Recently, the development of Sino-Vietnamese relations has aroused a lot of attention and discussion.
In fact, as early as September 2017, when the relevant person in charge of the Chinese side visited Vietnam, he proposed that the two sides should further highlight the strategic nature of China-Vietnam relations and jointly build a community with a shared future. In November 2017, after the Chinese head of state paid a state visit to Vietnam, the Sino-Vietnamese joint statement still expressed the "comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership" in China's relations, and did not say that it would build a community with a shared future with China.
In other words, judging from the timeline, it has taken six years for China and Vietnam to reach a consensus on building a "community with a shared future" of strategic significance, which is not easy.
The economic and trade exchanges between China and Vietnam are very deep.
In fact, Vietnam has never hesitated to have in-depth communication with China at the level of the "socialist system", and it has not excluded the construction of a community with a shared future of strategic significance between China and Vietnam.
Speaking of which, we have to mention the United States, as China's "socialist neighbor" and "South China Sea claimant", Vietnam has always been the target of the United States' active wooing, so for Vietnam, how to maximize its own interests between China and the United States is the best choice.
In September 2023, the United States** Biden visited Vietnam, and the US-Vietnam relationship was upgraded from a "comprehensive partnership" to a "comprehensive strategic partnership", skipping the "strategic partnership" - two levels in a row. Of course, we have to look at the fact that the United States is now Vietnam's largest export market and the second largest partner, and it is not a strange thing to escalate relations between the two countries.
Light rail in Vietnam.
However, Vietnam has repeatedly stated that developing relations with China is the top priority of Vietnam's foreign exchanges, and will not allow US-Vietnam relations to surpass China and Vietnam, but this time China-Vietnam bilateral relations are adding a China-Vietnam community with a shared future of strategic significance to the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, which is indeed higher than the "comprehensive strategic partnership" of US-Vietnam relations. However, compared with the intimacy of China-Vietnam relations in the past, which was far ahead of the US-Vietnam relationship, the current China-Vietnam relationship is only slightly ahead of the US-Vietnam relationship.
Clearly, Vietnam is cleverly seizing its position between China and the United States.
From the perspective of the United States, Vietnam is an economic beneficiary of the Sino-US competition and confrontation, and in the process of "decoupling" the United States from China, relevant investment and industries will be transferred to Vietnam, and Vietnam is unlikely to give up these low-hanging fruit "competition dividends". From the perspective of China's factors, it is necessary to convince China that it is only using the United States economically, and that it is not standing with the United States against China.
Not getting close to the United States is not enough to gain benefits, and not building a community with a shared future is not enough to win China's trust. As a result, Vietnam upgraded its relations with China and the United States almost simultaneously, and the means were quite clever.
China-Vietnam relations have a promising future.