Bush winds up Vietnam trip in thriving south
Source: Reuters
(Update with Bush events in Ho Chi Minh City) By Matt Spetalnick HO CHI MINH CITY, Nov 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush helped showcase Vietnam's transformation from bitter wartime foe to economic success story on Monday as he wrapped up a visit to the Southeast Asian country in Ho Chi Minh City. The second post-war U.S. leader to set foot in Vietnam, Bush wasted no time shifting gears from Hanoi, seat of communist power, to the bustling former capital of the U.S.-backed South Vietnam government toppled in 1975. Bush's welcome in Hanoi was muted, but in the thriving commercial hub of former Saigon throngs of onlookers -- many of them youngsters born after the war had ended -- lined the streets, waving and cheering as his motorcade rolled past. The warm welcome in Vietnam contrasts sharply with the reception he is set to get later on Monday when he spends six hours in Indonesia, a key regional ally in the U.S.-led war on terror. "Go to hell Bush", read a banner on a shopping mall in Bogor, the hill town 50 km (30 miles) south of Jakarta where Bush will meet Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the old presidential palace. Diplomacy was Bush's main focus in Hanoi, where he attended the 21-nation Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and sought help from China and Russia on the nuclear stand-offs with North Korea and Iran. The week-long trip, which began in Singapore and ends in Indonesia, was his first abroad since Democrats walloped his Republicans in Nov. 7 elections, prompting him to reassure Asian allies of his commitment to security and free trade goals in his final two years in office. His first order of business on Monday was a tour of Vietnam's stock exchange, symbol of an accelerating shift toward capitalism three decades after a war that brought communists to power from north to south in a humiliating defeat for America. Bush struck a gong three times to open trading at the exchange -- named after Marxist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, the U.S. nemesis in the war. After a brief trading floor tour, Bush quizzed executives about the bureaucracy for business start-ups and the ease of foreign investment in a roundtable with American investors and returned Vietnamese exiles. The sleepy trading floor consisting of a few dozen desks and screens had more the feel of a library than a bourse. But the market index spiked to near record highs on what traders said was enthusiasm for Bush's visit. NO DWELLING ON PAINFUL PAST In keeping with Bush's desire to focus on the new Vietnam, and not a painful wartime past, Bush visited the Pasteur Institute, touring laboratories for HIV/AIDS and avian influenza research and promising to continue financial support. He also paid homage to Vietnam's past with a visit to a museum displaying 10,000 years of human history in the region, tapping his foot and nodding his head to the beat of traditional drums at at a welcoming dragon dance. Bogged down in his own unpopular war in Iraq, Bush found it hard during his 3-1/2-day visit to avoid comparisons with the Southeast Asia conflict that divided America a generation ago. One reminder of that failed war came when his motorcade drove past the presidential palace in Ho Chi Minh City, where North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates in 1975 in a takeover of the city. But early on in his trip, Bush suggested Vietnam's economic rebirth gave him hope about what could happen in time in Iraq. Bush steered clear of the meet-the-masses approach taken by his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton -- a fellow baby boomer who in his youth also famously avoided serving in Vietnam -- when he made his historic visit to the country in 2000. But while Clinton's trip was about reconciliation, Bush seemed to capture the mood of a country trying to look beyond a war that killed 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese. Do Hon, 27, a designer clothes shopgirl who was thrilled at Bush's visit, had yet to be born when the war ended. But her grandfather worked with the Americans. Asked if she now yearned for U.S.-style democracy, she said in halting English: "I want freedom. I want scooter, iPod". (Additional reporting by Steve Holland)
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