Vietnam, China enhance border ties

Vietnam’s top leaders including General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh today [March 28] met Wang Ning, party secretary of Yunnan Province, China as part of gestures to strengthen the ties between border areas. 

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Nguyen Phu Trong (R) and Wang Ning, party secretary of Yunnan Province, China, at the meeting in Hanoi on Mar 28. Photo: VNA

Wang Ning is in Vietnam to co-chair a meeting between party secretaries of Vietnam’s Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Lai Chau, and Dien Bien provinces. The meeting is the third of its kind to set goals for cooperation between the localities.

At the meeting in Hanoi on March 28, Trong highly appreciated the cooperation and expected Yunnan and Vietnamese border localities to be role models in implementing the consensus reached by the two countries' leaderships. The two sides are anticipated to continue stressing the importance of the bilateral relationship and friendship while concretizing the joint statement reached during Trong’s visit to China in November 2022, contributing to reinforcing the traditional relations between the two parties and countries.

Wang Ninh agreed with important orientations on strengthening relations between the border localities of the two countries. He expressed his deep impression of Vietnam’s socioeconomic development and his delight at the growing Vietnam - China relations. He said that the cooperative and friendly relations between Yunnan and Vietnam's border provinces have made substantial progress over the past time.

He affirmed that the two sides will maintain effective exchange mechanisms. According to him, Yunnan province will continue to work closely with Vietnamese localities to well implement the common perception and important agreement between the two General Secretaries of the two Parties, as well as the common perceptions reached in the meeting of secretaries of Vietnam’s Northwestern provinces and Yunnan province. He called on the two sides to promote exchange at all levels and substantive cooperation in trade, agriculture and tourism, and border management.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) and Yunnan Party’s Secretary Wang Ninh on Mar 28. Photo: VGP

On the same day, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh held a meeting with Yunnan Party’s Secretary Wang Ninh, during which he stated that the Vietnamese government always facilitates cooperation between the two countries’ border areas.

Chinh requested Yunnan and Vietnam’s localities to develop infrastructure, especially expressway, and cooperate in human resources, tourism, culture, hi-tech agriculture, digital transformation, climate adaptation, circular economy, and people-to-people links.

The Vietnamese PM asked the two sides to facilitate the import-export, and boost border trade while cooperating in border protection in accordance with three legal agreements on the border reached between Vietnam and China to build the border peacefully and developed.

Earlier on March 27, the meeting of party secretaries of Yunnan and Vietnam’s northern border localities of Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Lai Chau, and Dien Bien took place with a focus on exchange of high-profile leaders, party building, experience exchange, investment in border gates and boosting border trade capacity.

At the event, the Annual Meeting Report was released and a pilot cooperative action plan on sustainable poverty reduction among the provinces of Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Lai Chau, Dien Bien (Vietnam) and Yunnan province (China) for 2023-2025 was signed.

Vietnam and China shared a border of nearly 1,300 km, stretching from the tripoint with Laos in the west to the Gulf of Tonkin coast in the east, and a maritime border in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea. Vietnam’s Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Lai Chau, and Dien Bien provinces border with China’s Yunnan while Vietnamese Cao Bang, Lang Son, and Quang Ninh provinces border with Chinese Guangxi.

The border areas between Vietnam and China are the most crowded ones and known as ideal places for trade. 

The meeting to promote cooperation between China's Yunnan Province and Vietnam's northern border localities took place in Vietnam's Ha Giang on Mar 28. Photo: Baohagiang