Vietnam supports U.S. "intervention" in the Asia-Pacific if it helps keep peace and stability, the defense ministry said, in a timely endorsement of a continued U.S. presence amid uncertainty over Washington's faltering "pivot".
Vice defense minister, Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh, met on Monday with Cara Abercrombie, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, and told her Vietnam backed a positive U.S. role.
The general's words of support, conveyed by a normally reclusive defense ministry, come when the United States most needs them, with its "rebalance" - aimed at boosting its Asian foothold and tempering China's rise - now under strain in the run-up to a U.S. presidential election.
Vinh "affirmed that Vietnam will support the U.S and other partners to intervene in the region as long as it brings peace, stability and prosperity", it said in a statement.
At the dialogue, Abercrombie said the United States would not change its rebalance strategy, the statement added.
Uncertainty lingers in Asia over changes ahead at the White House and whether a new leadership would give less priority to keeping China in check as it grows increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, a waterway vital to global trade.
