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Kamala Harris kicks off tour to Southeast Asia week after Kabul’s fall
Kamala Harris’ itinerary includes stops in Singapore and Vietnam, where she will meet political leaders and seek to assuage apprehensions of America’s reliability as an ally.
US Vice-President Kamala Harris landed in Singapore on Sunday to kick off her tour of Southeast Asia. Harris’s Asia tour comes a week after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and an impending US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Harris’ visit is expected to put the focus back on countering China as criticism over America’s Afghan policy mounts at home and abroad, reported the Wall Street Journal on August 20.
Harris’ itinerary includes stops in Singapore and Vietnam, where she will meet political leaders and seek to assuage apprehensions of America’s reliability as an ally. "The Vice-President will make clear throughout the trip that we do have an enduring commitment to the region," a senior US official told AFP.
Harris is will be starting off her official tour of Singapore from Monday, and is scheduled to visit Hanoi on Tuesday, becoming the first US Vice-President to visit the country. While in Singapore Harris will meet the President and Prime Minister of the island state and make a stop at the Changi Naval Base, where she'll address US sailors aboard the visiting USS Tulsa. Harris, an Indian-American, will not be visiting her motherland India this time around.
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Her plan to visit Vietnam has drawn comparisons between the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan and Saigon in 1975, when American helicopters made last-minute rescue from rooftops as troops from the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam advanced.
Critics have dubbed America’s evacuation plan in Afghanistan “another Saigon”, and called out Harris for being tone deaf. US officials, however, told AFP that this trip was planned long before things in Afghanistan became intense, and Harris is focused on Washington's broader strategic goals in Asia.
