WASHINGTON–A wide range of bilateral issues, including trade and regional stability, was taken up when President George W. Bush held meetings, one after another, on June 24 in this capital with visiting Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

After his 1:10 p.m. meeting with the Vietnamese leader, President Bush said, “We had a good dialogue. We talked about economic cooperation. We talked about educational cooperation. We talked about the need to work together on the environment. I thanked the Prime Minister for his work on accounting for the POWs and MIAs. We discussed the neighborhood, the region.” He was referring to Prisoners of War and those Missing in Action.

Bush also said they “talked about freedom -- religious and political freedom.” A White House statement noted President Bush welcomed the opportunity to talk to Prime Minister Dung “about ways to advance our close bilateral cooperation on a broad range of issues, including ASEAN, the United Nations Security Council, education, energy and climate change, food security, and regional economic integration.” The ASEAN is the acronym for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The statement also noted Bush was taking the opportunity “to highlight the importance he attaches to respect for human rights and the freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly” in Vietnam.

President Bush and Philippine President Arroyo met earlier at 9:45 a.m. at the Oval Office. He congratulated Arroyo “on her strong stand on counterterrorism–more than strong stand–effective stand on counterterrorism, as well as laying out a vision for peace.” The leaders also discussed Burma and security issues in the Asian region.

President Bush said, “We talked about, you know, food, and I assured the President we'll continue to help. We helped with rice in the past. ” He also said they talked about “our mutual desire to advance how important it is to move forward the bilateral and multilateral trade agendas.”

Arroyo thanked Bush for the constructive meeting, and also for his concern and the swift aid to the victims of the recent typhoon in the Philippines. Bush said the US would send the USS Ronald Reagan, a large aircraft carrier, to provide assistance.

Significant

Two experts on the region told Asian media on June 20 here that both visits had symbolic significance. The Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank here, organized the discussion under its Washington Roundtable for the Asian Pacific Press (WRAPP) program.

Ernest Z. Bower, Partner in BrooksBower Asia, a top consulting firm in this U.S. capital, said Vietnamese Prime Minister Dung’s visit was “very important and historic, adding it’s Dung’s first official visit. He said for both Asian leaders, rising energy and food costs “were the immediate issues, much higher than the other issues.”

Walter Lohman, Asian Studies director of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation here, said of Arroyo’s visit: “Her coming here shows U.S. confidence in the Philippine Constitution,” said Walter Lohman, Asian Studies director of the Heritage Foundation. The U.S. does not want any coups mounted against Arroyo: “This is the strongest way to send it (that message),” Lohman stressed.

“It is support for the office of the (Philippine) president,” Bower explained. Arroyo’s term ends in 2010. Bower also said in the timing of the visits was probably not a coincidence, but U.S. way of sending “a message to China” that the Philippines and the U.S. enjoy historic and friendly relations.

China has also been involved in the oil-rich Spratly islands controversy, as well as making great inroads in the region. Bower expressed hope that whoever becomes the next American president would be more engaged in the Asian region. He said the Bush administration’s focus was mainly on the Middle East.

“The Philippines and Vietnam had to deal with China and the Spratlys,” Bower added. The Spratlys is under territorial dispute among Asian countries. The Philippines, which has been expanding relations with China, recently allowed it to conduct exploration on certain parts, without consulting its Asian neighbors.

The Philippines increasingly turned to China, signing infrastructure agreements and accepting aid, when it lost favor with the U.S. in 2004. This was when Arroyo ordered the withdrawal of the Philippine contingent from the “coalition of the willing,” forged by the U.S. in its global anti-terror war. Arroyo’s decision was in exchange for the release of Philippine hostage Angelo de la Cruz in Iraq.

Lohman said the visit “puts a bookend on the terms in the relations since the pull-out in Iraq,” closing the chapter after four years “when there was a space between the Philippines and the U.S.”