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China and Vietnam have finally agreed on the land boarder between the two countries. A ceremony to mark the occasion was held 18 November in Beijing.

The agreement comes after 10 years of surveying effort by the two sides.

The documents were signed by vice foreign minister Wu Dawei and Vietnam vice foreign minister Ho Xuan Son.

Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi met with the Chinese and Vietnamese delegations and attended the signing ceremony.

The ceremony marked the end of a long simmering dispute between the two countries. This climaxed in the Third Indochina War in 1979 between China and Vietnam.

In the first Indochina War, (prior to 1954) the Japanese invaded Vietnam to drive out the French. In the second (1955-1975) the Vietnamese drove the US out of their country.

In the third (1979), China attacked Vietnam in response to Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, which ended the reign of terror initiated in Cambodia by the PRC-backed Khmer Rouge.

Border skirmishes continued throughout the 1980s, including a significant escalation in April 1984. The two sidees fought a naval battle over the Spratly Islands in 1988.

In 1999 after many years of negotiations, China and Vietnam signed a border pact, though the line of demarcation remained secret. There was a slight adjustment of the pre-1979 land border, resulting in land being given back to China.

Vietnam's official news service reported the implementation of the new border around August 2001. In January 2009 the border demarcation with markers was officially completed.

Both the Paracel and Spratly islands remain points of contention.

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