Renewing Traditional Friendship and Embarking on a New Journey to Build a China-Vietnam Community with a Shared Future
Editor’s note: The following is the full text of the speech by General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Dec 13 with representatives of young Chinese and Vietnamese and people who have contributed to ChinaVietnam friendship.
Your Excellency General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong,
Madam Ngo Thi Man, Comrades and Young Friends from China and Vietnam,
Good afternoon.
It gives me great pleasure to meet you all. This is my second visit to your beautiful country in six years, and I can truly feel your warm and youthful vigor when I see you. Among you, many are old friends who have long been dedicated to ChinaVietnam friendship, and many are young and new friends. On behalf of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government, I extend my warm regards to you.
Yesterday, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and I jointly announced our decision to build a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, thus ushering in a new stage in the relations between our two parties and countries. This is a major strategic decision we have made to revitalize world socialism and ensure long-term stability and security of our two countries. It is rooted in our traditional friendship and represents the shared interests and aspirations of our two peoples.
In the past, we stood by and reached out to each other as we pursued common goals together. In modern times, our two parties and peoples stayed true to our common ideals, and supported each other in trying times as we fought for national independence and liberation. Chairman Ho Chi Minh was engaged in revolutionary activities in China for 12 years, during which he first established the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League in Guangzhou, and later founded the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hong Kong. For a long time, he also gave guidance to the Vietnamese revolution from Yunnan and Guangxi. Nong Qizhen, a villager in Guangxi’s Longzhou County, risked his life to protect Chairman Ho Chi Minh. It was in Guangxi where Chairman Ho Chi Minh wrote the resounding letter to all Vietnamese. He left Guangxi and returned to Vietnam in 1945, where he led the August Revolution to victory, and founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In Vietnam’s War Against French Occupation and its War Against US Aggression to Save the Nation, more than 1,400 Chinese officers and men gave their lives, and they now rest in peace in Vietnam. More than 5,000 injured Vietnamese soldiers were treated in Nanxishan
Hospital in Guilin, Guangxi, and over 10,000 Vietnamese students received education in Yucai School there. Vietnam also actively supported the Chinese Revolution. General Nguyen Son, who participated in the Guangzhou Uprising of 1927 and later joined the Long March of the Chinese Red Army, is well-known in China as a general of both countries. Today, when we read the famous poetic line by Chairman Ho Chi Minh that “So profound is the friendship between Vietnam and China, because we are both comrades and brothers”, the memory of those fiery and exciting years of our two peoples is kept alive.
Today, we remain firmly committed to our shared aspiration forged in the early days and are pursuing win-win cooperation. Since we established the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership 15 years ago, we the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of Vietnam have pursued people-centered mutually beneficial cooperation, delivering true benefits to our two peoples. In the new era, the general secretaries of the two Parties exchanged visits twice, ensuring the sound and steady growth of China-Vietnam relations. Recently, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made a special trip to the Youyi Pass, meaning the Friendship Pass, on the border of our countries and planted a friendship tree there. It demonstrates the great value he places on Vietnam’s relations with China. Our two sides have fully leveraged the role of coordination of the steering committee for bilateral cooperation, which made sure more than 30 cooperation mechanisms such as the party-to-party theoretical symposium, the Border Defense Friendship Exchange, and the meeting on crime control between the two public security ministries play their due role. All these efforts have enabled us to share practices and engage in cooperation on Party and country governance, and these efforts have injected strong impetus into the industrialization
and modernization endeavors of both countries.
China has long been the largest trading partner of Vietnam, and Vietnam is China’s largest trading partner in ASEAN and the fourth largest trading partner in the world. With the launch of China-Vietnam cross-border freight train service and the smart port program, our land border ports have become rapidly interconnected. Large quantities of quality Vietnamese agricultural products, including lychee, durian, and dragon fruit, are exported to China. Raw materials and machinery equipment imported from China have boosted the development of Vietnam’s manufacturing sector and its export capacity. Close to 20 million trips have been made on the Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line built by a Chinese company, which has provided a convenient and comfortable means of travel for Hanoi residents. The largest overseas photovoltaic industrial cluster built by Chinese companies is located in Vietnam. This, together with many waste-to-energy plants built with Chinese investment and by Chinese companies in Hanoi and other cities, has supplied energy much needed for Vietnam’s industrialization and modernization.
The Detian-Ban Gioc Waterfall cross-border tourism cooperation zone is on trial run. Friendly exchanges are flourishing, such as the friendly exchange between the national and local committees of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the Vietnam Fatherland Front, and the border residents gala. Both Chinese literature classics and contemporary Chinese film and television productions are popular in Vietnam. Some Vietnamese pop songs are huge hits on Chinese social media, and Vietnamese singers who appeared in Chinese TV shows have won many fans in China. These fruitful activities of exchange and cooperation have forged a close cultural bond between our two peoples.
Looking ahead, we can see that
we share the same future. Facing a world fraught with changes and turbulence, I have put forth the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind as well as the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, and called on all countries to jointly respond to global challenges. We are now striving to build China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization. What we are pursuing is not modernization just for China itself. We will stay committed to peaceful development, the policy of forging friendships and partnerships with neighbors, and the principles of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness. And we are ready to share more of the benefits of Chinese modernization with our neighbors. Vietnam, on its part, is vigorously advancing its industrialization and modernization drive to realize the goals set for the centenary of its Party and the centenary of the country.
Comrades,
Young Friends,
The foundation of China-Vietnam friendship lies among our two peoples, and the future of this friendship will be created by the young people. I wish to express the following three wishes to you.
First, I hope that you will carry forward China-Vietnam friendship and play your part in building a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance. With remarkable economic and social advances, China and Vietnam demonstrate to the world that we have found the right development paths. And enhanced solidarity and cooperation will strengthen our socialist causes. I hope that people committed to China-Vietnam friendship in various sectors in both countries, especially the young people, will take the lead in promoting our friendship, and contribute to our respective hundred-year pursuit of development goals and to the building of a ChinaVietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance.
Second, I hope that you will play your part in promoting the development of the Asia-Pacific and contribute to enduring peace in our region. Our two countries have made tremendous achievement through, respectively, China’s reform and opening up and Vietnam’s Doi Moi (reform) policy. This is credited not only to our own endeavors, but also to a peaceful, open, and inclusive Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific is the place which we call home. It is a source of power driving global growth. Openness, inclusiveness, and mutually beneficial cooperation are the right course to follow. We should strive to build an Asia-Pacific community, create more momentum to boost solidarity and make advances, and make greater contributions to making Asia-Pacific more harmonious and prosperous.
Third, I hope that you will be pioneers in promoting human progress and contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Our two Parties are both Marxist parties that bear in mind the overall interests of the world, and our two countries are both responsible members of the international community. And both of us should play a major role in advancing human progress. To build a community with a shared future for mankind is an inspiring goal, a goal that requires generations of efforts to achieve. We should be visionary, look beyond the horizon and shoulder responsibilities entrusted upon us by the times, stand up for international fairness and justice, and contribute our share to global development.
Comrades,
Young Friends,
As a Vietnamese saying puts it, with resolve, one will remain undaunted by any changes in the world. Keeping in mind the journey we have traversed will enable us to advance along the right path. The challenging paths China and Vietnam have traveled and the remarkable achievements we have made in developing socialism fully demonstrate that enhanced solidarity and cooperation between our two countries have enabled us to overcome all risks and challenges and to move from one victory to another. Going forward, we need to remain true to our commitment and strive to fulfill our mission. And we should pursue our respective path to socialism and deliver the gains of industrialization and modernization to more people of our two countries. Let us join hands and make even greater contribution to the advancement of humanity.