President Xi Jinping has called for China and Vietnam to develop stronger economic and trade ties, as both nations seek to shore up core economic relationships in the face of the Trump administration’s recently announced tariffs.
Xi arrived in Hanoi yesterday for a two-day state visit, part of a regional tour that will also take him to Malaysia and Cambodia later this week.
While Xi’s visit was likely arranged prior to the announcement of President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs, the incipient global trade war has overshadowed the state visit. The Trump administration has imposed a gargantuan 145 percent tariff on all Chinese imports to the U.S., while Vietnam is negotiating a reduction of the 46 percent tariff that Trump imposed on the country during his “Liberation Day” announcement on April 2. The tariff on Vietnam is said to go into effect in July.
In an editorial jointly published yesterday in Vietnamese and Chinese official media, Xi directly addressed the issue, arguing that “there are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war.”
He added, “Our two countries should resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”
After arriving in Hanoi, Xi met with To Lam, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. After the meeting, the two countries signed “about 45” cooperation agreements, Vietnamese state media reported. The content of the agreements was not disclosed, although news agencies that reviewed footage of the physical agreements said that they included deals on enhancing supply chains and environmental protection.
State media reports also suggest that one of the agreements involved the expedition of an $8 billion railway connecting the two countries, which was approved by Vietnam’s National Assembly in February. Lam also said that he wished technological cooperation to become the “highlight” of the two countries’ relationship, suggesting that this may also have been the focus of some of the agreements signed.
The importance of the state visit was clear from the extent of the pageantry surrounding the visit and the fact that Xi was received at the airport by no less than the Vietnamese President Luong Cuong. Writing on X, Nga Pham, a journalist and long-time Vietnam watcher, described this as a “special privileged welcome showing that Hanoi places great importance on the visit.” She noted that when Russia’s President Vladimir Putin visited Hanoi last year, he was met only by a deputy prime minister.
Xi’s visit was attended by soaring encomia to the bilateral relationship, which padded out the Chinese and Vietnamese state media reporting on the trip. In a statement after his arrival, the Chinese leader said that the two nations shared “a deep friendship between not just two brothers, but also two comrades,” referring to the “brotherly CPV.” In his comments to Xi, Lam said that the CPV and the Vietnamese government “consistently regard the development of relations with China as an objective necessity, a strategic choice and a top priority in Viet Nam’s foreign policy.”
From China’s perspective, the trip was clearly intended to capitalize on the Trump administration’s disruptive trade actions and present itself as a predictable partner that, in addition to being geographically proximate to Vietnam, shares political, ideological, cultural, and historical affinities that cannot be sundered.
The honors accorded to Xi in Hanoi can likewise be interpreted as a message to Washington that Vietnam will never agree to sever its economic relationship with China. To be sure, there are limits to Vietnam’s partnership with China, too – and as Khang Vu argued in an article for The Diplomat last week, there is no reason to believe that the country will deviate from the diversified and omnidirectional foreign policy that has served it well since the end of the Cold War. This still prizes warm relations with the U.S., and a continued desire for Washington to act as an economic and security counterweight to China.
However, for all of the disagreements and tensions in the China-Vietnam relationship, any American hope that Vietnam might be induced to join some sort of U.S.-led China containment coalition was always a pipe-dream, for reasons lying in the country’s proximity to China and the massive asymmetry of power that the latter enjoys. This may be a lesson that Trump’s trade negotiators will have to relearn during the talks that take place with their Vietnamese counterparts in the days and weeks to come.
For his part, Trump interpreted the meeting between the two Asian leaders as a sign they were attempting to conspire against the U.S. on trade issues. “I don’t blame China. I don’t blame Vietnam. I don’t. I see they’re meeting today. Is that wonderful?” he told reporters at the White House. “That’s a lovely meeting … like trying to figure out, how do we screw the United States of America.”
