Letters | Vietnamese leader’s China visit highlights importance of local diplomacy
- Readers discuss Hanoi-Beijing relations, and China’s energy strategy.
Yet, Lam’s first stop in China wasn’t its capital, Beijing. He began his trip in Guangzhou, meeting the Guangdong party secretary and encouraging the province’s firms to expand investment in Vietnam.
While the province does not border Vietnam, Guangdong accounts for 20 per cent of Sino-Vietnamese trade, thanks in part to the vibrancy of its firms. The province’s economic weight in Vietnam is poised to strengthen as Chinese firms partially relocate production to the country and rely on proximate suppliers across the border.
In a survey of Chinese firms that invest in Vietnam, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry found that 59 per cent of these firms relied on home country suppliers, 15 percentage points higher than other types of firms.
This type of local economic diplomacy is not limited to Guangdong alone. Across the border in northern Lao Cai province, traditionally a mountainous and agricultural area, local leaders have lobbied both Hanoi and the Chinese authorities to develop the region as a trade hub. Lao Cai proposed a pilot cross-border e-commerce zone as a bridge between Vietnam and the Chinese market and its officials met those from Yunnan, just across the border, to cooperate on industrial estates this year.