Xi’s visit, widely billed as a bid to mend frayed bilateral ties, came at a delicate diplomatic juncture.
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Xi said during their talks after the ceremony that the two parties and two countries should enhance their high-level exchanges and mutual trust.
The two peoples of China and Vietnam, “drinking the water from the same river, and seeing each other day and night”, have the same history of fighting against colonialism and the prospect for building a more prosperous nation, Xi said.
Favorable development of bilateral relations, Xi said, has not only benefited the two countries and their peoples, but also contributed to the peace, stability and prosperity of the region.
Xi described Baijing-Hanoi relations as strategic, saying both countries are capable of dispelling “disruptions” in their friendly ties.
Singapore has become China’s largest investor, excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan, with a cumulative total of $72 billion.
Willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with China, Vietnam is ready to promote collaboration with China in all areas, he said.
Xi said in March that the Belt and Road initiative and the AIIB are open to all. “Singapore understands that trying to put pressure on China in a summit meeting may not be a good idea”.
Dung said Vietnam stands ready to join efforts with China to properly address their differences. But there’s been a bit less publicity about another stop the China’s leader is making before that. Days before Xi’s arrival in Hanoi, Washington dispatched a warship to within 12 nautical miles of one of China’s new artificial islands in the contested Spratly Islands.
According to Xu Liping, a senior researcher in Southeast Asian affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Xi’s visit will play an essential role in reshaping relations between the two countries.
While China has denied ” militarizing” the reefs and islands it controls in the South China Sea, the country has acknowledged “a limited amount of necessary military facilities for defense purposes only”.
Chinese enterprises have also invested in many major projects in Vietnam.
The talks may break a few new ground in security cooperation.
Under the agreement, the STB will curate and distribute information on Singapore’s tourism over the next two to three years and provide real-time location-based services to Chinese tourists via mobile devices.
Singaporean President Tan visited China from late June to early July.
The number of Chinese visitors continued to increase by 19 percent year-on-year between January and August this year. Vietnam is the first leg of Xi’s two-nation Asia tour, which will also take him to Singapore Friday.
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The article went public as Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, arrived in Hanoi for his first state visit to the country at the invitation of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong and Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.
