Hang made that statement while chairing the regular press briefing on November 21 regarding to U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s official visit to Viet Nam from November 19-21. 

The Spokesperson said that this is the first visit of Mark Esper to Viet Nam as the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the invitation of Vietnamese counterpart Ngo xuan Lich. 

The visit aims to promote the bilateral defense relations more intensively, practically and effectively, launch cooperative contents in defense which were signed between the two defense agencies and the agreements reached by their senior leaders, making practical contributions to the Viet Nam-U.S. comprehensive partnership. 

The two sides consented to continue boosting cooperative contents identified in the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Advancing Bilateral Defense Cooperation and the 2015 Joint Vision Statement on Defense Relations and Cooperative Program in 2018-2020 period, focusing on such areas as high-ranking delegation exchange, consultancy, dialogues and joining hands in dealing with consequences of the war.

Both nations will coordinate to realize the project on the remediation of dioxin contamination at Bien Hoa airport, search and rescue, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, security of navigation, military medical work, training English, researches into cooperation in defense industry and UN peacekeeping activities. 

The Vietnamese Ministry of Defense and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have completed dioxin remediation at Da Nang Airport and the U.S. has committed to continuing dioxin remediation at Bien Hoa Airport. 

Referring to seeking for soldiers missing in action, the two sides have organized more than 4,000 joint investigations with nearly 1,000 remains of the American soldiers returned to their families. 

The two sides have joined hands in seeking for around 200,000 Vietnamese soldiers martyrs in the war.