Opinion | Once comrades and brothers, China and Vietnam are going their own way down the socialist path
Cary Huang says bilateral relations may become complicated over very different readings of Marxist orthodoxy, creating further suspicion and distrust, especially in the political arena
They are two among only a handful of nations to have survived the worldwide collapse of socialism in the 1990s.
But their common bond with Karl Marx does not always extend to bilateral relations. However, as President Xi Jinping (習近平) told visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc last week: “The communist leadership and socialist system are our greatest common strategic interests.”
Can China’s charm offensive mend its fractured ties with communist neighbour Vietnam?
Bilateral relations between the neighbours, once “both comrades and brothers” as late Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh put it, have been turbulent, despite their common socialist background. Mutual suspicion and distrust go back a long way, to before the birth of communism.