Use political wisdom to handle ties, Hanoi urged
President Xi Jinping has urged Hanoi to use “political wisdom” in handling ties with Beijing, as the two countries seek to overcome tensions in the South China Sea.
Xi met in Beijing yesterday Vuong Dinh Hue, chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam, who is in China on a six-day visit.
Hue is the first senior leader to visit China since the effective dismissal last month of Vietnam’s No 2 leader and president, Vo Van Thuong, a trip that analysts said was “highly symbolic” and underlined the special relationship between the socialist neighbours despite their maritime dispute.
China is at odds with neighbours over its claims to the South China Sea. Tensions between Beijing and Manila reignited after the Philippines joined a drill with the US, Japan and Australia.
Those manoeuvres coincided with “joint naval and air combat patrols in the South China Sea” by the People’s Liberation Army.
According to state news agency Xinhua, Xi hailed ties with Hanoi as “comrades-plus-brothers” and said an agreement to build a “community with a shared future” – a commitment made during the president’s state visit to Vietnam in December – “opened a new chapter” in ties.
In the face of “profound and complex changes” to the existing world order, “it is in the common interest of China and Vietnam to safeguard the socialist system and maintain national stability and development”, Xi said.
“Both sides should forge a strong sense of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future and with a high level of mutual trust, consolidate [its] foundation … with high-quality cooperation, and promote [its] construction … with a high degree of political wisdom,” he said.
Xi said both sides should share experience of party and state governance, push ahead with the Belt and Road Initiative and promote people-to-people exchanges among youth and sister cities.
Hue was quoted by the Chinese readout as pledging to treat China as his country’s top priority. He said Hanoi would stick to an independent and autonomous foreign policy, a code term favoured by Beijing to suggest distancing from the US and its allies.
Zhang Mingliang, a regional affairs expert at Jinan University, said Hue was accompanied by top Vietnamese officials, underlining the importance both Beijing and Hanoi attached to ties, especially as regional tensions rise.
“The visit is part of joint efforts to improve ties, featuring growing exchanges between the two countries, since their relations hit a low point with US President Joe Biden’s visit to Vietnam last year.”
Zhang said Beijing seemed to have placed special emphasis on the building of a community with a shared future, an agreement Xi reached with Vietnam’s top leader, Nguyen Phu Trong, last year, with the Chinese readout mentioning it seven times.
He said Xi’s remarks on using political wisdom to deal with bilateral differences were clearly a “pointed message” to Hanoi amid Beijing’s concerns over Vietnam’s warming ties with the US, Japan, Australia and other US allies.