Washington — Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam visited China to make sure that bilateral ties are on track under his country’s new leadership and to build personal ties with China’s top leaders, experts told VOA.
Lam landed in China on August 18 in his first foreign trip in his new role at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, just two weeks after Lam had been appointed party chief following the sudden passing of his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong.
At the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi reportedly told Lam that China “has always regarded Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy,” while Lam described ties with Beijing as “a top priority in Vietnam’s foreign policy.”
The two leaders witnessed the signing of 14 cooperation documents on topics ranging from cross-border railways to crocodile exports. Xi also promised to widen the market for Vietnam’s agricultural produce.
According to China’s Xinhua News Agency, Xi visited then-party chief Trong in Hanoi late last year to promote the deepening of the two countries’ bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership to a “China-Vietnam community with a shared future.” Xi did not meet Lam, who was then the minister of public security.
This time, Lam and his wife traveled to Beijing with a high-level entourage that included five members of the Politburo, the country’s highest decision-making body, and were greeted at the airport by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Lam was later received by Xi and his wife outside the Great Hall with a 21-cannon salute, the highest level for a head of state.
The next day, he was seen off at the airport by Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong.
The pomp that Beijing arranged for Lam is “indicative of it valuing ties with Hanoi and treating Hanoi as a heavyweight in its neighborhood diplomacy,” Khang Vu, a visiting international relations scholar at Boston College, wrote to VOA in an email.
Apart from Xi, Lam also familiarized himself with other top Chinese leaders during his visit, including Premier Li Qiang, Chairman of the National People’s Congress Zhao Leji, and Chairman of the People’s Political Consultative Conference Wang Huning.
The fact that Lam traveled to China first and early into his party leadership speaks to a relationship that is on track and growing, even though Vietnam had just gone through an abrupt leadership change, Khang observed.
Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Hawaii-based Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, pointed to a possible meeting between Lam and U.S. President Joe Biden next month at the U.N. General Assembly in New York as the main reason Lam wanted to meet with Xi so quickly.
“This is to reassure Beijing of any progress in the Vietnam-U.S. relations and to express Hanoi’s deference to Beijing, which is an important element of Vietnam’s current approach to the great powers,” Vuving told VOA in an email.
Hanoi has made great efforts to strike a balance between the superpowers, an approach famously known as “bamboo diplomacy.” Biden visited Hanoi a year ago to elevate bilateral ties to the highest level — another comprehensive strategic partnership three months before Xi’s arrival in Hanoi.
The fact that Lam’s first foreign trip was to Beijing signifies the great importance Hanoi attaches to ties with its big neighbor, said Sang Huynh, a visiting scholar of international relations at the National University of Taiwan, in an email.
“Hanoi wants to keep the relationship stable, while Beijing is keen to keep Hanoi in its orbit,” he noted. “In general, the relationship is unlikely to take a different trajectory under To Lam.”
Party-to-party ties
Both Lam and Xi are chiefs of the largest communist parties in the world, and party-to-party ties have been exclusively at the core of bilateral ties. The joint declaration issued at the conclusion of the visit stressed the “historic mission” of the two parties to steadfastly pursue the socialist path.
In fact, Lam seized the opportunity on this trip to stress the countries’ shared communist heritage. He kicked off the visit not in Beijing but in Guangzhou, where late Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh, the country’s founder, trained Vietnam’s first communists 100 years ago.
“The stop in Guangzhou is highly symbolic because Vietnam wants to show appreciation for Chinese support a century ago,” Sang said.
Khang noted that party-to-party ties, which have been active since the countries normalized ties in 1991, have played out well in mitigating tension, especially in the South China Sea.
“Hanoi is in a better position than Manila to deal with Beijing,” he observed.
However, Sang noted that Lam is less of an ideologue than Trong, so he is more pragmatic in his approach to China.
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