Vietnamese President To Lam. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

China said Vietnamese President To Lam will visit for three days from Sunday, on his first overseas trip since he was formally named his country’s top leader.

“Vietnamese President To Lam will pay a state visit to China from August 18 to 20,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement Thursday, adding Chinese President Xi Jinping had invited him.

China and Vietnam pledged to deepen bilateral ties when Mr. Xi visited the country last December, his first time there in six years.

That visit came after Vietnam and the United States upgraded diplomatic ties during U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit in September.

Now Mr. Lam will meet with Mr. Xi, Premier Li Qiang, and other officials in a sign of “the high importance he attaches to developing relations between the two parties and countries”, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

Vietnam has long pursued a “bamboo diplomacy” approach, striving to stay on good terms with both China and the United States.

It shares U.S. concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea, but it also has close economic ties with China.

The visit comes with tensions in the South China Sea high after a series of confrontations between the Philippines and China over the disputed Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals.

Vietnam, along with Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, also have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims most of.

China hopes the visit will help the two sides “deepen the construction of the China-Vietnam community with a shared future” and “make positive contributions to regional and world peace, stability, and development”.

Vietnam and China, both ruled by communist parties, already share a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, Vietnam’s highest diplomatic status.