HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam’s top politician To Lam will visit China next week, his first foreign trip since being appointed general secretary of the ruling Communist Party in early August, three officials familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The move would be a confirmation of the close ties between the two communist-ruled neighbors, who have well-developed economic and trade relations despite occasional border disputes in the energy-rich South China Sea, a key trade waterway that Beijing claims almost entirely as its own – a nuisance to several countries in the region.
Lam, who is also the president of the Southeast Asian country, plans to arrive in China on August 18. In the following two days he will meet with President Xi Jinping and other politicians, said two Vietnamese politicians and a diplomat from Hanoi. Since the trip has not yet been officially announced, they asked to remain anonymous.
The foreign ministries of China and Vietnam did not respond to requests for comment.
The 67-year-old Lam has been president since May and has already visited Laos and Cambodia, like his predecessors. He also met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin who visited Hanoi in June and spoke to him on the phone last week after his appointment as party chairman.
It would be his first trip abroad since his appointment as party chairman on August 3, after long-time Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong died two weeks earlier.
The country has no supreme leader, but the late Trong consolidated power in the hands of the party chief.
Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden congratulated Lam on his appointment as party chief. Some investors in the regional industrial capital believe his ascension to the top position could help end recent political turmoil that had slowed projects and reforms.
Lam, a general and former public security minister, could leave the presidency in the coming months, probably when parliament convenes for a regular session in October, several Vietnamese and foreign officials said.
That will be after the annual United Nations General Assembly in September, which Lam will attend as president of Vietnam, two officials said, noting that he will also meet with President Biden during that trip.
In 2026, when the Vietnamese parliament ends its five-year term, all top posts will be up for grabs again. Many analysts and diplomats believe that Lam is currently the best candidate for the party leadership.
(Reporting by the Hanoi newsroom; additional reporting by the Beijing newsroom; editing by Jacqueline Wong)
