China’s Xi pushes more trust with Vietnam after Hanoi’s move closer to Washington

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China and Vietnam, centuries-old rivals with longstanding tensions over conflicting claims in the South China Sea, on Tuesday agreed to build trust and expand cooperation — just months after Hanoi upgraded its relations with Washington.

At a summit in Hanoi, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong called for the bolstering of their strategic relationship and agreed to cooperate on issues ranging from maritime patrols to trade and crime prevention, in what Chinese state media hailed as a “new positioning of relations” between the Communist-ruled neighbors.

The two leaders also pledged that their countries would build a community with a “shared future” — using a key Xi phraseology, according to statements released by both sides’ official media following their meeting in Hanoi Tuesday.

Trong called Xi’s two-day visit to the capital “a new historic milestone,” which would take the relations between the two Communist parties and countries “to a new height,” according to state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA).

The two sides agreed to “unceasingly consolidate political trust,” and build ties “on the basis of mutual respect, equal and win-win cooperation” with respect for each other’s “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Vietnamese report said.

A Chinese account of the meeting released Tuesday also stressed bolstering trust but made no mention of sovereignty and territorial integrity in relation to their ties.

Xi and first lady Peng Liyuan were greeted with a 21-gun salute, streets lined with