BEIJING, Aug. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — When the China-Vietnam freight train link was established in 2017, fewer than five trains per month ran from south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. However, a record 1,922 TEU containers were transported on the trains last month alone, exceeding the total shipping volume of the first quarter of 2024.
“I have been working on cross-border rail transport for five years. “I feel that economic and trade exchanges between China and Vietnam are much more active this year,” said Yang Bo, logistics director of a freight company in Guangxi.
China is willing to work with Vietnam to accelerate the “hard connectivity” of railway, expressway and port infrastructure, enhance the “soft connectivity” of intelligent customs, and jointly build a safe and stable industrial and supply chain, the Chinese said President Xi Jinping on Monday.
Xi, who is also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made the remarks during a conversation with To Lam, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and Vietnamese president, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
In the critical period of national development and revitalization, Xi stressed, under the guidance of the vision of building a community with a shared future, China and Vietnam should consolidate the development pattern with six aspects: higher mutual political trust, more solid security cooperation, a deeper practical cooperation, stronger public support, closer multilateral coordination and cooperation, and better management and resolution of differences.
Lam said his party and government will deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership between Vietnam and China in line with the six key goals and promote the building of a community with a shared future that is strategically important for both countries.
China and Vietnam have announced the establishment of the community in December 2023.
“Comrades and Brothers”
Lam is in China on a three-day state visit, his first trip abroad since taking office as general secretary of the CPV Central Committee earlier this month.
This reflects the great importance that Lam attaches to relations between the two parties and the two countries, as well as the high level and strategic nature of Sino-Vietnamese relations, Xi said.
He praised the relationships between the two parties, which have grown from generation to generation, as deep as those between “comrades and brothers.”
“China is willing to maintain close strategic communication and high-level exchanges with Vietnam, firmly adhere to mutual support, and actively seek ways to enhance the synergies between the Belt and Road Initiative and the two-corridor, one-circle economy strategy expand,” Xi said.
China has been Vietnam’s top trading partner for many years, and Vietnam is China’s top trading partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China’s fourth-largest trading partner globally, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in November 2023.
Trade between Vietnam and China developed strongly in the first half of this year, reaching $95 billion, the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam said, citing local media. If this trend continues in the second half of the year, bilateral trade for the full year could reach $200 billion, it said.
Priority in diplomacy
During the conversation on Monday, Xi Lam said that China gives Vietnam priority in its neighborhood diplomacy and supports Vietnam in upholding the leadership of the CPV, following the socialist path appropriate to national circumstances, and the cause of reform, opening-up and socialist modernization to move forward further.
For his part, Lam said that choosing China as the destination of his first foreign visit as general secretary of the CPV Central Committee and Vietnamese president shows that his party and government have always valued the development of relations with China and consider China a strategic choice and top priority in their foreign policy would have.
In the coming decades, China-Vietnam relations will be an example of a new pattern of cooperation between two socialist countries facing the challenges and tasks of modernization and based on a similar historical trajectory and a common international environment, he said Gao Lei and Xia Lu, commentators from CGTN, in a commentary.
Following their talks, Xi and Lam witnessed the signing of a series of bilateral cooperation documents on party schools, connectivity, industry, finance, customs control and quarantine, people’s livelihood, health, news agencies and media, subnational-level exchanges and other areas.
During the Vietnamese leader’s visit, which ends on Tuesday, both sides will also make a joint statement on promoting their comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership and building a Sino-Vietnamese community with a shared future that is of strategic importance.
The visit will give new impetus to cooperation between Vietnam and China in areas such as politics, security, economics, society and people-to-people exchanges, said Nguyen Van Tho, vice chairman of the Vietnam-China Friendship Association and former Vietnamese ambassador to China, in an interview with of China Media Group.
“At the same time, the two countries are strengthening exchanges and cooperation on international and regional issues, which will play an active role in maintaining peace and stability in the region,” Tho said.
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