No space to drive wedge between neighbors: China Daily editorial

In his meeting with President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, visiting Prime Minister of Vietnam Pham Minh Chinh said his country opposes the politicization of economic issues and it will never allow a wedge to be driven between it and China.

Such remarks are certain to disappoint those who are looking for tensions or even frictions between the two sides.

Judging by the multiple consensuses China and Vietnam have reached on a wide range of fields during Pham's visit to China this week, the two socialist countries clearly cherish the common goal of deepening bilateral ties and expanding their cooperation in economic, strategic and even military fields.

In his meeting with Pham, Xi described China and Vietnam as comrades with a high degree of mutual trust and called on the two sides to build a high-quality Belt and Road together, enhance the synergy of development strategies, leverage their complementary advantages and accelerate practical cooperation in fields such as infrastructure, smart customs and green energy.

Pham, for his part, said that developing long-term, stable and sound Vietnam-China relations has always been the strategic choice and top priority of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese government. He said Vietnam will continue to actively participate in the construction of the Belt and Road and work closely with China to guard against and combat all kinds of risks and challenges.

Apart from their deep economic ties, China and Vietnam also share a common aspiration for regional peace and stability, and have been engaging in dialogue to handle their differences.

Meeting with Premier Li Qiang, Pham reaffirmed that Vietnam is willing to work with China to manage the differences between the two countries properly and maintain maritime peace and stability. In this regard, Defense Minister Li Shangfu and his Vietnamese counterpart Phan Van Giang signaled the two militaries' willingness to elevate their ties to a higher level.

As such, those who harbor an ulterior intention to woo Vietnam and even rope it onto the US bandwagon of containing China have obviously miscalculated the situation and underestimated the solid, unshakable political foundation and deep friendship between the two neighbors.

In recent years, Hanoi has been increasingly looked upon as an important chess piece in Washington's regional strategic playbook. This explains the frenzy of the Western media after the USS Ronald Reagan, a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, arrived in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang on Sunday, which they hyped as "two previous enemies becoming partners against China's position in the South China Sea".

Sowing discord between Hanoi and Beijing is just wishful thinking on the part of Washington. This week's series of high-level interactions show that Beijing and Hanoi not only stand together on major issues but also will join hands to fend off any attempts to set them against each other.