U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris urged countries in the region to apply more pressure on China in a meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, stepping up her criticism of Beijing on a visit to Asia.
"We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims,” Harris said at the start of a meeting in Hanoi with Phuc.
Harris said the U.S. wants to upgrade its relationship with Vietnam to a strategic partnership, and said the administration of Joe Biden strongly supports the former U.S. adversary’s request for a third former U.S. Coast Guard cutter. Harris also said the U.S. would donate an additional 1 million Pfizer vaccines to Vietnam, which would start arriving within the next 24 hours, bringing the total to 6 million so far.