China and Vietnam are good neighbors and good friends linked by mountains and rivers and interdependent, good comrades and partners with like-minded people and a common destiny, and a community with a shared future of strategic significance. At the invitation of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Committee Nguyen Phu Trong and President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Vo Van Thanh, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China paid a state visit to Vietnam from December 12 to 13. After a lapse of 6 years, the General Secretary visited Vietnam again.
Experts generally said that this year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Vietnam. This visit will further deepen China-Vietnam cooperation in various fields, open up brighter prospects for the development of bilateral relations, and inject more certainty and stability into a chaotic world.
Development strategies are further aligned.
Promote economic and trade connectivity.
Nie Huihui, head of the Vietnam program at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said in an interview with the reporter of China ** Daily that from the perspective of bilateral relations, since the visit of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong to China at the end of last year, the relations between the two countries have been running at a high level and strategic cooperation has been deepened in an all-round way. The depth, breadth and intensity of cooperation between the two countries urgently require a higher-level relationship between the two countries. At the regional level, as the two fastest-growing economies in the region, bilateral relations between China and Vietnam continue to improve, injecting more certainty, stability and positive energy into regional and world peace and stability.
Yang Yang, associate researcher and master's tutor of ASEAN College of Guangxi University for Nationalities, said in an interview with the reporter of "China ** Daily" that the visit will promote the development of Sino-Vietnamese relations in many aspects. The first is to promote the further synergy between the development strategies of the two sides, especially the pragmatic promotion of China's joint construction of the "Belt and Road", the construction of the new land-sea corridor in southwest China, and Vietnam's "two corridors and one circle" strategyThe second is to further promote political mutual trust between the two countriesThe third is to further deepen cooperation in economic fields such as investment, especially in the fields of transportation infrastructure construction and connectivity, investment and connectivity of power infrastructure, expansion and improvement of industrial chain networks, and restoration and expansion of bordersFourth, strengthen cooperation in the digital field, especially in the construction of digital information superhighways, digital economy and innovation cooperation, artificial intelligence and other fieldsFifth, deepen security cooperation and enhance mutual trust in securitySixth, the two sides will further resume and expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges, with the focus on resuming and expanding tourism and various people-to-people exchanges between the two sides, so as to consolidate the public opinion foundation for bilateral cooperation in various fields.
Le Thanh Ha, Deputy Director General of the Market Development Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam, said that in recent years, China has been Vietnam's largest export market for agricultural and aquatic products. Vietnam's high-quality tropical fruits and abundant aquatic products are inseparable from China, a huge market with a population of more than 1.4 billion, and we look forward to a new high in the bilateral quota between Vietnam and China after the visit of the general secretary, and China can import more high-quality agricultural and sideline products from Vietnam to help Vietnam's agricultural development.
Nie Huihui said that China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation is highly related and complementary, and always attaches importance to mutual benefit and win-win results and joint development. China has been Vietnam's largest partner and second largest export market for many years, and Vietnam is China's fourth largest partner. In the first 10 months of this year, the bilateral volume has reached 185.1 billion US dollars, and the border people's mutual market has become increasingly active, and cross-border e-commerce has flourished. China's investment and cooperation with Vietnam has a large stock, a wide range of fields and rapid growth, and is gradually transforming into a green economy and green development.
Projects such as Hanoi Light Rail Line 2 and Soc Son Waste-to-energy Plant have played a positive role in Vietnam's economic and social development. As a landmark project of the Belt and Road Initiative between China and Vietnam, Hanoi Light Rail Line 2 has been increasingly popular among Hanoi citizens since its opening in November 2021 with its green, convenient and reasonable fares. "At present, more than 30,000 people take the Hanoi Light Rail Line 2 every day, which basically alleviates the traffic congestion problem along the line, and the project has achieved initial profitability. Chairman of Hanoi Metro Company Vu Hong Truong said that China has valuable experience in infrastructure construction, and looks forward to further promoting cooperation between Vietnam and China in this field, so that more high-quality projects can be completed in Vietnam and help Vietnam accelerate its own modernization and development.
Strengthen multi-level and multi-channel exchanges.
Pragmatic border economic and trade cooperation.
At present, a variety of exchange mechanisms have been established, such as bilateral visits, exchange of special envoys, annual meetings, and meetings on multilateral occasions, and national cooperation mechanisms such as the "China-Vietnam Bilateral Cooperation Steering Committee" and the "China-Vietnam Land Border Joint Inspection Committee" have been established. Not only in the field of economy and trade, but also in the field of foreign affairs, national defense, public security, security, science and technology, education, culture and other functional departments continue to expand cooperation. In addition, the cooperation at all levels in the border provinces of China and Vietnam has been carried out pragmatically, and its landmark cooperation is to establish a provincial-level contact system in the border provinces, and Guangxi and Yunnan hold talks with the border provinces of Vietnam every year, which plays an important role in promoting border security and people-to-people exchanges.
Guangxi occupies a unique position in Vietnam-China cooperation and is an important gateway for Vietnamese products to enter the Chinese market. Guangxi Friendship Pass Port is a convenient international channel from China to Vietnam and even ASEAN, and it is also the most mainland fruit import and export port in China. In September this year, the China-Vietnam Friendship Pass - Friendship Smart Port Project started construction in Pingxiang City, Chongzuo, Guangxi. This is the first cross-border smart port project between China and Vietnam, and the two sides will cooperate to build a dedicated channel for smart cross-border freight to achieve 24-hour intelligent customs clearance of goods.
In September this year, the China-Vietnam Detian (Banyue) Waterfall Cross-border Tourism Cooperation Zone, a project jointly built and implemented by Guangxi and Vietnam's Cao Bang Province, was launched for trial operation, and tourists from the two countries can experience a five-hour cross-border tour in the cooperation zone and experience the first in Asia in an all-round way.
1. The visual impact of the world's fourth largest transnational waterfall. This cooperation not only integrates the cross-border tourism resources of the two countries for the first time and realizes joint development, but also becomes a new achievement of cross-border cooperation between China and Vietnam.
Yang Yang said that at present, China's economic recovery and growth is in a critical period, and Vietnam, after experiencing rapid economic growth last year, affected by factors such as lagging infrastructure construction, energy shortage, and backward development of supporting industries, it is difficult for the economy to maintain rapid growth, which will become an opportunity for the two countries to deepen economic and trade cooperation. In the future, the growth points of China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation will mainly be in the following areas: First, the field of transportation infrastructure, mainly including strengthening investment and cooperation in the construction of Vietnam's railways in line with the railway transport development plan put forward by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Vietnam in February this yearThe second is to cooperate with Vietnam's eighth power development plan and Vietnam's emission reduction targets, strengthen development and investment cooperation with Vietnam in the fields of clean energy, green energy and renewable energy, and strengthen investment in Vietnam's supporting industrial industries in the construction of industrial chains, and strengthen cooperation in the construction of high-end chains between the two sidesThird, China is promoting its accession to the CPTPP, and Vietnam is a member of the CPTPP, so the two sides can further deepen cooperation in this field.
Nie Huihui told reporters that there are three opportunities for China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation in the future: First, the bilateral relationship is stable and the development strategy is closely aligned. At present, both countries are advancing their respective socialist causes, both regard each other's development as their own opportunities, and are accelerating the high-quality Belt and Road Initiative and the strategic docking of the "Two Corridors and One Belt" to provide an important guarantee for economic and trade cooperation between the two countries. Second, the two countries share the same strategic goals and have sufficient impetus for cooperation. Both parties and two countries focus on economic development, seeking happiness for the people and rejuvenation for the country. Third, regional multilateral cooperation has continued to deepen, which has become an important driving force for cooperation between the two countries. Both China and Vietnam firmly uphold the multilateral system, attach importance to strengthening coordination within the WTO and APEC, and work together to promote the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area3Version 0 construction. However, the cooperation between the two countries faces some challenges, such as exchange rate fluctuations caused by the Federal Reserve's appreciation and interest rate hikes, which increase the operating costs and risks of import and export enterprises in the two countriesThe level of bilateral connectivity still needs to be improved.
*: China ** News Author: Zhou Dongyang.