Vietnam, China agree to hotline: ministry
AFP – Saturday, March 21
HANOI (AFP) – - Vietnam and China have officially agreed to set up a hotline between leaders of the two countries, which fought a war in 1979, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The agreement was signed after a meeting between visiting Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo and Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem in Hanoi on Thursday, officials said.
A top Vietnamese communist party member reached agreement to establish the hotline last June during a tour of China.
Both sides also agreed to focus on solving sea border issues and to “work closely to overcome difficulties” during the global economic slowdown, the ministry said Friday.
They “agreed to further focus their talks on sea issues to maintain peace and stability… aiming for basic, sustainable and acceptable solutions,” it said.
Despite the demarcation late December of their long-disputed land border, territorial tensions remain, particularly over the sovereignty of the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos in the South China Sea, claimed by both sides.
On Tuesday Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said his country “was closely monitoring” a Chinese fishing ship in the area.
One week ago Hanoi complained about an authorisation given by China for a tourism firm to begin tours to an island in the Paracel.
Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry said two-way trade with China hit a record high of more than 20 billion dollars last year despite the global economic crisis. Both sides will strive to raise that figure to 25 billion by 2010 while gradually balancing two-way trade, it said.
Vietnam also said China would grant it 300 million dollars in loans at preferential conditions.
The two nations plan to celebrate “Friendship Year” in 2010, but Vietnam’s population remains distrustful of its big neighbour’s territorial ambitions.
The politics of Beijing in the South China Sea regularly inflames blogs and private conversations in Vietnam, and even gave rise to rare demonstrations in Hanoi and southern Ho Chi Minh City in late 2007 and early 2008.
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