China, Vietnam elevate ties to new stage

HANOI -- Jan 18, 1950 marked a significant milestone in the annals of China-Vietnam relations. Shortly after its own founding, the People's Republic of China became the first country to establish diplomatic ties with Vietnam.

Another landmark event in their relationship came in May 2008 when China became the first country to forge a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership with Vietnam, the latter's highest level of diplomatic ties.

On Tuesday, the China-Vietnam relationship hit a new high when both sides agreed to build a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance on the basis of deepening the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

Over the past 15 years since the inception of their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, Vietnam and China have made substantial progress in cooperation in various fields, laying a solid foundation for both sides to push bilateral relations into a new stage, said Dao Ngoc Bau, deputy director in charge of the Institute of International Relations under the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics.

The announcement was made during the ongoing state visit to Vietnam by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president.

It has been Xi's third visit to Vietnam since he became general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Chinese president.

Referring to Xi's visit as one bearing landmark significance, Nguyen Hoang Anh, a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, said, "High-level contact is a good tradition between Vietnam and China, and is promoting the continuous development of bilateral ties."

Quoting late Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh's well-known remarks, which defined China-Vietnam relations as a bond of "camaraderie plus brotherhood," Xi said on Tuesday when meeting General Secretary of the CPV Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong that China has, as always, viewed its relations with Vietnam from a strategic and long-term perspective.

Xi urged the CPC and the CPV, as the two largest governing communist parties in the world, to grasp the special strategic significance of China-Vietnam relations and solidly advance the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future from the height of building the strengths of socialism in the world and ensuring the sound and sustained development of their respective socialist causes.

Xi expressed the conviction that with the joint efforts of the two sides, the China-Vietnam relationship will enter a new stage featuring greater political mutual trust, more substantive security cooperation, deeper mutually beneficial cooperation, more solid popular foundation, closer multilateral coordination and collaboration, and more proper management of differences.

In August, Trong visited a cross-border port, known as the Friendship Pass, and planted a "friendship tree."

Noting that the pass is the only cross-border port in the world named after the word "friendship," Trong said then that it embodies the special traditional friendship of comrades plus brothers between the Vietnamese and Chinese people.

During talks with Xi on Tuesday, Trong thanked China for placing priority on Vietnam in its neighborhood diplomacy, and stressed that Vietnam follows an independent foreign policy and takes growing the relationship with China as a top priority and a strategic choice.

Vietnam stands ready to work with China to build a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, he said, adding that Vietnam will bolster cooperation with China across the political, economy and trade, security and people-to-people fields, and develop a paradigm of mutually beneficial cooperation.

Vietnam and China are both socialist countries led by communist parties, and the important consensus reached by the high-level leaders of the two parties and countries will promote the steady growth of bilateral relations, said Nguyen Tang Nghi, an International relations scholar from Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City.

Xi's visit to Vietnam shows the great importance China attaches to Vietnam-China relations and will inject strong impetus into the further development of bilateral relations, said the scholar.