China and Vietnam renew vow to build a community with a shared future

WNAM REPORT: Xi Jinping (R), general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, shakes hands with To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and Vietnamese president, during the latter’s state visit to Beijing, China, August 19, 2024.

When it was launched in 2017, the China-Vietnam freight train service departing from south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region saw fewer than five trains running per month. However, last month alone, a record 1,922 twenty-foot equivalent unit, or TEU, containers of goods were shipped on the trains, surpassing the total shipment volume for the first quarter of 2024.

“I have been in the business of cross-border trade by rail for five years. My feeling is that economic and trade exchanges between China and Vietnam are much more active this year,” said Yang Bo, a logistics director of a freight company in Guangxi.

China is ready to work with Vietnam to accelerate the “hard connectivity” of railway, expressway and port infrastructure, enhance the “soft connectivity” of smart customs, and jointly build a secure and stable industrial and supply chain, said Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks during talks with To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and Vietnamese president, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

At the critical stage of national development and revitalization, Xi stressed, China and Vietnam should, under the direction of the vision of building a community with a shared future, consolidate the development pattern featuring six aspects: higher political mutual trust, more solid security cooperation, 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, in accordance with the six major goals, deepen the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, and advance the building of a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance between the two countries.

China and Vietnam announced the building of the community in December 2023.

‘Comrades and brothers’

Lam is paying a three-day state visit to China, his first overseas trip after taking office as general secretary of the CPV Central Committee earlier this month.

This fully reflects the great importance Lam attaches to the relations between the two parties and the two countries, as well as the high level and strategic nature of China-Vietnam relations, Xi said.

He hailed the relationship formed generation after generation between the two parties as deep as that between “comrades and brothers.”

China is ready to maintain close strategic communication and high-level exchanges with Vietnam, firmly adhere to mutual support, and actively explore ways to expand synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and the Two Corridors and One Economic Circle strategy, Xi said.

China has remained 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, said the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in November 2023.

Trade between Vietnam and China saw strong performance in the first half of this year, registering $95 billion in volume, said the Chinese embassy in Vietnam, citing local media. If this trend is maintained in the second half of the year, bilateral trade could reach $200 billion for the whole year, it said.

Priority in diplomacy

During Monday’s talks, Xi told Lam that China takes Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy, and supports Vietnam in upholding the leadership of the CPV, taking the socialist path suited to its national conditions, and further advancing the cause of reform, opening up and socialist modernization.

Lam, for his part, said that he chose China as the destination of his first overseas visit as general secretary of the CPV Central Committee and Vietnamese president demonstrated that his party and government have always valued the development of relations with China, and taken China as the strategic choice and top priority in its foreign policy.

The China-Vietnam relationship in the next couple of decades will be an example of a new pattern of cooperation between two socialist countries faced with challenges and tasks of modernization based on a similar historical trajectory and common international environment, said Gao Lei and Xia Lu, commentators for CGTN, in a commentary.

Following their talks, Xi and Lam witnessed the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation documents on party schools, connectivity, industry, finance, customs inspection and quarantine, people’s livelihoods, health, news agencies and media, exchanges at sub-national levels, and other fields.

The two sides will also issue a joint statement on furthering their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and promoting the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance during the top Vietnamese leader’s visit, which will conclude on Tuesday.

The visit will inject new impetus into cooperation between Vietnam and China in fields such as politics, security, economy, society and people-to-people exchanges, said Nguyen Van Tho, vice chairman of the Vietnam-China Friendship Association and a former Vietnamese ambassador to China, during an interview with the China Media Group.

“At the same time, the two countries strengthen exchanges and cooperation on international and regional issues, which will play an active role in maintaining regional peace and stability,” Tho said.