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 The diplomatic flurry highlights the fragility of China's testy
ties with its communist neighbor, and Vietnam's efforts to diversity
its relations through new alliances with states locked in bitter
disputes with Beijing over its maritime expansionism.
Vietnam and China's competing territorial claims mushroomed into a
major dispute last year, which Xi aimed to settle on a timely visit
close to a scheduled shakeup of a Vietnamese Communist Party
leadership increasingly being courted by the United States.
Xi was given the red carpet treatment during meetings since Thursday
with the top leaders of Vietnam and he told its National Assembly
their joint revolutionary friendship could dispel and survive any
"disruptions".
"Our two parties, countries and peoples should be staunch in their
faith, help each other and proceed hand in hand, not allowing anyone
to disrupt our pace," he said.
Both sides agreed on Friday to maintain peace at sea and trust each
other, but as Xi prepared to leave, Japan's defense ministry
announced Vietnam had invited it to take part in humanitarian
exercises and to bring a warship to its strategic Cam Ranh Bay once
construction of a new dock was complete.
 Japan and China have their own territorial dispute in the East China
Sea, complicating a relationship colored by Japan's occupation of
parts of China before and during World War Two.
Cam Ranh is the jewel in the crown of Vietnam's military, with an
air base once used by the U.S. and Soviet forces and a deep water
bay home to its modern, Russian-built submarines. Visits by foreign
ships are rare and usually reserved for maintenance.
MATTER OF TRUST
Vietnam's warm assurances to China and its agreement with Japan on
the same day are likely to antagonize Beijing, but show Hanoi's
intent to engage the West and Asian powers in defense, trade and
investment after a history of at times uncomfortable dependence on
its giant neighbor.
Trust has become an issue for China, whose Foreign Minister Wang Yi
on Friday told U.S. counterpart John Kerry that a recent U.S.
warship patrol near its man-made islands in the Spratlys was of
extreme concern.
A website run by China's official People's Daily newspaper displayed
rare pictures on Friday of the reclamation work, taken by a worker
on Mischief Reef, showing diggers and tractors dumping sand into the
azure waters.
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China's parking of an oil rig unannounced in waters off Vietnam's
coast in May 2014 was widely seen as a miscalculation that has given
the United States and allies like Japan an opening to steer Hanoi
away from Beijing's orbit.
China's reclamation of reefs near the contested Spratly Islands has
fueled resentment and put Vietnam's rulers in a difficult position,
pressured from nationalists and even some party members to take a
tougher line, but wary of incurring China's wrath. It is unclear
what kind of leadership will emerge from the secretive party's
congress in January.
Xi referred to Vietnam's independence hero Ho Chi Minh and his amity
with the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, and their similar
political systems.
He made no mention of the South China Sea and referred only to
"tests" both had faced in the winds of history. Relations, he added,
must "not be allowed to stray from the correct path".
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang told Xi that relations had been
hurt and made a rare admission about concerns within the Communist
Party.
"The trust in the relationship ...was reduced among the public,
cadres and party members due to disputes and disagreements," he
said, according to a foreign ministry statement.
Sang "urged both sides to enhance political trust building,
cooperation, actively seek to resolve satisfactorily existing
problems," it said.
(Additional reporting by Mai Nguyen in Hanoi and Tim Kelly in Tokyo;
Editing by Nick Macfie)
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