Visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin expressed hope yesterday
that the younger generation of China and Viet Nam can carry on with
their traditional friendship.
Addressing students at the National University of Hanoi, Jiang said
that the young people of the two neighboring countries should
"enhance exchanges, learn from each other and promote understanding
so as to shoulder the historic responsibility of developing
bilateral ties.
"The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese Government
support the young people of the two countries in their friendly
exchanges and hope that the momentum of such activities will be
maintained and more young people will be attracted to the cause of
developing Sino-Vietnamese friendship," said Jiang, who is also the
general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.
Jiang is in Viet Nam for a three-day official goodwill visit that
also includes a stop in the central Vietnamese cities of Hue and Da
Nang. Ties between the two countries have been developing at a good
pace in recent years, ever since the two countries repaired their
frayed relations stemming from border disputes in the late
1970s.
The two countries have already settled all the disputes over their
land border in a 1999 agreement. Progress has also been made
regarding the delimitation of Beibu Bay and cooperation on fishery
in the region. Apart from the frequent exchange of high-level
visits, trade volume between China and Viet Nam has increased from
US$30 million a decade ago to the current US$3 billion.
Jiang said during yesterday's speech attended by 1,000 students and
broadcast live in Viet Nam that the development of bilateral ties
has shown it is in the fundamental interests of the two countries
to enhance their unity, promote mutual understanding, develop
friendship, expand cooperation and seek common development and
prosperity.
He
highlighted the guidelines of developing a long-term neighborly
relationship with comprehensive cooperation, stressing that mutual
trust is the premise for the relationship.
Jiang, who later wrote the words on the university's visitor's book
"carry on with Sino-Vietnamese friendship from generation to
generation," assured his audience that China will continue to
pursue harmonious and reciprocal cooperation with its neighbors as
well as other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of
Peaceful Co-existence.
"This is our unswerving policy," Jiang said.
(China
Daily March 1, 2002)