China, Vietnam Sign Economic Accords : Asia: The pacts on trade and border issues mark another step in the normalizing of relations.

China and Vietnam moved toward closer economic ties Thursday by signing agreements on trade and border affairs.

Sino-Vietnamese relations were officially normalized Tuesday, when Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Do Muoi and Premier Vo Van Kiet arrived on a cold, gray day to start a five-day China visit. Leaders of both countries showed an upbeat mood Thursday at the signing ceremony.

“When you arrived the weather was bad. Now it is very good,” Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin told the Vietnamese visitors in a farewell conversation before they left to tour southern China’s prosperous Guangdong province. “This is symbolic of the good atmosphere that has emerged in relations between our two countries.”

Du Muoi replied: “It is the start of a new era in relations. . . . The weather has improved. The sun is getting brighter. This is symbolic of relations not just between our two countries but also (in) this region and the whole world.”

The trade agreement, according to the official New China News Agency, “aims to promote friendly cooperation and long-term, sustained and steady development of trade relations on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.”

The border document calls for the two sides to “jointly safeguard the security of the border regions and to promote and manage border and regional trade.”

Construction work is under way to restore China’s rail link with Vietnam. Once that is completed, some of southwestern China’s international trade may be conducted by way of the Vietnamese port of Haiphong.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wu Jianmin announced Wednesday that the two sides have agreed to discuss joint economic development in the region of the disputed Spratly Islands. Beijing claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea island chain and occupies some of the islands, but various others are controlled by Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines and Malaysia. The virtually unpopulated islands are believed to sit amid undersea oil deposits.

Relations between Beijing and Hanoi have varied greatly over the last three decades. In the 1960s, China aided the Vietnamese Communists in their battle against U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. The two sides split in the late 1970s over a variety of issues, especially Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. They fought a brief border war in early 1979, and relations remained tense until two years ago, when Vietnam withdrew its troops from Cambodia.

Despite the generally friendly atmosphere of this week’s summit, the Chinese injected a touch of coolness. Wu quoted Jiang as warning that “a tremendous amount of work remains to be done to ensure long-term, stable development of Sino-Vietnamese relations.”

Jiang told his guests that “we had better take action only when the conditions are ripe, and avoid taking rash actions,” Wu said. He declined to elaborate on what Jiang meant by “rash actions.”

Chinese President Yang Shangkun, in a meeting Thursday with Do Muoi and Kiet, recalled the days of great Sino-Vietnamese friendship forged by Mao Tse-tung and Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.

“I myself had the honor of being acquainted with Chairman Ho Chi Minh and had contacts with him on many occasions,” Yang said. “Today, we still cherish the memory of him.”

Do Muoi and Kiet will visit Canton and Shenzhen, the “special economic zone” boom town adjacent to Hong Kong that is a showcase for China’s market-oriented economic reforms. Vietnam is also moving toward greater use of free markets while trying at the same time to preserve Communist Party authority.