• by IPS Correspondents (beijing)
• Saturday, November 19, 1994
• Inter Press Service

BEIJING, Nov 19 (IPS) - Chinese President Jiang Zemin's three-day visit to Vietnam scheduled to begin Saturday is being touted both by Beijing and Hanoi as a watershed in the three years of a revitalised -- but still tenuous relationship -- between the two communist powers.

Jiang will be the first Chinese head of state to visit Vietnam since the two nations agreed to set aside their differences and normalise relations following the signing of the Cambodian peace pact in Paris three years ago.

Since then, China and Vietnam, by turn the closest of allies and the bitterest of enemies, have tried to define new associations for a world in which economics rule and ideology must be soft- pedalled.

With the magic of the socialist solidarity mantra all but lost, Beijing and Hanoi find more succor in capitalist notions like the stock market and foreign investments than Marxist platitudes.

For China, Vietnam offers an important gateway for the Chinese goods to flow into the newly rich economies of South East Asia. For Vietnam, China is seen as a potential investor in its impoverished northern provinces as well as a valuable trading partner.

"They don't want to establish some closed, inward-looking socialist alliance," observes a diplomat in Beijing. "They want this to be a normal, state-to-state relationship."

China and Vietnam have now begun the practical task of re- establishing trade, travel and communications links that were shattered by the bitterness of the 1970s, when Hanoi drifted from Beijing toward the then Soviet Union.

The two countries split openly in 1978 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and ousted the Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge. The Chinese continued to aid the Khmer Rouge and other guerrilla groups fighting the Vietnamese-installed Cambodian government.

It took the signing of the 1991 Cambodian peace pact to open the way for improved ties between China and Vietnam.

Experts say both countries, especially China, is anxious to highlight Jiang's Nov. 19-21 visit as an important diplomatic milestone. Thus, chronic Beijing-Hanoi problems will be downplayed when Jiang meets senior Vietnamese leaders. Says another diplomat here: "They are being very correct."

But differences between China and Vietnam continue to persist. Jiang visits Hanoi amid a heightening standoff between China and Vietnam over resource-rich islands in the South China Sea.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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