that law.

Secondly, if you believe there is a law which is an unfair, a law that does not in fact agree with the Constitution of the United States, then you go to the Supreme Court and argue before the Supreme Court on why you think that law is unconstitutional. Then the Supreme Court decides yes or no, whether or not it is unconstitutional.

All of those procedures are public. Everybody has a chance to listen. Everybody has a chance to comment. We have a Communist party in the United States. Every single election the Communist party puts up a candidate for President and they go out and they say we think Marxist Leninism is much better than capitalism, and we think everybody in the United States should be Marxist Leninists. Okay. So we let them say that.

The election process has shown that not many people agree with that and not many people want to become Marxist Leninists. I believe that here in Vietnam if someone comes out and says, “You know, I don’t like our current form of government, I think it should be X, Y, or Z.” If the people agree with it, that’s one thing. But if the people say, “No, we’re happy with what we’ve got,” okay. That’s what democracy is all about.

I don’t say that the Vietnamese government should be X, Y or Z. That’s not for me to decide. That’s for you to decide. What I can say is that if you believe that X, Y or Z is better than the current form of government, you should be able to say that. If you were to say that now, you have a high probability of being arrested. I don’t think that’s right, and that’s what I say to the government of Vietnam.

And they can listen to me or not. So far it’s the “or not”.

Question: Okay, so I wonder if the United States welcomes criticism of its government or other countries’ opposition for your decisions. I think that the policy of criticizing and telling others is not than the policies that you are applying.

Ambassador Michalak: My dear, that happens every day. [Laughter]. That happens every single day. For instance, the Nordic countries -- Sweden and Norway and Denmark and other countries -- they have come for years to the Congress of the U.S. and to the President to say they think our laws and policies on capital punishment are wrong and that we should change those laws. Not only do they tell our government, but they go out and they tell the people. They say, “We think your policies here are wrong. You ought to change them.” So far, we have not eliminated capitol punishment, but some states actually have changed their policy on it.

Again, the decision on whether or not to change this or any policy is up to us. That’s up to the people of the United States. But if people want to criticize us and, as I said, some do and we get a lot of criticism, that’s their right. That’s fine. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and quite frankly I think that having a healthy debate makes us think about things. Why do we think capital punishment is so good? Then we have to think about it and we have to answer, we have to respond. That’s the way you grow. That’s what we believe, anyway.

Question: In your remarks, you said that you want to double the number of students in United States. I’d like to know whether there is any policy from the United States to encourage the cooperation between the United States universities and the Vietnamese universities? So for example, an American university will establish an office in Vietnam and offer Vietnamese students the chance to study in Vietnam, but not have to go to the United States to have the same experience about what they are learning.

Can you give me more information about that? Thank you.

Ambassador Michalak: That’s an excellent suggestion. As a matter of fact that is one of the things that we are working on.

There’s no official policy. The U.S. government tries not to set policies like that. Each individual university in the United States has their own policies on how they interact with foreign countries.

For instance the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard is working with the Ho Chi Minh Economics University and they have set up what is called the Fulbright Economics Training program in Ho Chi Minh City. That is a program that basically uses the curriculum from the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard to teach public policy to Vietnamese students. The students are drawn from the Vietnamese private sector but also from the Vietnamese government. And, getting back to the first discussion that we had on human rights, one of the main methods that they use in that school is called the case study method.

Now in the case study method what happens is you get a policy or issue to examine. You get, for example, a current government policy. I went to the JFK School in the U.S. and they assign you a current law or current policy to really study. Here in Ho Chi Minh City they did the same thing. Here’s a current Vietnamese law, a current Vietnamese policy. What does everybody think? And people would argue, saying it could be better if you did this or that to change it. Some people would say it’s just lousy, let’s throw it out. Other people said it’s fine the way it is. But in the case study model, you have a debate. You debate that policy and you try to figure out ways to improve it, ways to make it more efficient, ways to ensure it delivers more benefits to the people because that’s what public policy is all about.

When the school began and started assigning these studies, the government of Vietnam was not quite sure how to take this. Again, technically speaking under current Vietnamese law they probably could have all been arrested and thrown into jail but they weren’t. The program has developed in Ho Chi Minh City to the point that now the government of Vietnam goes to that school before they write a policy and asks for a study on it, what they think about the proposed policy. What do you guys think? And they get an honest opinion from them.

So this school, which is now composed of students just like you, is having input into how public policy is being made in Vietnam. That’s the beauty of this kind of thing. That’s the beauty of being able to have these debates. The government doesn’t have to listen to you, of course not. But they never totally ignore what these guys say. They always seem to use something from what they say, so it has been very useful.

So to get back to your original question, there are many universities in the United States that do have cooperative programs with the universities here. None of them are exactly like the Fulbright program. There’s another one here called RMIT, maybe you’ve heard of that, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. They have courses which are taught on the same basis as the Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. If you go to RMIT here and pass all those courses you can get a degree from the Melbourne University without actually having to go to Australia to do it.

Right now we’re talking to a number of American universities to review the regulatory requirements and possible changes. There is a lot of bureaucratic red tape that you need to try to go through before you can set up a branch here. It’s too much red tape for many universities. They say it’s not worth the trouble, that they don’t want to fight the red tape. One of the things that we’re doing is trying to work with the government to get rid of unnecessary red tape, to make it easier for American and other foreign universities to set up branch campuses here to do exactly the kind of thing that you’re talking about. That’s a very efficient way to do it. Thank you for your suggestion. When you graduate, we’ll hire you and then later on we’ll work for you. [Laughter].

Question: Mr. Ambassador, I would like to come back to the human rights issue and the fight against terrorism. Recently the signs have been very bad about human rights issues such as in Iraq and Abu Graib prison. So I would like to ask you does U.S. have any way to treat these issues? And in your personal view, has the fight against terrorism lead us to a more peaceful world? Thank you.

Ambassador Michalak: The fight against terrorism will lead us to a more peaceful world. Yes. I can definitely say that. Since 9/11 we have not had any major terrorist incident in the United States. That has made many Americans sleep better at night than they did earlier. So that’s one thing I can say right away.

In terms of the human rights issues that it raises, you're right, it definitely does. Again, that’s why it’s so important to have freedom of expression, and even more so perhaps, freedom of the press. A lot of times what happens is that the press uncovers these things. In the United States, for instance, we’ve had a big debate over torture of some of the prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq. And that debate has been pushed by the press. Not to say it would not have happened if it weren’t for the press, actually it would have, but the press has been very useful in terms of making sure that people in the United States are getting the same information. Then they can debate, talk about it, and then the people will have to make a decision. The government listens to all of the opinions and it’s between the government and the people how the question is ultimately worked out. But it is important to have that kind of debate to bring these things to light. And here is another place where oftentimes other governments get involved. They say, “You know, United States, that’s right, it looks like you were doing something here that is against this international convention or that international convention.” And we do have to defend that or change our policies. I believe there have been changes in some of our policies based on international and domestic debate.

Does that kind of answer your question? Or maybe not. Do you want to try again?

Question: You have said that the war on terrorism is helping people sleep at night. But is that worth the war because now we have too much bloodshed in the world. Thank you.

Ambassador Michalak: Boy, that’s a good question. I guess it depends. Yes, any time you have a war it’s too much bloodshed, that I will say. If we didn’t have these wars would we still have more bloodshed? That’s the real question. If Saddam Hussein was still in power would there be more bloodshed in the Middle East than there is now? I can’t answer that question. I don’t know. It is clear that, well, I believe he was a very destabilizing influence in the region and that there would have been more war in the Middle East. Maybe it wouldn’t have been our war, but it would have been somebody war. So it’s hard to say that if now this is too much.

I think that the spread of terrorism means there is much more violence in the world now than there has been. I think that in Iraq we’re beginning to see the violence go down a little bit. In Afghanistan, it’s not quite clear how that is going to work out just yet. Pakistan is a big worry now. But I think in Europe, in Thailand, in the Philippines we’re seeing a decrease in violence.

Terrorism is the kind of thing that makes for a very long term kind of a war. It’s a war that when you think you’ve got it calmed down in one area it pops up in another. It’s a very difficult war to fight, but I think it is something that we have to do because I believe if we don’t fight it, it will continue to crop up. If we don’t stop it as best we can then it will spread and it will get worse.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Ambassador. My question is as I know President Bush has said that the Vietnam War is like what is happening about the war in Iraq. So I want to know what is your opinion about whether the war in Iraq is becoming like the American Vietnam war. Thank you.

Ambassador Michalak: You’re welcome. Actually that was not the quote, but I think the President’s words speak for themselves. I think this is one of the things that I’ve found remarkable here in Vietnam. For a number of years we were at war with each other. Thirty years ago we ended that war. Over that 30 years I think that we have built a partnership that is a very strong partnership. It’s one that looks forward and does not look backwards. I think that’s an amazing fact.

I must admit that I found an equally remarkable situation in Japan where I spent an awful lot of time. In Japan it was the same thing. In Japan it has been 50 years since we were at war with Japan and that was a very wide-ranging global war. The same thing happened there. We ended the war, we looked forward, not back. And we have a very strong ally in Japan right now.

So I think that the fact that we have been able to work through the war, we have been able to establish strong bonds of partnership and strong bonds of friendship, this is going to be extremely important for moving forward to a strong partnership between the U.S. and Vietnam, one which I believe we have today and one which I am here to try to make even stronger over the next three years.

Question: My question is concerning the relationship between Vietnam and the United States governments and Vietnam’s membership on the U.N. Security Council. And we have seen that Vietnam does not always agree with the United States in its votes such as with Kosovo. Is this a problem with the United States and how will that affect the bilateral relationship?

Ambassador Michalak: Well, I just think Vietnam is wrong and they ought to vote with us. That’s all. [Laughter]. But that’s all right. The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry thinks I’m wrong and they want me to vote with them. [Laughter].

But seriously, we are going to have differences. I probably spent half an hour talking with my counterpart in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about Kosovo. We talked about the history and we talked about the UN legality and we talked about the global geopolitics of the situation. In the end, I couldn’t convince him. Vietnam did not vote with us in the United Nations. That happens. But as long as the two parties believe that we have had a good discussion on the issue and that we’ve really tried our best to understand each other’s positions, there are certain issues on which reasonable people can disagree. And Kosovo may be one of them. And on the Iran issue we did agree.

I think it’s important that Vietnam engages seriously. Vietnam is not just taking its membership on the Security Council as symbolic – “Oh, hey, look at us. We’re on the Security Council” and then they don’t do anything. Some countries might just see this as a badge of honor and then they don’t feel that they’ve got to take the responsibility that goes with it. I think Vietnam is taking the responsibility, is investigating the issues, and is coming up with its own positions. And we just hope that we get our chance to explain our point of view to Vietnam, just like Vietnam can share theirs with us. Even on the Iran issue Vietnam wanted to have a few changes in the resolution before it went forward. I think some of the changes were put in and some were not. But the very fact that Vietnam does engage and is taking this seriously is a very positive thing for the U.S. and Vietnam relationship. It shows that Vietnam wants to be taken seriously, wants to be a major player in the world. We think that’s a good thing and we’re more than happy to work with Vietnam, even knowing that sometimes they will not agree with us.

The thing that we try to do is just make it very hard for Vietnam to disagree with us.

Dr. Thao: I know that the Ambassador is going to leave for the airport in about ten minutes. So we have maybe time for one or two short questions.

Question: So my question is this. I did my Master’s degree on international relations, with the focus on the Vietnam – U.S. relationship. And you mentioned that the Vietnam and U.S. relations now are good and even getting better since the war. Should it be something that you work on as well, like having exchange programs for Vietnamese and American soldiers who fought in the war. Because in these exchange programs American soldiers can come back to Vietnam and see how it is today and can go back to the U.S. and tell people that things are better. The other thing is that U.S. Ambassadors before, the first Ambassador Pete Peterson visited My Lai and other places from the war and did ceremonies abut the war. I know that other Ambassadors were open in attending these ceremonies. I don’t know how about you.

Ambassador Michalak: I think going to your first part, the first question about veterans exchanges, yes we do have them in part. When you say exchanges, that would mean we would send Vietnam veterans to the United States. But I’m not quite sure where they would visit. It’s not quite the same. But in terms of American veterans coming here, I would say that we probably have five or ten, sometimes maybe 20 U.S. veterans a month who do come. Our Marines at the embassy welcome groups of vets once every couple of weeks; groups of veterans who have come here to do exactly those kinds of visits and reconciliation programs.

In terms of memorials and other ceremonies, I am actually trying to look for events that we could do. So if you have some ideas, let me know. I am looking, I am seriously looking.

When I was in Japan we used to have an Iwo Jima Memorial every year, we used to have one in Okinawa. I’ve been to some of those. You’re right, veterans from both sides get together and talk and become friends. It’s a very moving and a very powerful kind of a thing. I would like to find that counterpart here in Vietnam but I haven’t been able to yet, so if you have some ideas, let me know.

Question: I want to ask about the economic trade situation and you said that there is a trade deficit with the U.S. and Vietnam and will that be a problem for Vietnam. And also how do you become ambassador to Vietnam or to any other country?

Ambassador Michalak: Well, I’ll answer the second question first. I have no idea. [Laughter]. After you reach a certain rank, and you are able to speak a number of languages, and you have to have certain experience you might decide you want to be an Ambassador. Once you do that, then once a year everybody who wants to be an Ambassador submits their resume with the little - remember how you had to write an essay to get into graduate school? It’s the same thing. “Why I want to be an Ambassador.” You send that in, and then there is this committee. It’s a very non-transparent process. Talk about human rights violations, let me tell you, getting to be an ambassador is really something. [Laughter]. This committee decides. It took about a year from the time I submitted my papers until the time when they actually said yes, okay, you’re going to go to Vietnam. And when you submit your “why I want to be an Ambassador” essay, you say to which country.

Question: Why did you want to come to Vietnam?

Ambassador Michalak: I wanted to come to Vietnam because I’ve spent my entire career in Asia. I’ve spent most of my time in Japan and in China. But quite frankly, for me, the country in Asia that has the most promise and what I see as the brightest future is Vietnam. When I was here in 2006 as the chief delegate for the United States to APEC I really had a feeling that this country was going places, and this is the best time of all to be here. You’re just starting out. It’s very exciting. There are all kinds of opportunities. I thrive on that kind of atmosphere and I thought this would be the best place for me. So thank God, the State Department did too. Very unusual.

Your other question. The reason that I said that is because if you’re an economist, bilateral trade deficits really don’t matter that much. You’ll have a deficit with some countries, other countries you’re going to have a surplus with and it all sort of washes out. You look at your overall current account deficit and that’s the thing that will have real consequences for your domestic economy.

But politically it matters because people in the Congress or ordinary American citizens will look at a deficit and say wait a minute, that’s just not fair. Why should Vietnam sell us four times more stuff than we sell them? It should be more balanced. Most of the time these things don’t cause any problems, but in the U.S.-Japan case it caused huge problems. We had people threatening legislation, we had all kinds of negotiations. In fact I participated in most of them. With China, the same thing is happening even now. There are congressmen and senators who want legislation passed saying we’re going to raise tariffs if China doesn’t change its exchange rate, et cetera, et cetera.

Politically, so far Vietnam has not gotten any complaints, in fact just the opposite. Most people in the Congress believe that Vietnam is a good story in Asia and they’re very excited about the prospects for Vietnam’s future. But it’s good to be able to tell people that while yes, we’ve got a big trade deficit, our exports are coming up, and Vietnam is not ignoring us. They are buying our stuff. This is a good story to be able to tell and it reassures people in the U.S. Most of the time they worry that the playing field is not level, that there are trade barriers or trade discrimination. When we can show that our exports are increasing by 72 percent, then it’s pretty hard for someone to complain that there are a lot of trade barriers there. So that’s what I meant.

Dr. Thao: I’m hope that you will come back again to the Academy. And before we finish, can you please say a few words in Vietnamese, so that when you come back we can see the improvement in your studies?

Ambassador Michalak: [Laughter]. [In Vietnamese]. [Laughter and applause].

Now I hope I did not insult somebody’s mother there. [Laughter]. That’s not what I wanted to do.

Dr. Thao: One student would like to say thank you to the Ambassador.

Student: On behalf of the students from the law department I would like to thank you and the Embassy for sponsoring us to participate in the international law and mock trial competition in the U.S. I really want to express our great appreciation to you and the Public Affairs Section for bringing us to the States with a grant. This grant that you have given us does not cover all of our costs but it really does make a difference to us, and you can see the results I hope. I do hope that you and your Embassy will continue your support to the students of this Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and to the students around this country. Thank you very much.

[Applause].

Ambassador Michalak: Okay, thank you all very much, and I hope to see you all again soon.

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