Vietnam and China fought a brief border war in 1979 and have clashed over control of the Paracel and Spratly island chains. Last year, China placed an oil rig in waters near the Paracels, which China seized in 1974, triggering confrontations between Vietnamese and Chinese boats and deadly anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam.
"On some occasions, it’s been one step from war," said Zhang Mingliang, a specialist in Sino-Vietnamese relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou. "The territorial disputes have become a dominating factor in the bilateral relations over the past few years, and almost overshadowed other aspects."
China claims more than 80 percent of the South China Sea based on a nine-dash line drawn on a 1947 map for which it gives no precise coordinates. Vietnam has said it is considering taking legal action against its neighbor, after the Philippines lodged a similar complaint with an international arbitration tribunal in the Hague.
The territorial spats have stoked historical animosity going back hundreds of years to when Chinese emperors ruled the area as part of their broader empire. A Facebook petition signed by 170 activists last month called on Hanoi to rescind Xi’s invitation.
‘Love-Hate’
Exchanges such as Xi’s trip bear "witness to the two neighbors’ will and ability to properly manage their differences," Xinhua said in a commentary published Thursday. Both sides must not let "parochial and ill-intended views to go unchecked and mislead the public opinion toward the unfathomable abyss of confrontation," it said.
China has over the years sought to play down disputes and stress economic and cultural ties during visits with Vietnamese leaders. Xi, like his predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, is planning to meet representatives of Vietnamese young people on this trip.
"Chinese leaders long ago realized that to secure long-term stability in bilateral ties, a key factor and challenge is to win over the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese young people,” said Shen Shishun, a senior researcher at the China Institute of International Studies. “This is an uphill battle to say the least."
Views toward the U.S. are overwhelmingly positive, with 78 percent of Vietnamese reporting favorable opinions of the country, according to Pew. When the USS Fitzgerald and USS Fort Worth warships visited the one-time American military hub of Danang in April, local officials posed with U.S. Navy officers in dress whites. At the same time, the local government has banned the G.I.s’ nickname for nearby “China Beach” because it conveys the “wrong information.”
“The Vietnamese have had many years of a love-hate relationship with China,” said Hung, of George Mason University. “In the thousand years of Vietnamese-Chinese relationship, it’s been more hate than love.”