Tradition, tea and tomorrow: Xi Jinping's stories with Vietnam

When To Lam made his first visit to China as Vietnam's top leader in August last year, he started the trip not in Beijing but in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, Guangdong province — a special arrangement that President Xi Jinping later hailed as "quite meaningful".

It was in Guangzhou, a century earlier, that Ho Chi Minh, the late Vietnamese leader, began his revolutionary activities in China, a period of history that Xi described as "a shared red memory" between the two countries' ruling parties.

Xi is making his fourth state visit to Vietnam as general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president. The trip coincides with the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Vietnam, two socialist neighbors that have forged an enduring bond as "comrades and brothers".