The Limits of CCP Liaison Work: Sino-Vietnamese Relations

By: David Gitter and Elsa Kania |

The PRC has fully leveraged its relative receptiveness to communist liaison work, carried out through CCP Central Committee’s International Department (CCP/ID). With Sino-Vietnamese tensions in mind, party-to-party exchanges have provided a more subtle channel for rapprochement. This party-centric dimension of diplomacy between China and Vietnam has received relatively scarce analytical attention thus far but remains active and important elements of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) pursuit of its foreign policy interests. CCP diplomacy has focused on appealing to the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) shared revolutionary heritage and socialist ideology, emphasizing the need to protect the overall special relationship that both countries supposedly enjoy.