Vietnam, China close to resolving Tonkin Gulf Border HANOI - Vietnam and China are on the verge of concluding an agreement on the demarcation of the disputed Tonkin Gulf, official media reported Monday. Both sides have reached a "fundamental agreement on all practical issues" during a three-day meeting that ended last Thursday, the Vietnam News Agency reported. There are no conflicting claims on the sea border, but its demarcation has proved to be an unwieldy process, causing a delay in reaching an agreement. The two governments had promised to complete demarcation of the Tonkin Gulf, known to the Chinese as the Beibu, by the end of this year. The agreement is expected to be signed during President Tran Duc Luong's visit to Beijing Dec. 25-29. Last year, China and Vietnam signed a historic land border treaty delineating the 1,300-kilometer land border between northern Vietnam and southern China, settling more than 100 areas of dispute. Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to Vietnam last December clinched the land deal. It also 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, the Philippines and Taiwan. Associated Press - December 18, 2000.

Vietnam says agreement close with China on Tonkin Gulf border HANOI - Vietnam and China are close to agreement on the demarcation of their disputed sea border in the Gulf of Tonkin after a fresh round of talks here this week, the official media said Saturday. "Vietnam and China have basically completed the substantial issues" and are on course to meet an end of the month deadline for agreement, the official VNA news agency said. In the three days of talks which closed here Thursday, Vietnamese chief negotiator Le Cong Phung and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi "discussed concrete measures with a view to signing an agreement ... within this year as agreed by their top leaders." Wang was "warmly received" by Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien on Friday, the news agency said. Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong is due to travel to China on December 24 for a five-day visit, although Vietnamese officials have so far declined to confirm that he is due to sign the agreement. Talks between the two communist rivals on their Gulf of Tonkin sea border have dragged on since 1993. Last December, the two sides finally reached a landmark agreement on their disputed land border, 20 years after fighting a brief but bloody war in the wake of Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia. Even after agreement has been reached on the Gulf of Tonkin, the two sides will remain at odds over two archipelagos in the South China Sea where they have fought as recently as the late 1980s. Vietnam and its partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have been holding talks with China on a proposed code of conduct for the disputed Paracel and Spratly islands, so far without success. Beijing holds all of the Paracels but control of the Spratlys is split between no less than five governments. According to a 1996 paper setting out Hanoi's territorial claim, Vietnam controls 20 of the islets, the Philippines eight, China six, Malaysia three and Taiwan one. Brunei also lays claim to part of the archipelago which is hotly contested because of its strategic position on the trade route between northeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe, and the oil reserves which are believed to lie beneath it. Agence France Presse - December 16, 2000.