The World - News from Aug. 5, 1987
Vietnam and China traded 32 prisoners along its tense border in the 21st such exchange since troops clashed in a border war in 1979. Vietnamese troops turned over 18 Chinese arrested for alleged spying in territorial waters off central Binh Tri Thien province. A Chinese official at the exchange described 12 Vietnamese returned to their homeland as armed intruders and two others as spies. The exchange occurred at the border Friendship Gate, built during the 1960s when China supported Hanoi in the Vietnam War. The exchange appeared to go smoothly, with the two sides exchanging handshakes before withdrawing.
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