Exactly a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi was given a red carpet welcome in Hanoi, it was the turn of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to be accorded the same reception - that too in China.

Nguyen Xuan Phuc's visit underlines the balancing act that many are attempting when it comes to engaging Beijing. Exactly a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi was given a red carpet welcome in Hanoi, it was the turn of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to be accorded the same reception - that too in China. Modi's visit to Hanoi had made headlines as it was the first by an Indian PM in 15 years, and it also brought an announcement of a $ 500 million line of credit from India for defence purchases - a striking agreement amid recent tensions between Vietnam and China over the South China Sea. A week later, the Vietnamese leader was himself, on Monday and Tuesday, being given a red-carpet reception in Beijing. He is in China on a six-day visit, unusually long for two countries that have recently had not-so-smooth ties. On Monday evening, Phuc and his counterpart Li Keqiang announced a string of agreements following hour-long talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, largely to boost their already deep trade relations. More significantly, they also arrived at an understanding to put aside their differences on the South China Sea, at least for the time being.This means that for the near-term, at least, Hanoi is likely to pursue a different tack from the Philippines, which sought - and won - an arbitration ruling on its disputes with China. This was also the message stressed by Xi Jinping to Phuc on Tuesday, who suggested going forward with joint exploration projects in the Gulf of Tonkin, where both sides have resolved their disputes with a maritime delimitation agreement signed in 2000. Swing states Phuc's visit underlines the balancing act that many countries in the region are attempting when it comes to engaging China. On the one hand, they are reaching out to other regional powers like India to build leverage and bolster their defence capabilities to respond to the China threat. Besides the $ 500 million line of credit, Vietnam also signed a deal with India for high-speed off-shore patrol boats - a very clear and direct example of seeking assistance to counter the threat posed by China's ever-expanding naval presence in the waters off Vietnam. While this certainly presents strategic openings for India, expectations, however, will also need to be tempered. As much as some experts may like to imagine India building the kind of relationships in China's backyard that Beijing has with Pakistan, such an eventuality remains unlikely for several reasons. Vietnam is perhaps the clearest case in point. As Phuc's visit indicated, despite its tensions with China, both countries also have a deep and complex relationship. Speaking to India Today following Phuc's talks with the Chinese premier, Chinese vice foreign minister Liu Zhenmin pointed out that both countries' bilateral trade had now crossed a remarkable $97 billion - to put it in perspective, India's two-way trade with China is around $70 billion. Asked how concerned China was by Vietnam's move to seek closer defence and security ties with countries like India and even the United States which recently ended an arms embargo with Hanoi, Liu dismissed those worries. "In fact," he said, "we have not even been talking about these questions." In Vietnam's case, while recent popular sentiment has turned against China on account of fears of its looming economic and military might, at the level of the governments there are long historical and institutional ties. After all, as Liu put it, they were bound together as "two socialist countries ruled by communists". Which means for the time being at least, Vietnam is likely to ensure that even as it looks to build leverage to counter China's rise, it will likely only go so far when it comes to challenging its old comrade to the north.