On November 30, in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam, the Beilun Jie River Song Gala was held, and the young people of China and Vietnam celebrated their friendship on the river. On the same day, the 2023 Vietnam-China (Mong Cai-Dong Xing) International Trade and Tourism Expo resumed, and the Jiehe Song was one of the important activities. Courtesy of Visual China.
Mountains and rivers are connected, cultures are connected, ideals are the same, and destiny is shared. On December 12, the president published a signed article in Vietnam, summarizing the special friendship between China and Vietnam as "comrades and brothers" in 16 words. On the same day, the leaders of the two countries announced a new positioning for the relations between the two parties and two countries, and jointly built a China-Vietnam community with a shared future of strategic significance on the basis of deepening the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.
The new positioning of Sino-Vietnamese relations established this time is a continuation, accumulation, and sublimation of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries over the past 15 years, is the trend of the times, and is a matter of course, conforming to the common interests of the two parties, two countries, and two peoples of China and Vietnam, and is also a strategic requirement for revitalizing the cause of socialism in the world. *Spokesperson Mao Ning said on December 13 that he believes that with the joint efforts of the two sides, China-Vietnam relations will enter a new stage of greater political mutual trust, more solid security cooperation, deeper mutually beneficial cooperation, a firmer foundation of public opinion, tighter multilateral coordination and cooperation, and better control of differences.
The scale of China and Vietnam has continued to reach a new level.
China has been Vietnam's largest partner and largest import market for many years, ASEAN is China's largest partner, and Vietnam is China's largest partner in ASEAN. These four "firsts" demonstrate the vigor and vitality of the current economic and trade cooperation between China and Vietnam. The General Administration of Customs of China reported on December 12 that in the first 11 months of this year, the total import and export value of China and Vietnam reached 145 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36%, China and Vietnam** account for 25% of China and ASEAN**. This means that the bilateral amount between China and Vietnam will exceed the US$200 billion mark for the third consecutive year since 2021.
China and Vietnam are both socialist countries, and since 1986, when Vietnam implemented reform and opening up, China and Vietnam have gradually developed into close economic and trade cooperative partners. Guangxi Pingxiang Friendship Pass Port has witnessed the vigorous vitality of China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation: according to the statistics of the Friendship Pass Entry-Exit Border Inspection Station, as of December 5, the station has inspected and released more than 400,000 inbound and outbound freight vehicles this year, a year-on-year increase of 122%, ranking first in the China-Vietnam highway port. In September this year, the construction of the Friendship Pass Smart Port began, becoming the first cross-border smart port project between China and Vietnam, and the two sides will cooperate to build a dedicated channel for intelligent cross-border freight transportation to achieve 24-hour intelligent customs clearance of goods.
A major driving force for the growth of imports and exports between China and Vietnam is the restorative and rapid growth of the border**. According to the report of the General Administration of Customs of China on December 12, after the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic this year, China has imported and exported a total of 1,185 to Vietnam in the form of small border amounts** and border people's mutual markets**800 million yuan, an increase of 351%, driving the growth rate of import and export between China and Vietnam by 22 percentage points. Economic and trade development has also promoted the increasingly close cooperation between China and Vietnam in the industrial chain. In the first 11 months of this year, China and Vietnam imported and exported 101 trillion yuan, accounting for 69 percent of China and Vietnam8%。Among them, the total import and export value of flat panel display modules, audio equipment, and lithium battery products was 1747600 million yuan, 655400 million yuan, 198400 million yuan, an increase of8%。
In addition, the complementary advantages of China and Vietnam in the field of agricultural products and the continuous expansion of cooperation are also a major highlight of China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation. In the first 11 months of this year, the total value of China's imports of Vietnamese agricultural products was 446200 million yuan, an increase of 203%。Among them, the total import value of fresh durian, fresh sweet potato, and bird's nest newly admitted in 2022 is 146500 million yuan, accounting for 32 percent of Vietnam's agricultural imports in the same period8%。At the same time, Chinese vegetables and temperate fruits are also welcomed by the Vietnamese market. In the first 11 months, the total value of China's agricultural exports to Vietnam was 343100 million yuan, an increase of 31%。
Thanks to the continuous promotion of regional economic integration between China and Vietnam, and the support of enterprises to carry out cooperation in strategic and emerging areas such as connectivity, digital economy, green development, and cross-border e-commerce, China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation has achieved fruitful results. According to an article published by the Voice of Vietnam Radio on December 12, the great resilience and development potential of China-Vietnam economic and trade relations stems from the strong complementarity of the import and export commodity structure of the two countries.
Xu Liping, a researcher at the Institute of Asia-Pacific and Global Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "The structure of import and export commodities between China and Vietnam is highly complementary, and the scale of the country has continued to reach a new level, benefiting the people of the two countries. ”
Zhai Kun, a professor at the School of International Relations at Peking University, also said that China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation can effectively integrate and make use of the comparative advantages and resource endowments of the two countries, enhance the competitiveness of the two countries in the regional and global industrial chains, and form a closer and more efficient regional industrial network.
Vietnam is an important direction for the Belt and Road Initiative.
*Unimpeded access is the highlight of China-Vietnam cooperation. Xiong Bo, the Chinese ambassador to Vietnam, said in an interview in July this year, "Vietnam's connection to China's southern gate in the north and deep into the hinterland of Southeast Asia in the south is an important direction for China and ASEAN countries to jointly build the 'Belt and Road'." ”
On December 12, the leaders of China and Vietnam held talks in Hanoi and witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation texts, covering more than 30 areas, including the Belt and Road Initiative, inspection and quarantine, development cooperation, digital economy, green development, transportation, sub-national cooperation, defense and law enforcement security cooperation, and maritime cooperation.
As an important socialist neighbor of China, Vietnam is an important node country in the Belt and Road Initiative. At the end of 2022, when General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong visited China, the leaders of China and Vietnam agreed to actively promote the synergy of the development strategies of the two countries, and accelerate the negotiation and signing of the cooperation plan between the two countries to promote the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative and the framework of "Two Corridors and One Circle".
In 2017, China and Vietnam signed the Memorandum of Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative and the Belt and Road Initiative, which has become the fundamental driving force for Vietnam's participation in the Belt and Road Initiative. In November 2021, as a landmark project of the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative and the "Two Corridors and One Circle" strategy, the Hanoi Light Rail Keilh-Ha Dong Line was officially put into operation. The light rail project built by China Railway Sixth Bureau is the first urban light rail project in Vietnam to be put into operation, which not only speeds up people's lives, but also drives the formation of multiple business districts along the line, including the Cat Linh Station area, the Tay River Station area, and the Ha Dong Station area, driving the economic development of the Vietnamese capital and becoming a new landmark in Hanoi. This project also lays a solid foundation for more practical cooperation between the two countries in the future. The Vietnamese side has repeatedly expressed its expectation that more cooperation projects representing China's advanced technology level will be implemented in Vietnam.
In addition to infrastructure connectivity, China and Vietnam have also achieved remarkable results in financial financing and people-to-people bonds. Reuters reported on December 8, citing Vietnam's official statistics, that in the first 11 months of this year, the total registered investment of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong in Vietnam exceeded US$8.2 billion, doubling from the same period last year, becoming Vietnam's largest foreign investment**, in line with Vietnam's economic transformation and upgrading needs.
Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Xiong Bo said that China and Vietnam are at a critical stage of their respective development, and China is willing to further strengthen China-Vietnam economic, trade and investment cooperation, deepen cooperation in industrial production capacity, promote practical cooperation in the fields of digital economy, green economy, new energy and infrastructure, and support Vietnam in accelerating its industrialization process.
In terms of people-to-people bonds, people-to-people exchanges between China and Vietnam have deepened in recent years, and the distance between people and people has been narrowing. Vietnam's Ministry of Education officially approved Chinese textbooks on December 5, and Chinese will be included in primary schools from 2024.
Vietnam has become the fifth country in the world to include Chinese as a compulsory subject in schools for the third and fourth grades.
In recent years, Chinese culture has continued to receive widespread attention in Vietnam, from Vietnamese universities offering Chinese majors to Chinese popular film and television works entering the lives of Vietnamese people. Last year, China announced that it would provide Vietnam with no less than 1,000 Chinese** scholarships and no less than 1,000 scholarships for international Chinese teachers in the next five years to help Vietnam cultivate high-level talents and international Chinese teachers, which will further promote China-Vietnam educational cooperation.
Zhang Jiaquan, deputy director of the Department of Chinese at the National University of Humanities and Social Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, was born in a Chinese family in Vietnam, Xi Chinese from primary school, and studied at Beijing Language and Culture University for 6 years and obtained a doctorate. After returning to China, he returned to his alma mater to teach. Zhang Jiaquan said in a recent interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that with the increasing expansion of economic, trade, investment and educational cooperation between China and Vietnam, there are more and more Vietnamese people learning Xi Chinese, and their level is getting higher and higher. These Chinese talents are of great and far-reaching significance for the Vietnamese people to strengthen their understanding of China's development and construction achievements, further promote cooperation between the two countries in various fields, and shorten the distance between the two peoples.
Vietnam-China relations have always been the top priority of Vietnam's foreign relations.
Recently, Western countries have been advocating the so-called "de-risking" of China, and Vietnam is regarded as an important target to cooperate with them in promoting this strategy. Intel, Apple and Boeing and other U.S. companies have rumored their intention to expand into the Vietnamese market. On December 11, Jensen Huang, CEO of U.S. chipmaker Nvidia, visited Vietnam for the first time to seek to build a chip production base in Vietnam.
Biden of the United States also made a rare move in September this year to upgrade US-Vietnam relations from a comprehensive partnership 10 years ago to a comprehensive strategic partnership. Some Westerners have used this to hype that Hanoi and Washington are getting closer and closer to each other in the context of the United States promoting the so-called "Indo-Pacific strategy" and counterbalancing China.
In response to the murmur of Sino-Vietnamese cooperation, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made it clear in Guangxi on September 16 that continuously deepening the relations between the two parties and two countries between Vietnam and China has always been an objective requirement, top priority and strategic choice of Vietnam's foreign relations. Vietnam's development of foreign relations will not harm the interests of third parties. The Vietnam-China Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership is the earliest, highest-level and most valued foreign relations established by Vietnam.
Zhai Kun, a professor at the School of International Relations of Peking University, pointed out in an article on December 12 that the president's visit to Vietnam has further upgraded China-Vietnam bilateral relations to a "China-Vietnam community with a shared future of strategic significance", anchored a new course for the development of relations between the two parties and two countries, and helped promote the two countries to deepen the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in the new era of peace, prosperity and shared destiny, and is of typical significance for the region to seek win-win cooperation and development and explore the world modernization path of peaceful development, mutually beneficial cooperation and common prosperity.
Beijing, December 13.
Contributing Writer Li Yang China Youth Daily Reporter Chen Xiaoru **China Youth Daily.
*: China Youth Daily.