White House statement covers topics of agreement on trade, energy, human rights, Vietnamese Americans' "contribution to the promotion of the relationship between the two countries." "President Bush welcomed these contributions and reiterated the U.S. government's support for Vietnam's national sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity." The United Nations and ASEAN were discussed. United States Education Cooperation with Vietnam In a Memorandum of Understanding signed by United States Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman and Vietnam Vice Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan, the two countries: • Expressed their wish to enhance friendship between peoples and cooperation in the field of higher education; • Recognized the importance of higher education in economic development; and • Recognized the importance of public-private sector partnerships between American and Vietnamese universities, colleges, and other organizations that support training and education projects. To develop strategies to deepen cooperation further in higher education, including contacts between educational institutions, they agreed to establish an Education Task Force, which will: • Encourage more and deeper linkages and joint programs between American and Vietnamese universities (including discussions about the best path to create a U.S. model higher education institution in Vietnam with the support of American universities and colleges, and simplifying procedures to establish new education and exchange programs in Vietnam); • Increase the number of Vietnamese studying at American universities and colleges, especially PhD students (including the United States’ initiative to facilitate an increase in the number of Vietnamese students studying in universities in the United States at all levels, and the Vietnamese interest in seeing more Vietnamese receiving United States graduate degrees); and • Promote educational programs designed to help Vietnamese students acquire the skills needed in Vietnam’s modernizing economy.    more »

The Vietnamese Canadian Federation in Ottawa has published Gift of Freedom; How Ottawa welcomed the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Refugees by Brian Buckley (General Store Publishing House, 2008). $20 The book sales benefit the Boat People Museum in Ottawa. Review by Jean Libby, VietAm Review: Gift of Freedom is an English-language history of the Southeast Asian refugees in Canada. It is professionally written and historically helpful for anyone who wants information about the issues and experiences of Boat People refugees to Canada from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos between 1979 and 2008. That’s right, 2008 – when the last refugee camp of Vietnamese Boat People in the Philippines, Palawan, was closed. The people who had not been accepted by other countries were in danger of deportation back to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Canadian Federation persuaded the Canadian government to take them as Permanent Residents immediately. The unique Canadian history alone would be worthy of a book, but Gift of Freedom also develops the original exodus beginning in 1977 and its roots in the Vietnam War of 1954-1975, continuing with the wars between the victorious Communist countries and that important relationship to the desperation so great that people knowingly risked their lives and those of their children to cast themselves into the China Sea on rickety boats to seek refuge and asylum. It is the best history for general readers of English that I have seen of the Vietnam War – in which Canadian troops also fought in alliance with South Vietnam (1)–and the aftermath as it affected people in the defeated country. Buckley describes it as a “proxy war between East and West, a struggle between contending ideologies, an interstate conflict among local powers, and a guerilla war.” Paths of migration of all ethnic groups are mapped. The graphic appeal of Gift of Freedom; How Ottawa welcomed the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees is a meeting of professionalism and passion for the subject matter demonstrated by the Book Committee of the Vietnamese Canadian Federation, particularly former president Can D. Le. The Canadian government did not send official troops as they did in World War II, the Korean Conflict, Desert Storm, and presently in Afghanistan. Over 30,000 Canadians volunteered to fight with American units during the Vietnam War. Native Canadian people (Mohawk Indians) were especially represented as troops fighting alongside the U.S. in alliance with South Vietnam.    more »