Vietnam special envoy arrives in Beijing, aims to mend damaged ties

A special envoy headed by Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee, started a two-day visit to China on Tuesday, marking the first such visit since the bilateral relationship plummeted in May.

Le Hong Anh, a Political Bureau member and standing secretary of the Secretariat of the CPV Central Committee, met with Wang Jiarui, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Tuesday.

Anh's China visit aimed at discussing measures "to cool down the situation and prevent tensions between the two countries from happening again," Le Hai Binh, spokesperson of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Monday.

Bilateral ties between the two countries have remained strained after China deployed an oil rig in May in the waters of Xisha Islands, which are also claimed by Hanoi.

The waters around the rig witnessed numerous confrontations between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels during the past few months. Simmering anti-China sentiment in Vietnam flared up into full-scale riots in mid-May, inflicting great damage on dozens of foreign enterprises.

Huang Tailai, an independent Chinese scholar based in Ho Chi Minh City, told the Global Times that this visit could serve as a turning point for the Sino-Vietnamese relationship.

However, Duong Danh Dy, Vietnam's former consul general to Guangzhou, told the Global Times that it is neither an ice-breaking visit nor a turning point, as "there are too many issues haunting both sides, and the results of this visit cannot be expected in too positive a way, since it is not a meeting between top leaders."

Among these "haunting issues," how Vietnam compensates for the losses to Chinese enterprises is an immediate one. Miao Renlai, chairman of the China Business Association's Ho Chi Minh City Branch, said there is no major progress after three months.

But Xu Liping, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that one of the major objectives of this visit is to deal with the aftermath of the riots.

"This visit heralds a new start if a meeting of top leaders of both sides ensues," said Xu, calling the visit "late," but still shows that both nations have decided to compromise for the big picture.