Vietnam prime minister to visit China september 25-28
HANOI - Vietnam's Prime Minister Phan Van
Khai will visit communist neighbor China from September 25 to 28, both Foreign
Ministries said on Tuesday.
Vietnam's Lao Dong (Labor) newspaper also said President Tran Duc Luong
would make an official visit to China at the end of the year, but gave no dates.
The trips will come before and after a historic visit to Hanoi by U.S President Bill
Clinton planned for mid-November, the first by a U.S. president since the Vietnam
War and the first ever to Hanoi.
Lao Dong quoted ambassador to China Bui Hong Phuc as saying Khai's talks in
Beijing with Premier Zhu Rongji would focus on boosting economic and trade ties.
His visit comes after the Communist neighbors have resolved land border disputes.
The two countries sealed a land border agreement covering some 70 disputed
areas and have said they hoped to resolve territorial issues in the Tonkin Gulf by
the end of this year.
The countries fought a brief but bloody war in 1979 after China invaded northern
Vietnam in response to Hanoi's invasion of Cambodia in late 1978. They have also
skirmished periodically over overlapping claims in the South China Sea.
Analysts say Hanoi's policy makers would see the Beijing visits as a means of
maintaining balance in their foreign relations given the planned Clinton visit and of
not appearing to lean too closely to any large power.
As if to underline this, in a speech on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen
Manh Cam hailed Vietnam's victory over "imperialist America" in the Vietnam War
and accused the United States of using "inhumane" tactics during the war.
Reuters - September 19, 2000.
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