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The Vietnam News

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Vietnam president visit firms up viet-china relations official

HANOI - President Tran Duc Luong's official friendship visit to China next week reaffirms the two countries' already strong ties, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday. "The visit is to implement high-level bilateral commitments, creating momentum for strengthening mutual trust, cooperation and friendship," said government spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh.

Thanh said the Dec. 25-29 visit, the first to China by Luong and only the second by a Vietnamese head of state since the two countries normalized relations in 1991, comes amid strengthening economic and political ties between the neighbors. During the visit, the two countries will sign a border agreement delineating the Tonkin Gulf, an agreement on fishery cooperation in the gulf, and an agreement on the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, she said. Luong is expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Jiang Zemin, as well as Li Peng, chairman of the Chinese People's National Congress, and Premier Zhu Rongji.

Apart from Beijing, Luong will also tour Shanghai and Fujian province. Relations between the two countries were strained after China punished Vietnam for ousting the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in a brief but bloody border war in 1979. Diplomatic relations were normalized in 1991, and since then, the two countries have regularly exchanged a string of high-level visits. Prime Minister Phan Van Khai went to Beijing in September, while Premier Zhu came to Hanoi in December 1999. Vietnam's most powerful leader, Communist Party Secretary General Le Kha Phieu, visited Beijing in February 1999.

Associated Press - December 21, 2000.