Xi Jinping Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Vietnam’s Communist Party Chief – The Diplomat

The top of Vietnam’s communist occasion has been obtained with uncommon ranges of pomp and ceremony throughout his three-day state go to to Beijing, throughout which China’s chief Xi Jinping mentioned the 2 ruling events ought to “by no means let anybody intervene” with their progress.

In line with state media reviews from each international locations, China yesterday obtained Nguyen Phu Trong and his delegation with the uncommon gesture of a 21-gun salute on his arrival for a three-day go to. Trong and Xi Jinping then shook palms and embraced earlier than collaborating in a televised welcome ceremony in Beijing’s Nice Corridor of the Individuals, towards a subject of outsized Chinese language, Vietnamese, and communist occasion flags.

Trong is the primary overseas chief to greet Xi Jinping since he received a mold-breaking third five-year time period in energy on the twentieth Nationwide Congress of the Chinese language Communist Get together (CCP) final month. The 2 occasion leaders met final again in November 2017, when Xi visited Vietnam to attend the APEC Summit in Danang.

As one observer noted on Twitter, the Vietnamese delegation that accompanied Trong was not solely unusually massive, “however dominated by officers concerned within the occasion and nationwide safety affairs.” These reportedly included each Minister of Public Safety To Lam and Protection Minister Phan Van Giang.

Notably, Xi additionally awarded his Vietnamese counterpart the Friendship Medal of the PRC, which based on the state-run World Occasions, “is bestowed on foreigners who’ve made excellent contributions to China’s socialist modernization, the promotion of alternate and cooperation between China and overseas international locations.”

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The ambiance of mutual regard took on strategic overtones in Xi’s feedback to Trong, throughout which he mentioned that Vietnam, China, and their respective ruling communist events ought to stand agency towards overseas (i.e. U.S.) interference

“The event of the reason for human progress is a protracted and tortuous course of, and the event of socialist international locations faces a really difficult worldwide setting and severe dangers and challenges,” Xi reportedly mentioned, based on the state broadcaster CCTV.

“The Chinese language and Vietnamese events ought to persist in working for the happiness of the folks and the progress of mankind, push ahead socialist modernization with all their would possibly, and by no means let anybody intervene with our progress or let any power shake the institutional basis of our growth.”

Chinese language state media drove the purpose residence by opining that the particular relationship between Vietnam and China, rooted of their party-to-party ties, was “past sure international locations’ comprehension.” This was an apparent veiled reference to the U.S., which it accused of making an attempt “to drive a wedge between China and Vietnam,” including that this effort “hasn’t obstructed mutually useful cooperation between China and Vietnam.”

In the meantime, Vietnamese state media reported that Trong’s journey to Beijing would convey bilateral relations “to a brand new stage of growth.”

All of those feedback ought to be taken with a grain of salt, as a part of the rituals that accompany party-to-party relations between the 2 communist neighbors. The florid ceremonials would nonetheless be curious for anybody liable to viewing the rising strategic competitors between China and the USA in starkly binary phrases.

As I famous final week, regardless of the 2 nations’ maritime and territorial disputes within the South China Sea, and a historical past of resistance to Chinese language energy that infuses Vietnamese nationalism, the 2 governments are nonetheless sure by a number of shared pursuits. Leaving apart the claims to everlasting socialist brotherhood, Vietnam is enmeshed in China-centered provide chains, and the 2 communist events share a standard need to protect their rule within the face of what each understand as Western-led efforts at regime change or modification.

After all, this week’s mutual reward does nothing to override the big areas of disagreement within the relationship. However it’s a reminder that at a time when many in each China and the West are adopting monochrome views of strategic competitors, Vietnam’s relationship with China stays a complicated mash of grey.