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Laura Zhou

China and Vietnam are to hold their first high-level ministerial talks under a new platform next week.
This comes as the neighbours seek to cement their strategic alignment despite heightened tensions over Beijing’s purported new land reclamation work in the disputed South China Sea.
According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong and Defence Minister Dong Jun will be in Vietnam from Sunday to Tuesday to meet their respective counterparts.
The talks would mark the first ministerial meeting of the China-Vietnam “3+3” strategic dialogue on diplomacy, defence and public security, foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday.
The 3+3 format was announced last April, when President Xi Jinping met Vietnamese leader To Lam in Hanoi.
China has previously used a similar mechanism – featuring foreign and defence officials – for talks with neighbours such as South Korea and Indonesia.
The expanded mechanism including the security chiefs has been widely seen as a sign of stronger strategic alignment, particularly after Lam, himself a former public security minister, took over as Vietnam’s Communist Party chief in July 2024 following the sudden death of his long-serving predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong.
The meeting comes a week after satellite images circulating on social media suggested that Beijing had started a massive land reclamation project on Antelope Reef in the Paracel Islands.
China took full control of the Paracels, which are claimed by Hanoi, after a conflict with South Vietnam in 1974. They are known as the Xisha Islands in China and Hoang Sa Islands in Vietnam.
In 2012, Beijing established an administrative hub in Woody Island – in the eastern part of the Paracels chain – to oversee its vast claims in the South China Sea. The feature is called Yongxing Island in Chinese.
There has been no official confirmation that land reclamation work is taking place. The Chinese and Vietnamese foreign ministries have been asked for comment.
In recent years, Vietnam has quietly accelerated its own land reclamation works in the Spratly Islands, where China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have overlapping claims. China claims them as the Nansha Islands.




Beijing has made no open criticisms of Hanoi, in stark contrast to the repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine ships around disputed features in the South China Sea that have included the use of water cannons and collisions between ships.
According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Wang is also expected to co-host a meeting with an unnamed Vietnamese leader under a separate cooperation mechanism.
Shortly after Lam secured another term as party chief in January, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung visited Beijing to meet the Chinese leadership, something Xi described as “a testament to the special ‘comrades-plus-brothers’ friendship and high level of political trust” between the two countries.
Amid intensifying great power rivalry, Vietnam has sought to build strong ties with China, while Xi and Lam have both stressed that the two countries’ relationship is a foreign policy priority.
In August 2024, Xi hosted Lam on his first trip abroad after he secured the top leadership role.
After Xi’s Hanoi visit last year, the two sides also pledged to strengthen political and security cooperation to “elevate their strategic mutual trust to a higher level”.


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The two countries have been working to strengthen ties in recent year. Photo: Shutterstock 

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Chinese coastguard personnel patrol the waters around the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing claims as Huangyan Island, in November 2025. Photo: Xinhua

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Antelope Reef, part of the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. Photo: Handout

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Diplomacy

Foreign, defence and public security ministers are to meet after images suggested China had started land reclamation work at Antelope Reef


Foreign, defence and public security ministers are to meet after images suggested China had started land reclamation work at Antelope Reef.


Will Paracels dispute overshadow China and Vietnam’s drive for stronger strategic ties?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Foreign, defence and public security ministers are to meet after images suggested China had started land reclamation work at Antelope Reef

Foreign, defence and public security ministers are to meet after images suggested China had started land reclamation work at Antelope Reef