Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Hoang Binh Quan, the special envoy of Vietnam's communist party chief Nguyen Phu Trong in Beijing last month. It was Xi's first meeting with foreign visitors since the Spring Festival. Quan's visit has been carefully arranged as it came right after the end of the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) where the party's personnel arrangements were settled.

The visit also came just days ahead of the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, when the Chinese government will be making plans for this year's work. During this time slot, both China and Vietnam have sufficient time to conduct in-depth negotiations over issues of common interests.

Given their tight schedules, it is unrealistic for Chinese and Vietnamese top leaders to have intense meetings. However, considering the special and significant Beijing-Hanoi bonds, exchanges between special envoys will facilitate bilateral strategic communications, enhance political mutual trusts, strengthen control of divergences and ensure the healthy and stable development of the China-Vietnam relationship.

With the advance of the US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, as well as the increasingly sophisticated situation in the South China Sea, demands for top-level strategic communications are growing in order to manage and control disparities between China and Vietnam.

Special envoys have played an active role in facilitating communications between the two nations and parties. This can be reflected in the frequency of their exchanges.

In January 2011, then minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Wang Jiarui visited Vietnam as the special envoy of then Chinese president Hu Jintao. Trong's special envoy Quan paid a visit to China one month later.

After Vietnam's anti-China riots, Le Hong Anh, Standing Secretary of Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPV traveled to China as Trong's special envoy in August 2014. This was exchanged with State Councilor Yang Jiechi's Vietnam trip two months later.

Quan's Beijing visit this time came after the Hanoi visit of Song Tao, Wang Jiarui's successor, this January.

Special envoys' exchanges during major political events reflect the uniqueness of the communications between China and Vietnam as two Communist countries.

Special envoys' visits feature "party diplomacy." However, they are flexible and undoubtedly a significant part of the two nations' diplomacy. In particular, as the China-Vietnam relationship is shadowed by the South China Sea disputes and other factors, special envoys' visits can effectively lower the intensity of confrontation, drive a turnaround in the bilateral relationship, and thus enhance the stability of bilateral ties.

Special envoy diplomacy is an active factor in the China-Vietnam relationship, leaving more leeway for the development of bilateral ties.

However, everything has two sides. As the two nations can rely on the special channel, namely special envoys, to draw the bilateral relationship into the right track if it gets worse, Vietnam may feel confident about putting Beijing-Hanoi ties under more pressure.

Vietnam has taken a number of petty actions since the 12th National Congress. Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang venerated soldiers killed in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War last month for the first time. The Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam has considered adding the 1979 war and the conflicts over Xisha Islands and Nansha Islands to the textbooks. Special envoy diplomacy is reducing, but also indirectly increasing, pressure on the China-Vietnam relationship.

Special envoy diplomacy reflects opportunism in Vietnam. The party-to-party relationship, on the one hand, is a special channel to stabilize the China-Vietnam relationship. On the other, it makes room for Hanoi's selfish calculations.

From this perspective, while we welcome the positive role the special envoys have played in the bilateral relationship, we need to dispel Hanoi's illusions that it can advance its selfish stances forward.

The Vietnamese side should be clear that despite special envoy diplomacy, Beijing will under no circumstances accept Hanoi's provocative actions. Vietnam will suffer the consequences if it acts based on opportunist thinking.

The author is a professor from Guangdong Institute for International Strategies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn