BANGKOK: Chinese leader Xi Jinping met Vietnam’s prime minister and the head of the country’s National Assembly on Wednesday, the second day of his visit, to build on the efforts the Southeast Asian nation has recently made to boost its ties with Japan and the United States. Later, Beijing’s relations with Hanoi could be strengthened. State.
Xi met with Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on Tuesday and he announced that China and Vietnam would work toward a “community with a shared future”, which was seen by Vietnam as a diplomatic concession to Beijing. According to Vietnamese media reports, the two sides signed 36 agreements, mostly about “deeper cooperation”, ranging from telecommunications to cross-party exchanges. Vietnam has opposed using that phrase in the past, but wanted to allay Beijing’s concerns after Vietnam named both. In recent months the US and Japan have emerged as “comprehensive strategic partners” – the highest official designation for diplomatic relations. Chinese state media say the designation was first given to China.
Xi mentioned the phrase again in a meeting with National Assembly Speaker Vuong Dinh Hue on Wednesday. “In the next step, the two sides need to strengthen cooperation in various fields, including law, to contribute to building a community with a shared future,” Xi said.
Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yosof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said Hanoi’s rhetoric does not mean Vietnam supports China-led political initiatives, but is a delicate act of hedging, especially after recent developments. “I think this move is expected given the fact that Xi personally came to Hanoi,” Nguyen said.
Xi also met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and President Vo Van Thuong on Wednesday and will conclude his visit after meeting young Vietnamese and Chinese scholars.
Vietnam and China agreed to an exchange of prisoners, although few details on that agreement were made public. The two also renewed an expired 2020 agreement to jointly patrol the Gulf of Tonkin, which lies between China’s southern island province of Hainan and Vietnam’s northeastern coast, local media reported.
Additionally, the two signed an agreement for cooperation on railway projects. Vietnam and China already have strong relations, but they also have significant points of difference, primarily over territorial claims over islands in the South China Sea, a flashpoint in Asia that has put the US and China on a collision course. Have brought. China claims virtually the entire strategic waterway, but the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have separate claims.
China has been Vietnam’s largest trading partner for many years, with a bilateral trade turnover of $175.6 billion in 2022. Imports from China account for 67% of the total, including vital inputs for Vietnam’s manufacturing sector, according to Vietnam Customs data cited by Vietnamese state media.
