Vietnam attaches importance to developing close partnership with China

Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue is scheduled to pay an official visit to China from April 7 to 12 at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Zhao Leji.

Developing relations with China is Vietnam’s top priority and strategic choice in its foreign policy, while China also considers Vietnam a priority in its neighbouring diplomacy, said Mai in an interview granted to the media ahead of Hue’s visit.

According to the diplomat, Hue’s visit is to concritise six major cooperation orientations, with a view to promoting political trust and consolidating firm social foundation, helping to elevate the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between Vietnam and China, in the interest of the two peoples and for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world at large.

The visit will also help to deepen and improve the effectiveness of cooperation between the legislative bodies of the two countries.

In his opinions, both Vietnam and China are neighbouring countries that share many similarities in terms of culture, political regime, and development path. Bilateral relations have in recent times developed positively and reaped important gains in all areas, through regular visit exchanges, including the China visit in October 2022 by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and the Vietnam visit in December 2023 by Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping.

Economic, trade and investment cooperation is a bright spot in bilateral relations. China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner and second largest export market, while Vietnam is China’s largest trading partner in ASEAN and fifth largest partner in the world, after the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Russia.

Two-way trade turnover between the two countries last year hit US$171.9 billion (Vietnam statistics) and US$229.8 billion (China statistics). The first two months of 2024 saw two-way trade rise 28% to US$27.3 billion, of which Vietnamese exports inched up 7.6% to US$8 billion and its imports climbed 38.8% to US$19.3 billion.

Last year, China invested US$4.47 billion in Vietnam, up 77.5% year on year, ranking fourth among foreign investors in terms of capital value and first in terms of project number in the Southeast Asian country. In the first quarter of 2024, China also took the lead in terms of the number of investment projects, making up 27.8% of the total.

The two sides are positively working closely to address pending issues, including obstacles, for previous economic cooperation projects.

Bilateral cooperation in culture, education, tourism and people-to-people exchanges also reaps fruitful results, contributing to consolidating social foundation in the two countries. To date, nearly 60 Vietnamese localities have established friendly cooperative ties with Chinese localities.

China has already resumed commercial flights to Vietnam, with more than 200 flights flying back and forth between the two countries every week. China has also resumed granting visas to students and workers of Vietnam.

Tourism is one of the industries that receives great attention from the two countries. Vietnam welcomed more than 1.7 million Chinese arrivals last year, and nearly 890,000 arrivals in the first quarter of 2024, up 634.5% year on year.

The two sides have recorded important gains in building the Vietnam - China land border of peace, friendship and cooperation, contributing to the socio-economic development of border localities. They have also strived to maintain exchanges and control disagreements at sea, in accordance with the provisions of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The two sides have actively deployed negotiation mechanisms on maritime issues, and promoted full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), while striving to build a substantive, effective and efficient Code of Conduct (COC), contributing to ensuring peace and stability in the East Sea and the region.

Ambassador Mai expected that through Hue’s coming visit, the relations between the two Parties, states and legislative bodies will develop more practically, positively and substantively, helping to concretise the new connotation of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

The two sides will increase the sharing of experience in legislation and monitoring the deployment of the signed agreements between the two governments.

They will increase close coordination and mutual support at regional and global inter-parliamentary forums, and at the same time support each other in guaranteeing the deployment of international treaties to which both countries are signatories, for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world.