Hi guys!

Please find below news re: China-Vietnam border disputes.

For information, in case you still haven't read.

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China urges quick solution to Vietnam border spat

21 October 1998
Web posted at: 13:34 JST, Tokyo time (04:34 GMT) 

BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Vietnam should "race against time" to
resolve border disputes, the China Daily on Wednesday quoted Chinese
President Jiang Zemin as telling visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan
Van Khai. 

"The two sides should put the general interests of the Sino-Vietnamese
relationship first and race against time to settle the disputes as early
as possible," the newspaper quoted Jiang as telling Khai on Tuesday. 

"It would serve the interests of both countries to solve the border
disputes," Jiang was quoted as saying. 

China and Vietnam are locked in a dispute over land borders and the
Tonkin Gulf, known in Chinese as the Beibu Gulf. 

Khai told Jiang that Vietnam "is willing and is determined to work with
China to fulfill the consensus concerning border disputes." 

On Tuesday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said: "The two sides
have had many negotiations on the boundary and we hope that by the year
2000 we can complete negotiations." 

Khai, the first Vietnamese prime minister to visit China since the two
communist neighbours normalized ties in 1991, arrived in Beijing on
Monday for a five-day visit. 

He flew to the scenic eastern city of Suzhou on Wednesday. China and
Vietnam have yet to resolve their dispute over the Spratly Islands in
the South China Sea. 

Last month, China accused Vietnamese soldiers of illegally seizing
Chinese territory in the potentially resource-rich Spratlys, which are
known by the Chinese as the Nansha Islands, and demanded their immediate
withdrawal. 

Vietnam countered by saying the accusations were groundless and that the
people were civilians, not troops. 

On Monday, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji told Khai that the stability in
China and Vietnam amid the Asian financial crisis demonstrated the
"advantage of socialism." 

Zhu and Khai also signed a treaty of mutual judicial assistance on
civilian and criminal affairs, an agreement on border trade and a
consular treaty. 

Khai's visit is the latest in a series of party, government and military
exchanges to follow the visit of his predecessor, Vo Van Kiet, to China
in 1991 to normalise ties between the once-hostile neighbors. 

Chinese troops invaded Vietnam in 1979 to punish Hanoi for toppling the
Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. The border war inflicted
heavy casualties on both sides, but was seen as an embarrassment for
China's large but backward army. 

After a subsequent decade of chilly ties, reconciliation was made
possible by the winding down of the Soviet military presence in Vietnam
and the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia. 

The collapse of Europe's communist regimes left the two Asian countries
alone as the world's last major communist governments. Vietnam has
largely adhered to China's strategy of pursuing economic reform without
enacting political reforms which threaten communist control.


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