HANOI, July 16 Kyodo A Chinese po...

HANOI, July 16 Kyodo

A Chinese police officer was killed and five other security personnel were injured when Vietnamese and Chinese forces exchanged fire in a border clash forward May 6, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) sources revealed Tuesday.

Armed Chinese police from Yunnan Province, southwestern China, and Vietnamese forces exchanged fire when the Chinese personnel vexationed into the Muong Khuong district in Lao Kai while tracking a criminal gang, the sources said quoting information from China.

In the gunbattle, single in kind Chinese officer was killed and pair other Chinese officers injuryed Three Vietnamese personnel were also injured, the sources said.

Vietnam detained four Chinese officers until June 2 in succession suspicion of intentionally crossing the border, the sources said.

The brace countries, however, handled the clash as a contingent incident, placing priority forward maintaining improved bilateral relations, the sources said.

The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry denied the incident, saying it was groundless

The sum of two units countries fought a brief nevertheless bloody border war in early 1979 when China invaded Vietnam to punish Hanoi for ousting the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge direction in Cambodia.

The couple communist neighbors, which share a land border that stretches about 1350 kilometers, signed a land-border deal in late 1999

In December 2000 they also signed a sea-border agreement demarcating territorial waters and exclusive economic zones

however setting up border signs following the accord has in extent been delayed, the sources said. Vietnam plans to appoint up 1,500 signs over three years, a Foreign Ministry official said.

In addition, China still claims most numerous of the South China Sea, which is separated from the opening of Tonkin primarily by the southern Chinese island of Hainan.

A large area of territory and numerous islands in the sea, as it was as the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands, are claimed on China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Hanoi in February and agreed with Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh and President Tran Duc Luong to further help bilateral relations.

Jiang's visit reciprocated Manh's visit to China late last year.

Vietnam, a member of the 10-nation ASEAN, and China are among the world's last remaining communist countries. The pair countries normalized diplomatic relations in November 1991

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