Vietnam’s omission from Chinese foreign minister’s Southeast Asia tour tells a story, observers say

Wang Yi has visited nine of the 10 Asean countries in recent months, but tensions with Beijing made Hanoi a no-go zone, according to the experts

As the only Southeast Asian nation to take on Beijing over the South China Sea and management of the Mekong River, Vietnam has become a focal point in the tensions between the US and China

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has visited every Asean nation except Vietnam in the past few months. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 7:00pm, 16 Jan 2021Updated: 5:45am, 17 Jan 2021

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrapped up his latest trip to Southeast Asia on Saturday, during which he sought to stabilise relations in the region ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president. But of the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Wang has visited in recent months, one was conspicuously missing: Vietnam.

It is hardly a coincidence, according to diplomatic observers, as China has moved Asean up in its foreign policy priorities in recent months in the midst of its spiralling geopolitical rivalry with the US, Europe and America’s allies and partners in Asia-Pacific.

China and Vietnam have clashed in the South China Sea. Photo: Reuters

Observers say Wang skipping Vietnam lays bare the growing antagonism and tensions between the old Communist allies over their South China Sea dispute, which have been compounded by the US factor and uncertainties over internal power politics in Hanoi.

While Asean overtook the European Union as China’s top trading partner last year, Vietnam replaced Germany as China’s sixth-largest trading partner, thanks to the surging two-way trade between Beijing and Hanoi despite strained political ties and the coronavirus pandemic.

However, according to Zhang Mingliang, a Southeast Asian affairs expert at Jinan University in Guangzhou, Vietnam was the first Asean nation to move to reject Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies and close its China border in the wake of the pandemic.