Vietnam's new leader, To Lam, has made China his first overseas destination, signaling the Southeast Asian nation's growing importance to its giant neighbor, even as Vietnam strengthens ties with the United States and other countries.
Lam stepped off a Vietnam Airlines plane on a cloudy Sunday morning in Guangzhou, a major manufacturing and export hub near Hong Kong, Chinese state media reported.
She will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during her three-day visit, which comes about two weeks after Lam was confirmed as general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, the country’s highest political position. She succeeds Nguyen Phu Trong, who died last month after 13 years as leader.
Lam has also held the largely ceremonial presidency since May.
The new leader is expected to continue his predecessor's strategy of balancing relations with China, the United States, Russia and other countries, Yu Xiangdong, director of the Institute of Vietnam Studies at China's Zhengzhou University, wrote Saturday in the newspaper Global Times managed by the government.
“The fact that Lam chose China as her first overseas destination since taking office is a sign that Vietnam attaches great importance to its relationship with China,” Yu said in an opinion piece. “But at the same time, judging from experience, the country will absolutely not give the US a cold shoulder.”
Vietnam last year upgraded its ties with the United States and Japan to comprehensive strategic partnerships, the highest designation for the country's diplomatic relations. Relations with China and India also received the same designation.
The United States and its ally Japan have developed closer ties with the communist government of Vietnam – America's former enemy in the Vietnam War – as both countries seek partners in their growing economic and strategic rivalry with China.
When Xi visited Vietnam in December, the two countries announced they would build a “strategically meaningful shared future.” The agreement, described by Chinese state media as improving ties, was seen as a concession by Vietnam, which has previously refused to use the term.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met Lam in Vietnam in June after visiting North Korea in a rare foreign trip for the Russian leader, who has been isolated by many countries over his invasion of Ukraine.
Lam's agenda in Guangzhou includes visiting sites in the southern Chinese city where Vietnam's former communist leader Ho Chi Minh spent time, Chinese state television said. CCTV.
Ho, the founder and first president of communist Vietnam, was in southern China in the 1920s and 1930s as part of the Soviet Union's efforts to expand communism globally.
Despite their long-standing ties as one-party communist states, Vietnam and China have repeatedly clashed over territorial claims in the South China Sea. China also invaded parts of northern Vietnam in 1979.
A Vietnamese coast guard ship recently took part in joint exercises in the Philippines, which has had a series of clashes with China over contested territory in the South China Sea.
Still, Vietnam has benefited economically from Chinese manufacturing investment, which has moved production to the Southeast Asian country to avoid U.S. restrictions on solar panels and other exports from China.
During Xi's visit in December, the two countries signed an agreement to cooperate on a railway project, which could boost trade ties between the two. China is Vietnam's largest trading partner. (ab/lt)
