Thousands of sailors from a US navy carrier and two escort vessels have taken part in a charm offensive while on a port call to the Vietnamese coastal city of Da Nang, in the largest US troop presence in the country since the war ended in 1975.

In a classroom on the outskirts of the city, uniformed navy sailors played rock and country classics for dozens of enthralled children who had disabilities that have been blamed on the Agent Orange sprayed by the US military during the war. After the performance, more sailors arrived for some arts and crafts.

Cooks from the USS Carl Vinson visited local restaurants to learn Vietnamese recipes, and the US naval band performed songs from the war-era Vietnamese composer Trinh Cong Son.

Dignitaries from both the US navy and the Vietnamese government lauded the visit as a sign of budding friendship between the two former foes, but looming over the fun, lighthearted atmosphere of the week was the question of China. Although geopolitical issues were largely left unspoken, analysts said the trip largely stemmed from anxieties over a millennia-old rivalry between Vietnam and its northern neighbour.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The US navy band performs songs from the war-era Vietnamese composer Trinh Cong Son

Nguyen Chi Tuyen, a dissident blogger from Hanoi also known by his pen name Anh Chi, said the Vietnamese people welcomed US military engagement with “our hearts and minds”.

He said opposition to China was deeply embedded in Vietnam’s national identity, with the South China Sea dispute only the most recent in a line of conflicts stretching back to China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in the third century BC.

China claims almost all the South China Sea, including waters internationally recognised as Vietnam’s. The two countries fought a series of bloody skirmishes over the sea’s islands in the 1970s and 80s, with the last occurring in 1988.

Tuyen is no fan Vietnam’s single-party communist state, which bans dissent. He has been arrested several times and was once beaten by thugs who he suspects were working for the secret police.

But he said most anti-government activists supported the Carl Vinson’s arrival. They also want American arms sales to Vietnam, which were legalised in 2016 when Barack Obama lifted a weapons embargo that had been in place since the war.

Tuyen said that shortly before the embargo was lifted, Senator John McCain, a longtime advocate of close bilateral ties, asked him and three other dissidents at a private meeting in Hanoi whether the move would damage the human rights situation in Vietnam. All four told McCain the US should go through with sales, said Tuyen.

“We know about the threat that if the US government lifts the ban, they can use them against the activists and the people,” he said. “But we think it is much more important than our own security that if the US government lifts the ban, Vietnam … can use the weapons to defend our own country.”

Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales and an expert on south-east Asia, said the Vietnamese government considered the Carl Vinson’s docking to be a balancing act between powers.

“The visit of the USS Carl Vinson does not signal that Vietnam is moving into the US orbit to oppose China. It signals that as trust has developed between Vietnam and the United States, the leaders in Hanoi are comfortable with a step up in naval engagement with the United States,” he said.

But Le Dang Doanh, a former economic adviser to the government and a Communist party member, said Hanoi felt its hand was being forced. “It is Beijing that has pushed Vietnam closer to the US more than Washington has come closer to Vietnam.”

He said he was anxious about whether the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who recently changed China’s constitution to abolish term limits, would use force against Vietnam as a show of strength. China’ss former leader Deng Xiaoping ordered the 1979 invasion of Vietnam shortly after consolidating power, Doanh pointed out.

“I don’t know how Mr Xi Jinping will demonstrate his power, we need to pay high attention,” he said.

Would Vietnam would ever abandon its non-alignment policy and become a US ally? “It’s not sure [if there could be an alliance], but it’s certainly not their last visit,” said Doanh.