Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son (right) and Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister and Secretary General of the Steering Committee for China – Vietnam Bilateral Cooperation Nong Rong. (Photo: WVR/Quang Hoa)

Foreign Minister Son spoke highly of the positive development of the Vietnam-China bilateral relations after the official visit to China by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong from October 30 to November 1, 2022.

He affirmed that Vietnam consistently considers developing friendly neighbourly relations and the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership with China as a top priority in its foreign police of independence, self-reliance and multilateralisation and diversification.

The Foreign Minister said he expects bilateral relations will enter a new stage of development after a 15-year fruitful journey of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, and expressed his hope that the two sides will continue to concretise high-level common perceptions, increase strategic exchanges between their leaders, strongly promote and strive to achieve more specific progress in each field of cooperation.

To this end, the Foreign Minister urged the two sides to actively speed up and coordinate to prepare for high-level contact activities in the coming time, make specific progress in areas of cooperation including trade, investment, transport connection, railway construction cooperation and projects using Chinese aid as well as coordinate to handle obstacles in a number of collaborative projects.

Overview of the meeting. (Photo: WVR/Quang Hoa)

Agreeing with Foreign Minister Son's opinion, the Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister affirmed that the relationship between the two Parties and two countries is developing very well. In particular, after Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's visit to China in October 2022, high-level exchanges and contacts between the two countries take place regularly. Exchanges and cooperation between the Vietnamese National Assembly and the Vietnam Fatherland Front with the National People’s Congress of China and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as well as between sectors and localities of both sides have achieved many positive results, he said.

Foreign Minister Nong said that China is willing to work with Vietnam to increase high-level contacts at all levels and promote the signing of cooperation documents in all fields.

Regarding the maritime issue, the two sides emphasised the importance of seriously implementing agreements and common perceptions of senior leaders of the two Parties and countries on maintaining peace and stability at sea.

Foreign Minister Son suggested that the two sides make efforts to well control disagreements and prevent the occurrence of complicated incidents that affect the overall relationship between the two countries and peace and stability in the region.