n d manh visit china
reuters 9dec1
Tuesday December 4, 3:01 PM
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh wound up a visit to China on Tuesday seen as part of Beijing's efforts to dispel fears its growing ecomomic might will sink its smaller neighbours.
The five-day trip, Manh's first to China since becoming party general secretary in April, was one of a series of high-level visits by the Communist neighbours to boost ties, resolve disputes and swap experiences on economic reform.
"It's strategic," said Carl Thayer, a regional security analyst based in Hawaii. "This is just a further demonstration of the seriousness with which China is wooing the nations of Southeast Asia, including Vietnam."
Beijing has cranked up diplomatic and economic links with region in recent years and agreed with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in November to work towards a free trade area within 10 years.
"They've gone to the big and mighty and the small and not so powerful in Southeast Asia. Although there are points of friction with Vietnam they have not let that get in the way," Thayer said.
In 1979, the two countries fought a brief but brutal border war after Vietnam invaded Cambodia to oust the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge.
The two remain at odds over territory in the South China Sea, including the potentially oil-rich Spratly archipelago, and only signed a land border agreement last year.
But China's parliamentary leader Li Peng and Vice President Hu Jintao both visited Vietnam earlier this year. And President Jiang Zemin agreed to visit Vietnam next year, a joint statement issued during Manh's visit said.
WTO EXAMPLE
During Manh's visit to China -- which is due to enter the World Trade Organisation next week after a 15-year quest -- WTO director-general Mike Moore said in Hanoi he hoped also to see Vietnam accede to the trade body in two years.
Vietnam's leadership is keen to learn from China's experience with the WTO, but, worried about the challenges China will pose after entry into the trade body, it also seeks to protect Vietnamese industries, Thayer said.
"The largest thing is that China is entering the WTO. There's a huge debate in Southeast Asia about the pros and cons of that," he said.
"There is this larger picture in Vietnam and Thailand and every other country, that when they make these visits they must seek out their niche."
A World Bank report last week said China's WTO accession meant Vietnam would have to accelerate reforms to follow suit if it wanted to boost exports. It would also mean more competition from China, especially when quotas on Chinese textiles were abolished in 2005, it said.
Manh's visit also came on the heels of Vietnam's ratification of a historic trade pact with the United States that, if properly implemented, should ease Hanoi's eventual accession to the world trade body, diplomats say.
In the joint statement issued during Manh's visit, Hanoi and Beijing said they would "actively promote and accelerate" demarcation of disputed sections of their land and sea borders.
They also agreed "neither should take actions that could complicate or aggravate disputes, nor resort to the use of force or the threat of using force".
Manh and senior Chinese leaders signed an agreement on economic and technological cooperation and another on China providing preferential loans to Vietnam, the statement said.
Last month, Vietnam and China vowed to boost two-way trade to $5 billion by 2005. Two-way trade this year is forecast to rise to $3 billion from $2.5 billion in 2000