Vietnam : for president To Lam, developing relations with China is “absolute priority”
Lam highlighted the « friendship » between the two countries, adding that her trip to China last month and President Xi Jinping’s visit to Hanoi in December « have established a new positioning for bilateral relations.
Vietnam considers the development of relations with China to be of « absolute priority », said the president and leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party, To Lam, after receiving the credentials of the new Chinese ambassador to Hanoi, He Wei Lam highlighted the “friendship” between the two countries, the Vietnam News Agency reported, adding that her trip to China last month and the visit of President Donald Trump to Hanoi Xi Jinping in December “established a new positioning for bilateral relations, contributing to practical benefits for the two countries and to the maintenance of peace, stability and development in the region and the world”.
He Wei arrived in the Southeast Asian country last week to succeed Xiong Bo, who left Hanoi late last month after a six-year tenure. A career diplomat, He Wei served in the Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Department and the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines before becoming a counselor at China’s diplomatic missions in Trinidad and Tobago and later India. He also spent 14 months as consul general in Toronto from 2017 to 2018. In 2013, he was appointed deputy head of the Foreign Ministry’s Border and Ocean Affairs Department.
While Xi has called Vietnam a “priority” interlocutor in Beijing’s diplomacy, the Southeast Asian country is also one of Beijing’s main rivals in the South China Sea. In an effort to consolidate its presence in the waters, Vietnam has quietly but dramatically accelerated the cleanup of several disputed reefs, including Barque Canada, also claimed by the Philippines, China and Malaysia. The atoll has become Vietnam’s largest outpost in the disputed Spratly archipelago and has the potential to host a 3.000-meter runway like those China has built on the artificial islands of Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi Reefs, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Agenzia Nova – September 19, 2024