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14-12-2023
BEIJING/ HANOI: China and Vietnam agreed to step up co-operation on security matters in their move towards becoming a community with a “shared future”, they said on Wednesday, as Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a visit to Hanoi.
On Xi’s two-day trip, the Communist-ruled neighbors, close in economic areas but at odds over boundaries in the South China Sea, signed dozens of co-operation pacts and agreed to set up more hotlines to defuse any emergencies in the contested waters.
In a 16-page joint statement, the countries, which share a millennia-long history of conflict, vowed to work more closely to strengthen defence industry ties and intelligence exchanges.
They said their aim was partly to avert the risk of what they called a “colour revolution” promoted by hostile forces, using a term for popular uprisings that have shaken former Communist nations.
They “announced the establishment of a strategic China-Vietnam community of ‘shared future’ to promote the upgrading of China-Vietnam relations,” Xi told the chairman of Vietnam’s parliament, Vuong Dinh Hue, at a meeting earlier.
The decision was a historic milestone, and joining such a community was a “strategic” choice, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said when he met Xi, who was making his first visit this year to an Asian nation.
The warm comments followed months of talks on how best to describe ties. In Chinese, the “shared future” phrasing uses a word meaning “destiny”, but is translated in Vietnamese and English as the more prosaic “future”.
Xi has pushed hard for the upgrade in ties, especially after Vietnam elevated the United States in September to the highest tier of its diplomatic ranking, the same as China’s.
As China and the United States vie for influence in the strategic nation, the pacts mark an achievement for Vietnam’s “Bamboo” diplomacy, although analysts and diplomats said the improvement in relations could be more symbolic than real.
Xi’s visit to Vietnam, which is home to a growing number of Chinese manufacturers, is only his fourth overseas this year after trips to Russia, South Africa and the United States.
The pacts signed cover possible investments in rail links and security, as well as three on telecoms and “digital data co-operation”, a list from Vietnamese authorities showed.
Details of the deals have not been revealed, but experts and diplomats said digital economy pacts could pave the way for Chinese support to build a 5G network in Vietnam and investments in undersea infrastructure.
The deals reflect the interests of both sides, said Hung Nguyen, a specialist in supply chain issues at RMIT University Vietnam, as China has recently built an undersea data centre off its southern island of Hainan, while Vietnam wants to develop its infrastructure. (Int’l News Desk)
