Vietnam-China Leaders Exchange Notes on 72nd Anniversary of Relations

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (L) and China's Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping. (Photo: VNS)

Top Vietnamese and Chinese leaders have exchanged their messages of congratulations on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of Vietnam-China diplomatic relations (January 18), according to VOV World.

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue exchanged the messages with General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Keqiang, and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China Li Zhanshu.

On the occasion, the Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son also exchanged his congratulatory message with the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, VNA cited.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh talked over the phone with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on January 13 to celebrate the occasion.

PM Chinh affirmed that the traditional friendship and comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between Vietnam and China is the top priority in Vietnam’s foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralism, and diversification of foreign relations.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Vietnamese officials at the phone talks on January 13 (Photo: VOV)

The two countries’ relationship is crucial to the stability and development of each side and also beneficial to the maintenance of peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region and the world at large, he emphasized.

The Vietnamese PM noted after 35 years of Doi moi (Renewal), under the leadership of many generations of leaders, currently Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam has been building, supplementing, and increasingly perfecting the theory on socialism and the path to socialism in the country.

Sharing his Vietnamese counterpart’s view, Premier Li congratulated Vietnam on its achievements in the Covid-19 combat and socio-economic recovery and development.

He stressed that China attaches great importance to the ties with Vietnam and wishes to enhance their time-tested friendship and unceasingly develop the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a substantive manner. China highly values and consistently supports Vietnam in following the path to socialism that matches the latter’s situation, he affirmed.

The two PMs applauded the countries’ high-level meetings last year, especially the phone talks between their Party General Secretaries. Despite the pandemic’s adverse impacts, bilateral trade still hit a record of over 160 billion USD in 2021.

Regarding the goods congestion at border gates, PM Chinh underlined that both sides should coordinate closely and adopt effective and drastic solutions to this problem, thus ensuring smooth trading and maintaining supply and production chains between the two countries as well as in the region, particularly in the coming Lunar New Year holiday. He asked China to continue increasing imports and accelerate the opening of its market to some agricultural products of Vietnam.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (Photo: Xinhua)

Premier Li highlighted his attention to Vietnam’s recommendations about economic, trade, and investment links, considering this as an important field in bilateral cooperation. He ordered relevant ministries, sectors, and localities of China to settle the issue, and suggested both sides set up a joint working group to continue dealing with it, thereby facilitating Vietnamese farm products' entry into China and maintaining the trade flow.

In terms of border and territorial affairs, PM Chinh asked the two sides to keep effectively implementing the three documents on the Vietnam - China land border; further, bring into play negotiation mechanisms to sustain peace and stability in the South China Sea; respect each other’s legitimate and legal interests that are in line with international law, properly handle sea-related issues in accordance with the high-level common perceptions and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; and actively boost talks so as to soon finalize a substantive and effective Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea matching international law, according to VNA.

The Chinese leader expressed his hope that the negotiation mechanisms on sea-related issues between the two countries will be stepped up so that substantive progress is obtained, adding that his country is ready to join Vietnam and other ASEAN countries in striving to reach a COC early.

During the talks, the leaders agreed to maintain channels of discussion about the land border and sea-related issues, promote consensus, iron out differences, and maintain common peace and stability.

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