The US Wants Vietnam to Be Its New Tech Best Friend
Some US firms have already began investing in Vietnam. Apple started assembling AirPods in Vietnam in 2020, and in 2022 Nikkei Asia reported the corporate was shifting the meeting of some Apple Watches and MacBooks there too. Intel has invested $1.5 billion in a big chip packaging and meeting plant that produces parts together with 5G chipsets. Reuters reported this month that the corporate thought-about however ultimately deserted a plan to develop operations in Vietnam. Marvell and Synopsys, two US chip companies, have stated that they plan to construct chip design facilities within the nation.
New offers have been promised throughout Biden’s go to final month. The White House stated that Microsoft would develop generative AI tailor-made to the Vietnamese market, with out specifying what the corporate plans to supply, and that Nvidia would associate with FPT, a big software program firm, and Vingroup, a conglomerate that owns a spread of high-tech companies together with the home EV maker VinFast.
While investments in Vietnam are prone to enhance additional, consultants warn that US desires of decoupling solely from China might stay simply that.
“Everyone talks about the need to decouple from China,” says Zachary Abuza, a professor who research Southwest Asian politics and safety points on the National War College in Washington, DC. He prefers to explain US investments in Vietnam as examples of diversification. “Show me one major corporation that is going to completely decouple,” he says.
“Even Apple, which might want to move a line to Vietnam, or a line to India, is not giving up on China,” Abuza provides. “China is unparalleled, globally, in terms of the scale that it can offer, in terms of the labor force, and also the whole ecosystem.”
Nguyễn Thị Thuý, mission officer for the Initiative for Global Solidarity on the German improvement company GIZ, says that enhancing Vietnam’s home ecosystem will likely be useful for each home ambitions and US diversification targets, however provides that success will not be assured. “No matter how great the opportunity is, if we do not possess the capacity to take it, the opportunity will pass on to others,” Thuý says. Vietnam’s neighbors and rivals Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia are additionally enthusiastic about welcoming new tech investments.
Vietnam additionally has to consider its personal relationship with China. It is likely one of the few nations within the area to push again on China over Beijing’s expansive territorial claims within the South China Sea. But the truth that China was barely talked about in Vietnamese state-owned media protection of Biden’s journey displays the federal government’s want to take care of a powerful bond, even because it cozies as much as the US.
Following Biden’s go to, The Washington Post reported that Vietnamese brokers tried to put in spyware and adware on the telephones of US politicians, policymakers, and journalists within the run-up to the journey.
Yên, the pinnacle of engineering at CoAsia Semi Vietnam, says he wish to see extra particulars from the Vietnamese authorities on investments and insurance policies aimed toward rising the manufacturing trade. “If we only talk without taking specific actions, everything might fade away in two to three months” he says. “Looking back after two or three years, there may not be any progress.”
