The Chinese leader’s visit comes almost two weeks after the United States, the largest export market in the Vietnamese manufacturing industry in the first three months of the year, a tax of 46% on Vietnamese products.
Chinese President Xi Jinping completes this Tuesday a visit to Vietnam intended to tighten the links, especially commercial, with this neighbor, but who was aimed, according to American president Donald Trump, to «entuber» The United States. The Chinese number one deposited at the foot of the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, founder of the Republic of Vietnam, an imposing crown of red flowers bearing its name and a banner in homage “To the great Vietnamese leader, President Ho Chi Minh”deceased in 1969. He also had to attend this Tuesday at the launch of the Vietnam-China rail cooperation, for the construction of a new railway line, which will connect the great northern port of Haiphong and the capital Hanoi in the south of China.
Xi Jinping arrived this Monday in Vietnam, the first stage of a tour in Southeast Asia intended to present Beijing as a reliable ally against an unpredictable American president, who announced and then essentially canceled (except for China) prohibitive customs surcharys. The Chinese leader must leave for Malaysia this Tuesday at the end of the day he stayed until Thursday, before going to Cambodia, a faithful partner of China in Southeast Asia. This Monday, Mr. Xi told the secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party, to Lam, that he wanted to strengthen their bilateral relations and that their countries had to “Jointly oppose intimidation and maintain the stability of the global free trade system”according to a state media.
In the process, Donald Trump estimated to journalists from the White House that the meeting of the two leaders was intended to harm in the United States. “I don’t blame China. I don’t blame Vietnam ”he assured. “I see that they meet today (Monday, Editor’s note)”added the American president. “It’s a great meeting (…) or how to try to find a way to enter the United States”. Vietnam and China signed 45 cooperation agreements on Monday, in particular on supply chains, artificial intelligence (AI), common maritime patrols and rail links.
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Appear as a trusted partner
Xi Jinping’s visit comes almost two weeks after the United States, the largest export market in the Vietnamese manufacturing industry in the first three months of the year, taxed 46% on Vietnamese products. Although customs duties decreed against Vietnam and many other countries have been suspended, China wants to appear as a trusted partner unlike the United States who has launched an all-out commercial offensive (including against their economic partners).
In Hanoi, Xi Jinping denounced protectionism on Monday on Monday “Who does not lead anywhere”. “No winner” cannot emerge from such a commercial conflict, he said, according to the state agency China Nouvelle. Firming links with its southeast Asian neighbors could help Beijing counterbalance the effects of the United States’s commercial offensive, the first importing country of Chinese products in 2024.
Vietnam, directed as China by a communist party, has long been engaged in a “Bamboo diplomacy”which consists in maintaining good relations both with this Asian giant and with Washington. Hanoi and Beijing have close economic relations. They are however disturbed by the territorial disputes which oppose them in the Sea of Southern China, in the archipelago of paracels. Beijing claims almost all of the islets of this sea in the face of other riparian nations (Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia), with competing claims.
