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Vietnam
ChinaDiplomacy

China-Vietnam deal points to common security worries about Western forces: analyst

  • Hanoi and Beijing will share intelligence and have more high-level contact to safeguard their regimes
  • Both countries have concerns about external threats to their socialist system, former PLA instructor says

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China and Vietnam have described each other as sharing “similar political regimes, a compatible ideology and belief, a similar development path, a shared vision and future”. Photo: Xinhua
Alyssa Chen

A newly signed security deal between China and Vietnam underscores their common concerns about “hostile” external forces and the need to safeguard internal stability, according to a Chinese analyst.

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At the end of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vietnam this week, Beijing and Hanoi said in a statement that they had agreed to step up defence and security cooperation, especially on “regime security and institutional security”.
It was the first time the two countries had referred to regime security in such a joint statement, and it came just three months after a visit to Hanoi by American President Joe Biden that raised US-Vietnam ties to the highest level and stoked unease in Beijing.

Under the agreement announced on Wednesday, the two countries will engage in more high-level exchanges between their law-enforcement agencies and share intelligence to protect regime security.

“[Both countries should] boost intelligence cooperation and share experience in the issues of anti-interference, anti-secession, prevention and fighting of ‘peaceful evolution’ and ‘colour revolution’ of hostile and reactionary forces,” Hanoi and Beijing said in the joint statement.

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Xi Jinping says Vietnam is a ‘diplomatic priority’ as Chinese leader seeks closer bilateral ties

Xi Jinping says Vietnam is a ‘diplomatic priority’ as Chinese leader seeks closer bilateral ties

The commitments were part of a broader assessment of relations in which they described each other as sharing “similar political regimes, a compatible ideology and belief, a similar development path, a shared vision and future”.

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