~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

[Year 1997]
[Year 1998]
[Year 1999]
[Year 2000]
[Year 2001]

Vietnam, China To Speed Tonkin Gulf Demarcation

HANOI - Vietnam and China will speed up negotiations on their Gulf of Tonkin sea border and conclude demarcation this year, a Vietnamese newspaper reported Friday. The agreement came Wednesday during talks between Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Manh Cam in Beijing, said the Vietnam News, the official English-language daily. Cam was in China to attend the 11th Annual Corporate Conference of the China Asia Society.

In 1997, the two sides agreed to complete demarcation of waters of the Tonkin Gulf, known to the Chinese as the Beibu, by 2000. Zhu told Cam that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China had ratified a historic land border agreement that the two countries signed Dec. 30, 1999, the newspaper reported. Subject to seven years of negotiations, it delineated the 1,300-kilometer border between northern Vietnam and southern China, settling more than 100 areas of dispute.

Zhu's visit to Vietnam in December, the latest high-level exchange between the two nations, clinched the land deal. This marked an important step in improving the often-strained relations between the two communist neighbors. China launched a brief but bloody border war in 1979 to punish Vietnam for ousting the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. After more than a decade-long chill in relations, ties were normalized in 1991 and have since recovered steadily. But the two countries still have conflicting claims in the South China Sea to the Spratly and Paracel island groups which are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Taiwan. China's and Vietnam's navies skirmished over the Spratlys, believed to be rich in oil and mineral deposits, in 1988.

But in Hanoi this week Vietnamese and Chinese negotiators discussed the possibility of starting cooperative projects in hydro-meteorology to help maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea. The talks "took place in a friendly, frank and constructive atmosphere," a Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.

Associated Press - May 12, 2000.