On December 1, 2023, Chinese Foreign Minister and Politburo member Wang Yi visited Vietnam and met the Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong, trying to ensure Sino-Vietnamese cooperation in all economic areas and to enhance bilateral relations in the aspects of promoting peace and mutual development. Wang Yi’s visit is politically important because it symbolizes not only China’s diplomacy of forging socialist brotherhood with Vietnam but also the necessary preparatory work for President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to Vietnam.

Vietnam and China held the 15^th meeting of the Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi on December 1, during which Wang Yi and the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang jointly convened the meeting.

Wang said that 2023 is the year marking the 15^th anniversary of the establishment of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Vietnam. Under this partnership, both sides have developed closer cooperation and their socialist causes have entered an important stage.

Wang remarked that, in face of a world filled with changes and chaos, China and Vietnam should stay firm to their original aspirations by remaining united, steadfastly following the path of peace, cooperation and development, and promoting human progress and boosting the strength of socialism.

He added that both sides should retain high-level communications, consolidate cooperation in the areas of national defence and public security, and build a stable logistic supply chain system. Moreover, Wang remarked that both countries should work together to safeguard international justice, peace, and multilateralism. 

Finally, Wang expressed his hope that both sides would follow their high-level consensus by managing differences through friendly dialogue and consultation, deepening maritime cooperation, and safeguarding “hard-won pace and stability” in the South China Sea.

In response, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang said that, as “a comrade and brother,” Vietnam supports China in protecting regional and world peace and stability. He remarked that both sides have maintained close high-level dialogue, deepened political trust, and made progress in the areas of trade, investment, transport, science and technology, agriculture, environmental protection, tourism, and education.

Quang also pointed to the need for both countries to effectively manage differences and work toward the consultative process of formulating a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea so that peace and cooperation will be ascertained.

China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner after the Covid era, investing US$1.3 billion in 233 projects in the country during the first six months of 2023. Overall, China has now 3,791 projects in Vietnam, amounting to US$25 billion. In 2022, bilateral trade turnover between the two countries reached US$175.6 billion, with Vietnamese exports fetching up to US$57.7 billion, according to the data of the Vietnam customs.

China became Vietnam’s largest importer of agricultural, forestry and aquaculture products in the first ten months of 2023. Chinese investment in Vietnam has recently focused on digital economy and green growth, reaching a memorandum of understanding on the promotion of trade and development under the framework of Two Corridors, One Belt as a part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Officials of both countries have discussed how some projects could improve their cooperation to meet their expectations, especially the slow speed of some projects conducted with the aid from China.

In July 2023, Wang Yi met the Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son in Jakarta. Both sides at that time affirmed the need to cooperate closely in trade and investment, especially the eastern line of the Trans-Asian Railway, China’s willingness to import more Vietnamese goods, and the Chinese support of Vietnam to participate in the China-ASEAN Expo and China International Import Expo.

Obviously, both sides are eager to deepen economic and all other areas of cooperation while putting down their differences in territorial issues, especially their territorial claims in the South China Sea. 

In March 2021, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry complained that Chinese vessels at the Whitsun Reef, which Hanoi calls Da Ba Dau, had “infringed on its sovereignty.” China said it has historical sovereignty over some of the waterways, but its neighbours and the US have argued that the Chinese claims had no basis in international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to which China is a signatory. 

Wang Yi in April 2021 made a phone call to his counterpart Bui Thanh Son, saying that both countries stuck to the leadership of the communist parties and to their socialist cause, and that both sides belonged to a community with a shared future of strategic significance. 

Again, the appeal to ideological commonality and solidarity served as a valuable tool for both sides to keep calm heads despite their differences in territorial claims.

In fact, China has been working with Vietnam to minimize their territorial differences by holding joint patrols between their navies and coast guards in the Gulf of Tonkin in November and December 2023.

As early as September 2021, Wang Yi told the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh that the two countries must cherish their “hard-won peace and stability” in the South China Sea and that both must resist the intervention of “extraterritorial forces.” Wang’s frequent reference to “hard-won peace and stability” was a hallmark in his meetings with the Vietnamese leaders, while the call for fending off external intervention appealed to Vietnam to be vigilant of the “instigation” from external forces.

During the apex of Covid-19 in 2021, China donated 5.7 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Vietnam – a gesture of goodwill to win the hearts and minds of socialist brother Vietnam.

In May 2020 Wang Yi and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh co-chaired a ceremony to mark the 20^th anniversary of the signing of the Vietnam-China Land Border Treaty at Mong Cai International Border Gate in the northern province of Quang Ninh – an event that marked the good neighbouring relations and harmonious borderland management between the two countries. The treaty had been signed in 1999 after many years of border negotiations and demarcations from both sides under the principles of equality, mutual respect, and valid concern over each other’s interests on the basis of legal framework and international law.

China has had strong ties with Vietnam since they established diplomatic relations in 1950. Despite the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979, both sides have returned to economic pragmatism since then and have been making great efforts at improving relations steadily and successfully.

Wang Yi’s trip to Vietnam is regarded as a preparatory move for President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vietnam between December 14 and 16, 2023. 

The Vietnamese Communist Party’s General Secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, had visited Beijing on October 31, 2022. President Xi at that time met him, introducing to Trong the gist of the 20^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, praising Vietnam’s achievements in socialist construction, and appealing to both sides to develop socialism as “the correct political direction” amid turbulence in international transformation.

In response, Trong affirmed the need for both countries to enhance mutual cooperation, ensured the continuation of Vietnam’s “one China policy,” and said Vietnam would not form any military alliance to use force against another country. The cordial relations between Vietnam and China were reaffirmed.

In recent years, Vietnam has elevated its relations with the US to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” level, just like the situation with China, India, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. 

While South Korea has appeared to diversify its relations and minimize its economic dependence on China by shifting its investment and trade relations with Vietnam, Japan has been traditionally a close trade and economic partner of Vietnam. 

Witnessing the American, South Korean, and Japanese enhancement of their economic relations with Vietnam, China has sensed the necessity of cementing Beijing’s bilateral relations with Hanoi to check and balance the enhanced US-South Korea-Japan relations with Vietnam.

It can be anticipated that President Xi’s visit to Vietnam will enhance Sino-Vietnamese ties in all aspects, including the stability of the logistic supply chain, the creation of a favourable environment for Chinese investment in Vietnam, greater cooperation in e-commerce and digital economy, research and development in science and technology, educational and cultural exchanges, green development and climate change cooperation, the protection of water resources along the Lancang-Mekong River, and cross-border tourism. Most importantly, President Xi will likely reiterate the socialist brotherhood of the two countries in their mutual development, cooperation and peaceful relations.

Wang Yi’s recent stress on the mutual acceleration in the consultation over the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and on the need to make the South China Sea a sea of peace and cooperation can be seen as the strongest indication that Beijing is eager to achieve regional peace and dialogue with Vietnam over territorial issues and claims. Interestingly, the response from Wang’s counterpart, Bui Thanh Son, was that the Vietnamese side was willing to support the building of a community with a shared future for humankind – a socialist tone that shares much in common with China’s constant emphasis on the need to reach the common destiny of the humankind.

As such, the appeal to ideological affinity and solidarity has become a crucial and common theme in the consolidation of Sino-Vietnamese relations, despite their differences in territorial claims. Both sides are pragmatic enough to explore how to strengthen all other areas of cooperation, culturally, economically, technologically, environmentally, and educationally.

In conclusion, Wang Y’s visit to Vietnam is a crucial one pointing to the continuous improvement of Sino-Vietnamese relations in the realm of economic, technological, infrastructural, educational, environmental, and cultural cooperation. Despite their differences in some territorial claims, the Chinese and Vietnamese leaders have pragmatically put them aside and utilized the ideological commonality of socialist brotherhood to minimize, dilute and manage their territorial differences, while propelling their bilateral relations to a new height. As such, economic pragmatism and ideological brotherhood are the prevailing characteristics and the defining dual features of Sino-Vietnamese relations. An apex in Sino-Vietnamese relations can undoubtedly be expected later when the Chinese President Xin Jinping will visit Vietnam.