China’s Xi sends congratulatory note to ‘comrade’ Lam, Vietnam’s new party chief

Telegram from President Xi Jinping, China’s party chief, comes within hours of Vietnamese President To Lam being named to top position

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory telegram to Vietnam’s new party chief To Lam on Saturday, with a call for further efforts to bolster political trust between the two neighbours.

The message was sent hours after Lam, who is the Vietnamese president, was named to the nation’s top position – general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Lam was unanimously elected by the party’s core central committee in Hanoi on Saturday morning.

The 67-year-old career security official replaces Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s longest-serving party chief who died two weeks ago.

Xi, who is also party secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, addressed Lam as “comrade”, a reference highlighting the links between their parties.

“I am ready to work with Comrade General Secretary To Lam to lead the construction of a community of destiny between China and Vietnam,” Xi was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua.

He also pledged to “carry forward the traditional friendship, to consolidate political mutual trust, to deepen strategic communication, to promote practical cooperation [and] to bring more benefits to the people of the two countries.”

Lam, a former public security minister who oversaw Vietnam’s anti-corruption drive, became president in May after a series of leadership shake-ups, with the country’s president and National Assembly chairman facing dismissal from their positions due to alleged links to corruption cases.

Observers expect Lam to maintain stable ties with Beijing and continue Trong’s pragmatic policy of “bamboo diplomacy” – a delicate balancing act between China and the US as the two powers jostle for regional influence, despite a deepening rift with Beijing over maritime claims.

Trong, who had been party chief since 2011, was ailing and died on July 19 aged 80.

In a meeting in Hanoi on July 17, Lam told then outgoing Chinese ambassador Xiong Bo that the two sides should work together to “step up exchanges at all levels, [and] consolidate political trust … so as to better manage disputes”.

Developing ties with China was “always a consistent policy, a strategic choice, and a top priority in Vietnam’s foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, and multilateralisation, and diversification”, Lam told Xiong, according to the official Vietnam News Agency.

The two countries on Friday wrapped up two weeks of joint anti-terrorism drills, as part of their latest efforts to bolster trust.

The drills in the Chinese border region of Guangxi were the first such exercise between the People’s Armed Police Force – a paramilitary organisation primarily responsible for China’s internal security – and Vietnam’s Mobile Police Force, the public security ministry’s tactical unit and paramilitary arm once headed by Lam.

To improve mutual trust and collaboration capabilities, mixed teams of Chinese and Vietnamese personnel carried out training in simulated scenarios to tackle terrorist threats in urban and natural terrains, including residential buildings, forests and rivers.

Participants were also placed in scenarios generated in an immersive mixed-reality platform, putting on virtual reality headsets for real-life training.

A number of unmanned equipment and arms were also used during the drills, including small aerial drones, robotic dogs and unmanned ground vehicles.

This was “so that participants from the two sides could strengthen research and practice in the fields of unmanned and intelligence technologies”, one of the Chinese commanding officers told state-owned CGTN’s national defence channel.

While leaders in Beijing and Hanoi have repeatedly called for further efforts to deepen cooperation and enhance political mutual trust, tensions have emerged from time to time over contesting claims in the South China Sea.

Both countries are among rival claimants to the Spratly Islands – which China calls the Nansha Islands – as well as the Paracels archipelago, called the Xisha Islands by China and Hoang Sa Islands by Vietnam.

Last month, Hanoi filed a submission with the United Nations to seek formal validation of the outer boundaries of its legal continental shelf beyond the 200-nautical mile (370km) limit and extending into the contested area.

This came after the Philippines, another claimant to the Spratlys and a US treaty ally, filed a similar request in June seeking to confirm the extent of its continental seabed in the western part of Palawan province, which overlaps with Beijing’s claims to much of the South China Sea.

Both Manila and Hanoi are the most vocal critics of China’s expansive claims in the strategic waterway.

However, Beijing appears to have refrained from criticising Hanoi’s steadily expanding land reclamation in the Spratly Islands in recent months, even as it has been engaged in fierce confrontations with Manila over resupply missions to a contested reef in the Spratlys.

The difference in approaches has given rise to speculation over whether China is trying to avoid a new crisis with another rival at sea, after the US has repeatedly reaffirmed its treaty obligations to defend the Philippines.

By Laura Zhou – The South China Morning Post – August 3, 2024