Vietnamese President To Lam began a three-day visit to China on Sunday, his first foreign trip since taking office about two weeks ago.

Lam arrived in Guangzhou, an industrial and export center near Hong Kong, in the morning, Chinese state media reported. His schedule included visits to places in the southern Chinese city where former Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh had spent time, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported in a social media post.

During his trip, he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials.

Lam was confirmed as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the highest leadership post, on August 3. Since May, he has also held the largely ceremonial title of president. Lam succeeded Nguyen Phu Trong, who died on July 19 after 13 years as general secretary.

The new head of state is expected to continue his predecessor’s strategy of balancing relations with China, the United States and Russia, Yu Xiangdong, director of the Institute of Vietnam Studies at China’s Zhengzhou University, wrote in the Global Times on Saturday.

“The fact that Lam chose China as his first overseas destination since taking office is a sign that Vietnam attaches great importance to its relations with China,” Yu said in a comment. “But at the same time, experience has shown that the country will by no means turn a cold shoulder to the United States.”

Although Vietnam and China have long been closely linked as communist one-party states, they have repeatedly clashed over territory that both claim in the South China Sea. A Vietnamese coast guard ship recently took part in joint exercises in the Philippines, which has already seen a series of violent clashes with China over disputed territory in the same waters.

China also briefly occupied parts of North Vietnam in 1979.

Nevertheless, Vietnam has benefited economically from investments by Chinese manufacturers who have shifted their production to the Southeast Asian country, in part, to circumvent US restrictions on solar modules and other exports from China.