US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Hanoi later this week to oversee the groundbreaking of a new American embassy in the Vietnamese capital, deepen a relationship that will allow supply chain diversification away from China and counter “bullying” in the region. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, touted Washington’s developing relations with Vietnam. The US and Vietnam are “almost completely aligned on the kind of Indo-Pacific that we want to see … a region that’s free and open, where all countries large and small play by the same rules, where large countries don’t bully small ones … and where disputes are resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law. (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/antony-blinken-meet-vietnam-officials-093000381.html) “I know for a fact that leaders in both Hanoi and Washington see eye to eye on those matters and that, maybe more than anything, forms the bedrock of this new partnership that we’ve built,” Kritenbrink added.