Wang Yi meets Vietnamese Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung in Beijing

The Lancang-Mekong framework is often treated as a technical, downstream-cooperation venue, so the notable signal here is that maritime disputes and multilateral coordination were folded into the same bilateral conversation as connectivity and trade facilitation. That pairing matters most for supply-chain and infrastructure players weighing cross-border links, and for regional governments watching whether the Mekong channel becomes a routine venue for managing South China Sea tensions. Whether those maritime discussions produce any durable mechanism, rather than remaining a talking point, is the open question.