Xi Jinping says China, Vietnam should resolve their disputes ‘properly’

Nations should ‘continue to strengthen mutual political trust … spread Sino-Vietnamese friendship’, Xi says in telephone call to Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong

Despite long-running territorial clashes, China and Vietnam are this year celebrating 70 years of diplomatic ties

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) told Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong on Thursday the two nations should strengthen political trust. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 9:15pm, 16 Jan 2020Updated: 3:30pm, 17 Feb 2020

China and Vietnam should deepen their relationship and seek to resolve their disputes “properly”, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Vietnamese counterpart, President Nguyen Phu Trong, on Thursday as the two nations remain locked in a territorial clash over the South China Sea.

“We have to continue to strengthen mutual political trust, spread the traditional Sino-Vietnamese friendship and deepen the roots of our relations, while also focusing on the big picture to handle and solve our disputes properly in the long run,” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying in a telephone call to Nguyen.

Despite their tumultuous relationship, which included a prolonged border war that ran from 1979 to 1990, China and Vietnam are this year celebrating 70 years of diplomatic ties.

According to Xinhua, Nguyen told Xi that: “Vietnam hopes to strengthen mutual political trust and exchange governing experience with China, push forward more economic cooperation, build support from the public on friendly cooperation, and expand communication on multiple levels.”

Tensions between Beijing and Hanoi rose in July, when the Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 entered an area of the South China Sea where they have overlapping claims, sparking their worst stand-off in years.

The ship sailed close to Vanguard Bank, the westernmost reef in the resource-rich Spratly Island chain, which sits within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone but which Beijing says falls within the “nine-dash line” it uses to claim sovereignty over about 90 per cent of the disputed waterway.

Vietnam was upset by the presence of a Chinese survey ship inside its exclusive economic zone. Photo: China Geological Survey

Although those tensions eased after the Chinese ship left the area in late September, relations between the two countries are set to face a new challenge this year as Vietnam takes over as chairman of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).